now the buses here dont have timetables because they come all the time, and they hardly stop to let you off. its great- none of that public liability s**t like in australia that takes all the fun out of life. you actually have a chance of dying in your day to day life, which i think is great. and as the bus took us home for $1 at 5 in the morning, i thought back to melbourne, and about how a city in the west can have a significantly worse public transport system than Santiago. (please submit answers to this puzzle, if you please)

• Labour costs
• Costs of ridiculous degrees of risk aversion
• The need for a new and more expensive ticketing system every decade or so
• Our predilection for spreading out geographically
• The requirement of "equal access" for all (which ultimately leads to less access for most)
• The chattering classes' idiotic demand for quality over quantity
• The obvious failing of not recouping costs by having bars (or liquor dispensing concessions) on trams and trains (at least on PM runs when we "all" need a drink)