Merseyrail get £42.7m of Network Grant and £86.3m of revenue support per year, it isn't like the light rails which are all farebox funded/funded by local authorities. Take out the big two of Metrolink and DLR and Merseyrail gets more in westminster subsidy than all the other systems combined farebox revenue while carrying a third less passengers than that same group of systems.
I'm not sure what the relevance of the begrudgery is here. Surely it can be at least paused.
The peculiarities of its funding versus other places is half a case of smoke and mirrors (Manchester will never pay back the billions it cost to build Metrolink, let's face it), and half simply UK self-imposed costs of rail Vs light-rail. With much of the "subsidy" going straight back into government coffers.
The city is in the same boat as everywhere else. I assume it's also in the same country? So its system, the second most used in the country, the most used outside London, is just as necessary to keep going as those in Manchester, Sheffield and so on.
Given the city is divided in half by a mile wide river, arguably more so.
