Just to quickly point out that it has happened before! In the 1920s, when London was building its Metropolitan Line, the company that managed it had obtained the right to keep surplus land (when they have to kick you out and buy your farm, the government allowed them to keep the farm, not just the small fraction actually occupied by the tracks and stations), and they also deliberately bought land near planned extensions. It got them enough money to pay a dividend for most of their operating years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-land
But I think it would be significantly harder to achieve in other contexts: will people sell you the land for cheap if you tell them it’s because you want to build a metro line on it and make a lot of profit by developing the land? Or will they just factor the proximity to the future transit line into the price?
Not to mention that (I assume) transit companies are no good at building and selling houses, so they’d have to partner with developers, who would probably think they could have done it all on their own without the transit company folks who take all the profits?
Just to quickly point out that it has happened before! In the 1920s, when London was building its Metropolitan Line, the company that managed it had obtained the right to keep surplus land (when they have to kick you out and buy your farm, the government allowed them to keep the farm, not just the small fraction actually occupied by the tracks and stations), and they also deliberately bought land near planned extensions. It got them enough money to pay a dividend for most of their operating years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-land
But I think it would be significantly harder to achieve in other contexts: will people sell you the land for cheap if you tell them it’s because you want to build a metro line on it and make a lot of profit by developing the land? Or will they just factor the proximity to the future transit line into the price?
Not to mention that (I assume) transit companies are no good at building and selling houses, so they’d have to partner with developers, who would probably think they could have done it all on their own without the transit company folks who take all the profits?