The practice of state control began after World War II, when European countries wanted to maintain transportation links to their former colonies, and when a national airline conferred prestige.
That mission was refined in 1995, when Gov. George E. Pataki of New York and Christie Whitman, then the governor of New Jersey, had the Port Authority begin to concentrate on building and maintaining transportation infrastructure.
In response, Metro staff came back with a new plan: They intend to ask voters to permanently hike the county's sales tax to provide a perpetual funding stream to build, operate and maintain transportation projects.
First, Europe has a much greater population density than the United States, so it's more cost-effective for European countries to build and maintain public transportation.
Before the strike on Wednesday, the Spanish government obtained agreements with labor unions on maintaining minimum transportation and other basic services.
As a regional food distributor, its customers are all within a 300-mile radius, making it difficult to maintain the transportation efficiencies that come more easily to national distributors.
But Mr. Hertz, whose firm is still in charge of maintaining the transportation authority's maps, said he was skeptical of a few of his predecessor's other choices.
We're looking at all our assets and asking, 'If they're nonessential assets, how can we turn them into revenue?' " The money will be used to maintain other transportation services, and for basic university functions like hiring faculty and awarding scholarships.
That, in turn, would make possible a host of critically important projects: finishing the public works part of the World Trade Center site by 2015; replacing the suspender ropes on the 80-year-old George Washington Bridge and the spiral roadway that leads to the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey; enhancing security at regional airports; maintaining a transportation network that feeds the entire region.
But when the time came, the joint action across the Continent turned out to be little more than pockets of unrest and protest, and the Spanish labor leaders limited the potential impact at home by agreeing to maintain minimum transportation and other basic services.
