I'd like to add that your comment, oceankat, strikes me as apropos on a certain micro-level. From my ancedotals, Uber is exceptionally popular with young people on a budget going out at night in groups for entertainment. If the subway was clean and efficient, they would have no qualms about taking it. Right now many of the most popular areas don't even has operational service, as explained in the Health Aide piece, they are off line for repairs because maintenance was put off too long, it takes many buses and subways and hours for the alternate while repairs are going on. I've seen pieces on the local news where they do whole segments about citizens angry over whether they are charged another fare for a shuttle bus when a station is shut down, an extra $5.00 a day means a lot to a lot of people. I am not exaggerating about $5. The fare for a ride one way is $2.75 undiscounted, most get it for less buying larger amounts on their cards. Everyone is used to free transfers one-way but this is not working out as people figure alternatives when repairs are going on. And repairs take forever here, years, not months. For whatever reason, but most people just accept it that Tony Soprano and a bunch of no show employees is involved somehow. The whole acceptance of dysfunction and then rebellion against it is why a notoriously blue city often votes red for mayor.

Specifics as to the subway system:

The Most Expensive Mile of Subway Track on Earth

How excessive staffing, little competition, generous contracts and archaic rules dramatically inflate capital costs for transit in New York.

By Brian M. Rosenthal @ NYTimes.com, Dec. 28, 2017

Which was blogged on further @ Jalopnik.com:

Here's The Most Damning Report Yet On Why The New York City Subway Is Terrible

by Raphael Orlove, Dec. 29, 2017

“I don’t think it’s corrupt.” MTA board member Charles G. Moerdler told the New York Times for its most recent subway exposé, “But I think people like doing business with people they know, and so a few companies get all the work, and they can charge whatever they want.” Oh yeah. That’s definitely not corruption [....]

I'll let the NYT counter your opinion, summing up recent history

How Politics and Bad Decisions Starved New York’s Subways

Disruptions and delays have roiled the system this year. But the crisis was
long in the making, fueled by a litany of errors, a Times investigation shows.

By BRIAN M. ROSENTHAL, EMMA G. FITZSIMMONS and MICHAEL LaFORGIA​ NOV. 18, 2017

And throw in my own short opinion: there's been a massive human toll in the lives of the working class with the dysfunction of the subway system over the last year. It's falling apart and the problem is massive. Massive. When you go to an appointment anywhere for anything, it's already factored in that it's highly likely you'll be late.

I am realizing why Hal's way of writing strikes me as so retro to the point of almost like parody sometimes: he not only tries to fit every news item into a single ideological box. He doesn't see the trend is ground up. We are in a place where everything is moving towards seeking to find a niche where the government isn't doing it's traditional job. Wherever there's a opening where government isn't doing it's job, that's seen as opportunity, including to innovate. What he calls "neo-liberalism" just happens, no pols are pushing it. It's the internet, where people even feel empowered to change other people's minds with fake news. What they won't buy if they've had a decent high school education: agitprop rhetoric they recognize from science fiction as totalitarian.