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Germany Considers Free Public Transport in Fight To Banish Air Pollution (theguardian.com)
"Car nation" Germany has surprised neighbours with a radical proposal to reduce road traffic by making public transport free, as Berlin scrambles to meet EU air pollution targets and avoid big fines. From a report: The move comes just over two years after Volkswagen's devastating "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal unleashed a wave of anger at the auto industry, a keystone of German prosperity. "We are considering public transport free of charge in order to reduce the number of private cars," three ministers including Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks wrote to EU Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella in the letter seen by AFP Tuesday.
The only reason I drive rather than commute by train is that it's a lot cheaper for two people to drive than it is to get the train.
There's lots of people who commute every day that don't actually need to be in the office every day.
But the company decides it's more convenient and they aren't paying for the commute so they make everyone come in.
I could do 95% of my job from home, but no, I have to come in, because it's easier to yell across the office than it is to pick up the phone.
If there is only 1 bus every day, even if the bus is free, I will not take that bus.
I live 6km from my work, there is a bus that stop just in front of my house every hour. I still take my car to go to work. Why?
By car it take me 15-20min to go to work in the morning and 8-10min to go back in the evening.
By bus with a change for a metro it take me ~20min in the morning and between 45min and 1h15 in the evening.
Even if the bus and metro were free, I still value the time lost way higher than the price of riding with my car.
Here's the thing: It costs billions and billions, and billions to make and maintain those roads. That's considered a worthy service built by shared effort of the society. The additional cost of running buses across those roads is much less, basically a small percentage of cost to increase the the capacity and utility of those roads more.
It makes the overall society more efficient, since those tax dollars are saving millions of individuals much more money over time, usually folks who actually spend money in the economy instead of the savings/investment classes that tend to shelter their activities from the economy at large.
Ad described, at least, makes sense to me - and would be nice to use if I ever visit there.
Ryan Fenton
Roads receive "investment", public transport (including rail) receives "subsidy". As if a layer of tarmac is somehow going to earn money on its own if only enough were spent on it.
Politicians love to play these verbal sleights of hand to fool the stupid and unfortunately it works a lot of the time.
Some cities such as Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, etc. are so spread out that providing reasonable public transportation, even if people are paying, is impossible. Europe has dense urban cores in their cities, and even car-centric German cities haven't spread out so much that providing transportation is a problem. A place like Dallas with zero natural boundaries has spread out to hundreds of square miles. In cities like that, public transportation isn't generally used as a way to get to work...it connects low-income housing with places of employment, hospitals and shopping areas because that's where the limited funds are best spent.
Other US cities like New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington are at least candidates. Metro NY has a decent regional transportation system...there are 3 commuter railroads and several suburban bus lines, and a good amount of development has grown up around the rail lines. And of course, the city itself has subways and buses. Unless they absolutely need their cars to get around during the day, or are super-wealthy and don't care about parking costs, most people who are working normal-schedule jobs take the train or bus into the city. In other cities, you'd need way more than free fares to get people out of their cars.
Fare revenue from public transportation doesn't come anywhere close to paying for the real cost of running the system. Getting rid of it would make it even harder to run, unless everyone decided that it was a public good and should be paid for with taxes or reduced spending on roads. Also, people would have to understand that they can't externalize the cost of living on a 3-acre lot in a super-far flung suburb...making bigger roads just encourages more sprawl-based development. And that's a lifestyle change I don't think most Americans can handle.
You are forgetting that roads are also heavily subsidized. So, each time you drive to work you are taking money from a neighbor who cycles, or walks, to work. https://frontiergroup.org/repo...
"Aside from gas taxes and individuals’ expenditures for their own driving, U.S. households bear on average an additional burden of more than $1,100 per year in taxes and other costs imposed by driving. Including:
An estimated $597 per U.S. household per year in general tax revenue dedicated to road construction and repair.
Between $199 and $675 per household per year in additional tax subsidies for driving, such as the sales tax exemption for gasoline purchases in many states and the federal income tax exclusion for commuter parking benefits.
An estimated $216 per year in government expenditures made necessary by vehicle crashes, not counting additional, uncompensated damages to victims and property.
Approximately $93 to $360 per household in costs related to air pollution-induced health damage."
This is only a small snip from the article that I provided the link to.
I was both in California and in Germany. I understand what you mean, however, in comparison with Germany there is no public transport in California.
In Germany pubic transport is rather clean and efficient.
US cities were built around mass transport then General Motors came in a paid cities to rip out the infrastructure and replace it with buses - this is the way America works it is owned by big corporations and public transport is not in their interest - and most people in America don't get it - somehow America can't have trains, public transport or healthcare because it is special - and it is - it is special but not in the way they think - it is because it is wholly owned by corporate interest and its people are too stupid blaming immigrants, liberals, gay people and minorities for their problems - instead of blaming the fucking banks, big box stores, auto companies, and insurance companies who are just fine with the way things are