In March and April of 2020, as COVID lockdowns descended on America’s cities, mass-transit ridership fell to as low as 5% of its pre-pandemic levels. Central cities were emptied of their highly paid office workers and the retail, restaurant, and building workers such commuters created with their demand. Both Republicans and Democrats understood that America’s densest cities wouldn’t recover until their transit systems did so. What they didn’t understand, as Congress under both the Trump and Biden administrations offered nearly $70 billion in aid, was how much couldn’t be fixed with money.

As with most mass-scale infrastructure in America, money is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for success. In addition to the well-publicized crime scourge keeping riders from returning, transit systems are plagued by long-standing construction and operational inefficiencies that matter a lot more now than they did three years ago.