The MTA is a huge outlier but still gets less money for upgrades and upkeep than they need. They limped along for years on extremely outdated train tracking infrastructure and are just getting around to doing updates that needed to be started two decades ago.

They get way more than they need, it’s just burnt on unions, pensions, and consultants

I will literally volunteer my time to canvass for anyone who runs on busting NYC public sector unions

Can you show actual evidence of that. Compare NYC spending to comparably large other systems?

Building and operating are different things.