Never fails.
Politicians elected to represent US actually represent their own political survival and when their major screw ups and neglect come to roost their only solution is to take more or our money.
A Swedish firm a few years ago offered to build a monorail system ALL OVER LA for no money up front. They wanted the reciepts for ten years as payment.
Idiot politicians said no. They also said no to any more roads to alleviate certain congestion.
So we have a few miles of subway in earthquake country at huge cost overruns that serve a very small area.
Everything is taxed and it is still not enough money.
Now they want toll roads. Congestion taxes have been floated.
Their answer is the same everywhere; just take more of our money to cover their failure.
When the pendulum swings the other way soon I hope these people will be as vilified as any businesses they say profited from slavery one hundred fifty years ago.
The "idiot politicians" may not have been so dumb after all. There was a similar project proposed at one of the major New York airports a few years ago, and a European firm came in with a very low bid on the project. There's a reason why these firms do this -- they are willing to construct a base system at a very low cost (or nothing, in the case of LA), but once they build it the government that oversees the operation is forced to go back to the same company any time they want to expand the system. This company wasn't trying to "sell" Los Angeles a monorail system -- they were basically trying to "buy" the proprietary rights to construct every piece of rapid transit infrastructure in Los Angeles for the next 50 years.
You can be sure that this Swedish company would have charged an exorbitant sum of money to build any future extensions to the system -- mainly because once the initial system is built the City of Los Angeles has no choice but to go back to the same company to do all future upgrades.