> Too bad because it used to be a really good deal...
Considering the environmental woes & collapses coming down the pike, I'd like to see a trans-border effort to drive down the price of mass transit _everywhere_. Put it on the G7 agenda, the OECD agenda, the UN General Assembly agenda, ...
This is exactly the reason why in germany we have now a broad ticket for short distance trains. Government realized they fail to meet EU regulations in reducing CO2, so they rushed to implement a cheap german wide ticket. Initially just 10€, now 60€ a month.
Still a bargain, you can go anywhere as mich forth and back as you want (just not the dedicated long distance trains, so going through all of germany takes a bit longer).
You can tell this is a true success in Germany because 95% of local passengers now use it. It also caused a significant increase in ridership, putting the already overloaded rail system under a lot more pressure while taking away income from the rail companies (after making it cheaper).
Well yes, the idea is to have more people use the trains, so yes also more trains are needed(and more investment and replacement of the Bahn management) in general, but as far as I know there is no income taken away, as it is subsidized and compensated on the federal level.
> no income taken away, as it is subsidized and compensated on the federal level
Only 50% of the relative loss of transit agencies is subsidised by the federal government, the other 50% gets subsidised by the respective state. And since the compensation is calculated in relation to the prices of monthly subscription tickets on routes in the respective transit area, transit agencies are left with even less.
Additionally, a lawsuit determined that the train network price cap for public transport is illegal, further increasing costs for the states.
This already has caused service reductions in multiple states, e.g. just now in Berlin additional overground Metro services during commuter peaks got halfed. With the results of the lawsuit and now interest from the federal goverment to put more funding into public transport, a lot more services will get axed in the next 3 years.
Problem with this approach though is it makes the system very vulnerable to political changes. How much of a problem this is in Germany I'm not sure.
That is a problem as since the introduction of the ticket there are constant talk from the car lobby politicians to remove it again. So bad for planning for the smaller rail companies.
But the biggest problem for the german trains remains the management of DB (Deutsche Bahn). Who are in charge of the network.
Who paid themself heavy bonuses all the time, while failing on all the metrics that mattered (they succeeded on making a new useless info page go live, that was the official justification for the bonus).
And they could do this, because the job of the ministry of transport was to make it easy for the car industry. And the german train is in theory privatized, in reality not so much.
The current ministry might be better though, so maybe something is happening. But I believe it, when I see it.
Inconvenient truth: It is a bad use of taxpayers' money to highly subsidise train tickets when (1) people can afford to pay more (2) huge structural investments are needed in the country, (3) economic growth has stalled for years.
Wait till you hear about how we fund roads and how much it costs to drive on most of them, lol.
That's a fallacious argument because roads are the universal, basic transportation infrastructure. You cannot have no roads. Your point has some relevance regarding motorways, which are not free in every countries and may be considered part of the universal road network, too. So mentioning the cost of roads is trying to deflect via "whataboutism" without addressing the point.
One can have a roadnetwork as primary means of transport .. or a railnetwork. With roads mainly for the last mile.
Where society here and now should invest, what direction to go from from here, is totally up to us. What makes the most sense - preferably in the long run.
Cars are pretty shitty for long distances. Rubber tyres wear down the road and create unhealthy dust, way more friction and noise than metalwheel on rail. And they can be directly powered with electricity.
Not carry a heavy battery around and waste energy with charging and discharging.
Or well, have the noise and dirt of combustion engines.
Those are all pretty strong arguments to invest at least equally into a well functioning train network.
Every car that can be replaced with a train (in the simple often case of a person riding the train not moving his vehicel for himself) is a net profit for society. Cleaner air. Less or allmost no pollution.
(The electric trains here next to my home are really silent and still fast)
Note that I did not claim that we shouldn't invest in train networks. I questioned the use of taxpayers' money to make train tickets extremely cheap or free when there is no affordability issue to begin with, both in itself and when compared to everything else that public money could be spent on, and the overall situation in many European countries.
Personally I think this is having our priorities very wrong.
(I also think that rail as a primary mean of transport over roads is totally unrealistic and impractical, but that another issue)
You can definitely have no publicly owned or maintained roads though. There are none in my area of town and $0 tax/public funding. It's private property all the way down. The only reason why public roads look like barely competed against monopolies is that you can't compete with "free" (at the point of use), which creates the illusion that the public element of roads are more crucial than they are. But if you just shit-can all the public transport private transport will emerge organically.
> Government realized they fail to meet EU regulations in reducing CO2, so they rushed to implement a cheap german wide ticket.
Or... Russia's attack of Ukraine caused a spike of energy prices.
Now which one of us has the correct history, and which is wrong, and why? Is it revisionism?
Neither/both? It was introduced for 9€ because of the invasion, and then continued for 49€ - partially - because of the CO2 contributions
The JR Pass has never been (and still is not) aimed at locals, who are not even allowed to buy it. It's for tourists only.
Yes, I was talking about tourists. Regional passes are available for locals as well but are more expensive.
The Netherlands have implemented unlimited off-peak rail travel for €49/month:
<https://www.ns.nl/en/season-tickets/dal-vrij>
HN discussion 4 days ago: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48543872>
Given that many commuter-rail (and frankly, other) transport systems operate well below capacity during off-peak times and in counterflow directions, such pricing could well increase ridership and revenue.
Trains can use renewable energy.
I just realized I interpreted your comment the opposite way you intended... Apologies
Where is there an affordability issue? (Especially in OECD and G7 countries)
So when we get riots due to mass unemployment and societal destabilization can iredirect them to you. Im so tired of call for actions without even an attempt to discuss the fallout.
Making it cheaper for people to fly across an ocean to travel around on mass transit is the last place the price needs to go down.