I used to work for the City of Calgary and once spoke with one of the City engineers about the transit system. I know this story is anecdotal and I could not find anything online referencing it, but I found the story he told me extremely interesting. He worked as an engineer at the City at the time all this was going on.
Apparently, when they were first planning the LRT, there was a very wealth Saudi man who basically approached the City and offered to completely finance a LRT-like system. It would have had multiple legs, (I believe it was 2 south, one west, and two north including one clear up to where the the airport is, but that might be my memory messing up) and he would have fronted the entire cost. He would have expected a certain percentage return (fairly high) on each ticket sold for the first 10 years or so, and then a lower percentage in perpetuity thereafter. It would have been a very high quality system he was offering. The total cost would have ran into the tens or hundreds of millions. He approached City Council with all the plans and everything ready to go pending acceptance and approval of his plan.
This was, however, the 1970s. Back then,
anything private was a bad idea. It didn't matter that he would have built the entire bloody system on his own coin, but City Council essentially said "thanks, but no thanks," and proceeded to build what is, in my opinion, one of the worst transit systems in any major city.
Anyhow, I don't know if the story is 100% true, but if it was then I think City Council messed up big time. Not that it matters to me now, because I no longer live there, but there you go.
