Mass transit emerged in the 19th century to serve the booming population. In 1904 New York City’s first subway opened. Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) was the fastest transit system for the city dwellers in early 1900s. Heavy construction costs limited the system’s expansion and it was a privately owned business. 
It was not until 1932; city owned its first line of subway system (IND). Its main purpose was to compete with the private systems. By 1940, private systems were bought by the city; the integration was slow but successful.
According to Glen Holt, “transit companies too often cited financial problems as an excuse for failure to improve service, and they used their indispensability to force local governments to grant additional privileges, such as renewed franchises or lighter taxes.” (Chudacoff 91) Perhaps, things will never change. Officials from either private or public systems will always have their financial problems and allow them to require little sympathy for daily commuters.
The subway must have had its share of problems when it first developed. Even though, it may be the biggest and most improvement improvement in transportation, it had many obstacles to overcome. Chudacoff mentions how the company policies were shifted towards maximum profit. The transit system, at the time, was ultimately a business and because it’s a business, their goal was to increase profit. This meant costly projects had to be avoided. As a result, the companies rarely invested in areas that were difficult to reach or less crowded due to less profit. As a result, places that were not crowded or far away were not affected by subways at all, which was the opposite of what it should be.
The transit system might have had its own share of problems, but it was still a successful system because it paved the way for future improvements. Nowadays, in New York, the majority of the people use the subway system as their primary mode of transportation. Cars are less convenient in the city due to lack of parking space and traffic. The subway is still probably the most reliable system today in New York.