[HN Gopher] Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shi...
___________________________________________________________________
Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to
rail
Author : mpweiher
Score : 753 points
Date : 2024-10-12 14:47 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.mcc-berlin.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.mcc-berlin.net)
| server_man3000 wrote:
| Didn't this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings
| attached?
|
| I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in
| cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new
| system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription
| model. If you're a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of
| the month or you get auto rebilled.
|
| Additionally, there are so many apps that resell the ticket as
| some white label system, so it was very confusing to purchase
| (you cannot buy them at the machines).
|
| The price hike is the wrong direction here if we are reducing
| that much time on the road. Kudos though for the great rail
| systems. The USA has a lot to learn here and it's baffling how
| terrible it is here. I doubt I'd ever need a car in Germany given
| the rail system was much more convenient. In the USA I spend
| 10-15 mins trying to park any time I go anywhere
| luto wrote:
| It started with 9EUR, is 49EUR now, and will be 58EUR starting
| 2025.
|
| You can buy for a single month when booking through the right
| company. "mo.pal" is a good one, for example. However, I agree
| that it is a bit predatory.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Germany is smaller than California. The United States is very,
| very large place, mostly unpopulated. It's hard to apply
| whatever Germany, a small, densely populated country does to
| the US, which is largely empty land.
| waveBidder wrote:
| Look, nobody is talking about Nebraska. the density of the
| east coast is easily high enough to support high speed high
| quality rail.
| euroderf wrote:
| That's why they call it "flyover country". Not "railover
| country".
| Larrikin wrote:
| Why do we have to pretend that routes between Montana and
| South Dakota have to come up when discussing ways of
| improving rail usage in the US? We could treat routes between
| Chicago, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis like Germany. We could
| treat high speed rail in California or the Northeast like
| Japan. Choosing to live in an extremely rural area shouldn't
| just be a "well it doesn't help" me trump card to defeat
| things that will help most of the population.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Exactly. Always _somebody_ trots out invalid arguments
| about size and population density. There are smaller states
| in the USA that are about as dense as Germany, like
| Maryland and Connecticut. So, why don 't those states have
| great state-wide public transit systems?
| adamc wrote:
| The politics at the national level are likely to be that
| states not helped by this vote against it.
| twodave wrote:
| Yep, federal income tax is a big reason. For states to
| fund this on their own requires additional taxation. Some
| places like FL don't even have a state income tax, so
| they are stuck trying to get tourists to fund
| transportation projects somehow or increasing sales taxes
| or higher tolls. And of course higher tolls have the
| unfortunate side effect of reducing demand for the thing
| to begin with.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Maybe we should work on making one vote to be equal in
| the nation.
| kortilla wrote:
| This is a boring trope. Whether it's a group of United
| States or a single State is a debate as old as the
| country. You're going to need really compelling reasons
| for states to give up their representation and
| participate in the state vote required to amend the
| constitution to remove their rights.
| Qwertious wrote:
| It was a valid debate back when travelling to the capitol
| took months by horse. Nowadays everyone uses services
| from other states on a daily basis, and possibly _work in
| another state_ (with WFH) on a daily basis. It 's pretty
| darn clear that the USA simply could not exist as a bunch
| of separate states anymore.
|
| And frankly, states are already giving up their
| representation in the current system. If you're not a
| swing state, you're irrelevant. If you live in a
| populated state, you have a second-class vote.
|
| If the USA had a modern voting system and anyone proposed
| the current pile of junk, they would be laughed out of
| the room.
| kortilla wrote:
| > And frankly, states are already giving up their
| representation in the current system. If you're not a
| swing state, you're irrelevant.
|
| You're talking about presidential elections, which are a
| tiny slice of the picture. Wyoming has 2 senators and so
| does California. That's huge for Wyoming.
|
| > It was a valid debate back when travelling to the
| capitol took months by horse. Nowadays everyone uses
| services from other states on a daily basis, and possibly
| work in another state (with WFH) on a daily basis. It's
| pretty darn clear that the USA simply could not exist as
| a bunch of separate states anymore.
|
| None of this is relevant because crossing states to work
| has been a thing since the founding of the country. The
| only meaningful difference between the founding and now
| is the massive expansion of the duties of the federal
| government
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > states to give up their representation
|
| > their rights
|
| You talk about states as if they are people. But they are
| not. States are a fiction invented by people (and let's
| be honest, by rich and powerful people), and so they can
| be torn down by people (likely not the rich and
| powerful).
|
| "State representation" and "states' rights" are not
| compelling to most people, other than via some vague
| appeal to "isn't it great that New Mexico can do one
| thing and Maine can do something else?", which by itself
| does not require "state representation" or the current
| ideas of "states' rights".
| kortilla wrote:
| States are organizations of people. Boosted
| representation isn't compelling to people who don't care,
| but the people in smaller states do care. It means more
| fed govt consideration when it comes to regulatory
| decisions and funding.
|
| Your post of "bUt thEYre nOt pEOple" is pointless. When
| people talk about the rights of governments nobody is
| saying that the government is a person.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| If federal rules provide some version of equal treatment,
| then "boosted representation" for small states is about
| nothing but a desire for local power.
|
| There's no reason for smaller states to get less money
| per capita for schools, or less money per mile for US
| highways, or less money per million dollars of damage
| from a natural disaster. And indeed, they do not, because
| we have historically believed in fairness.
|
| However, the idea that the 300k residents of Wyoming
| should be able to exert outsize power of regulatory
| decisions just because "they are a state" is anti-
| democratic. We put the things we don't want majoritarian
| decisions on into the constitution; the rest is up for a
| vote, and a handful of people shouldn't be able to veto
| the decision of the many just because they happen to be
| clustered in one place.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Another significant issue is that the USA wasn't built for
| rail, and to do so now requires sign off by land owners,
| municipalities, and so on. The amount NIMBY-oriented
| policies in California, for example, is a serious
| impediment. Oddly, people cite rural areas as an issue, but
| rural areas aren't typically an issue. It would be
| comparably inexpensive to run high speed rail over
| undeveloped land, while tearing up buildings, roads, water,
| sewer, and power would be tremendously costly. For much of
| Europe, rail transport was put in place long before
| automobiles became commonplace. For much of the USA, the
| cities didn't even exist at that time, and they were mostly
| built around automobiles.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Rail was famously first in the USA, and you can still see
| politics focused around rail as the main long distance
| transportation merely a century ago.
|
| But yes, there was a lot of car-centric buildup (and
| maybe even some new cities??) since then.
| BirAdam wrote:
| For places like NYC, Chicago, Boston, yeah. And we see
| rail in those locations. We do not see rail in towns and
| suburbs around those areas. In Atlanta, for example,
| MARTA exists, but NIMBY policies in Northern suburban
| counties keep it from expanding. This is especially bad
| considering more people live in those counties than in
| the city proper. Further, even if one could get sign-off,
| the cost to acquire the property required would be
| incredibly costly. Land prices are historically high, and
| after acquisition would need to be cleared and then rail
| would need to be laid. Unless the USA wants to get rid of
| compensation for imminent domain seizure, I don't know
| how this kind of rail development would ever be done.
| tetha wrote:
| We also have a similarly frustrating kind of arguments in
| germany itself.
|
| Like, focus on public transport won't work. Because in some
| tiny towns of 30k people living there, there is never a bus
| around so why care? Like... dude. In Hamburg, we have
| subway stations that move more people in minutes than
| people live in your town. Yes, it may not work on your
| case. Your case is however a side note. It needs
| consideration, but not focus.
|
| Or electric vehicles. There are interesting questions about
| electric vehicles in uncontrolled situations, emergency
| services and long-distance situations. As well as regions
| without a good charging infrastructure. Yes. These are
| problematic. Except, most likely, more unique cars drive
| past my window in an hour on a workday than exist in that
| tiny town. Just keep your ICE car for the trip to spain you
| never take by car, but we should optimize the vehicles in
| cities. Again, it needs consideration, but not focus.
| kortilla wrote:
| Because those states are part of the same federal
| government and they have a say in what the federal
| government does. These rail systems almost always require
| federal government level investments.
| shantara wrote:
| And how many people regularly commute across the United
| States? The absolute majority of the journeys people make
| regularly is still quite short, so why not start by
| optimizing for them? Then continue with building high speed
| intercity connections between the urban areas with <500 km
| distance to create valuable alternatives to being stuck in
| the highway traffic and dealing with the airport security
| nonsense.
|
| Why do you always think that you need to reinvent a tried and
| true solutions that have been proven to work across the
| world?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Also even if you're worried about going cross-country, that
| requires what, two fast lines between the coasts to get
| good routes? So even though those areas don't have many
| people per square mile, passing through would need an
| extremely small amount of track per square mile.
| ben_w wrote:
| 1. CA is the 3rd largest state in the USA. Do any of the 47
| smaller states have something like this?
|
| 2. As the unpopulated bits necessarily don't have many people
| or things to do in them, the cost of subsidising a public
| transit ticket in those places is necessarily small.
| oersted wrote:
| I don't have the details, but every single time I have heard
| the mention of Deutsche Bahn in the last few years it has been
| accompanied by comments of how broken it has become, with
| constant delays and cancellations, to the point where for many
| people it is no longer a viable option for commute or for
| anything where you cannot risk to be up to several hours late.
|
| I guess it's all relative. If you come to rely on an excellent
| and omnipresent rail service for many years as a society, the
| impacts are quite big when it stops working well. If the
| service itself is built assuming reliability, where
| transferring between trains is common, then issues can get
| substantially amplified if that choreography gets somewhat
| disrupted.
| dustyventure wrote:
| It was broken long before the offer though so the reduction
| in driving being moderate probably reflects fewer shifts in
| daily commute and mostly more leisure usage.
| sadcherry wrote:
| There is a big reporting bias though. You won't see in the
| news "of the 40,000 railway connections today, most were on
| time". You only read about some train having had an AC issue
| or the like.
|
| I have family in Germany and they never go by train but tell
| me regularly about how bad the train has become. They have
| literally not been in one for 15+ years. But they watch the
| news every day.
| currymj wrote:
| among intercity trains run by Deutsche Bahn, the on-time
| rate hovers around 2/3. it's technically true that "most
| were on time", but one third being late is really terrible,
| especially since you often need to make a tight connection.
|
| even if your family has no justifiable basis for believing
| what they do about DB, they happen to be correct by luck.
|
| https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2023/en/combined-management-
| re...
| n_plus_1_acc wrote:
| Long-distance trains are worse statistically because they
| travel longer Router and therefore have more
| opportubities to gain delay. Across all trains,
| puncuality is like 95%.
| currymj wrote:
| that is true, but tons of highly frequent on-time
| commuter trains doesn't help anyone who wants to travel
| long distances.
|
| right now if you want to go between two cities you always
| have to plan on missing your connection.
| sadcherry wrote:
| I wouldn't call a 7 minutes delay "terrible".
| iggldiggl wrote:
| It is if you miss a connection that only runs hourly or
| so. (Even with a half-hourly connection it'd be
| annoying.)
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >There is a big reporting bias though. You won't see in the
| news "of the 40,000 railway connections today, most were on
| time". You only read about some train having had an AC
| issue or the like.
|
| I feel most know about Japan's shinkansen being run well.
|
| For those who don't, the average delay is 1.1 minutes on
| average.
|
| For comparison, the DB long distance trains are considered
| on time if they're less than 6 minutes late, and still only
| 64% are considered on time.
| nisa wrote:
| > Japan's shinkansen
|
| They have dedicated tracks. In Germany all train lines
| (freight, local trains, long-distance trains) share the
| same tracks and especially at different speeds this
| causes delays and problems.
|
| Building new track or even adding more lanes is extremly
| difficult because of NIMBY's and from 1995 to 2005
| switches and extra lanes for overtaking where build back
| to save costs.
|
| Additionally signalling is in large parts still very
| labour intensive and smaller tracks are often still
| running with technology from the early 20th century and
| late 19th century.
|
| So the problem Deutsche Bahn has to solve is quite a bit
| harder than shinkansen.
| nisa wrote:
| Long distance trains are getting more unreliable (ICE, IC)
| due to repair works on the tracks - regional / local trains
| are mostly fine (at least in my place here) and I can't
| remember the last time there was an delay longer than 10
| minutes here. However lately I've saw that trains are
| cancelled due to manpower shortages and due to the nature the
| local trains are organized (there is a tender and a railway
| company wins that tender for 5 years with the same rolling
| stock) peaks in capacity like on the weekend are not dealt
| with.
| rudnevr wrote:
| Last time I frequented Boston Amtrak it would delay about 28%
| of travel.
| lispm wrote:
| > Didn't this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no
| strings attached?
|
| That was a time limited earlier ticket. "The tickets were valid
| for June, July, or August 2022. The offer aimed at reducing
| energy use amid the 2021-2022 global energy crisis."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket
|
| It influenced the idea to come up with a permanent ticket: the
| "Deutschlandticket". It started 1. Mai 2023.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandticket
|
| The Deutschlandticket costs max 49 Euros (next year it will
| cost 58EUR per month) and is valid for one month for mostly all
| local®ional public transport systems (plus a few selected
| non-regional trains) in the whole of Germany. The subscription
| will renew automatically.
|
| Companies often support employees by paying some of the costs.
| Then it typically costs 34.30 EUR per month. From next year on,
| employees pay 40,60 EUR per month max.
|
| Here in my home city already 94% of the 213000 pupils use the
| Deutschlandticket for 0 EUR per month. Every pupil has free
| access to all of the country's local®ional public transport
| system... I find that kind of mind-blowing.
|
| I have the ticket in my iPhone's wallet and thus also in the
| Apple Watch wallet. Additionally I need an ID card. Which at
| some point in time will also come to the smartphone.
| https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/new-mob...
| consp wrote:
| > Every pupil has free access to all of the country's
| local®ional public transport system... I find that kind of
| mind-blowing.
|
| We've had this since the 1990s for higher education students.
| One of the known effects is that students who got it, used
| the public transport systems more often after wards as they
| were more familiar with it. I would not be surprised if
| Germany has a simmilar effect. The problem with these effect
| is they far outgrow the attention span of polititians as they
| take years to come to full force.
| sva_ wrote:
| It was only valid for the state in which the university is,
| and not all universities offered it.
|
| Most students now get the nationwide ticket for effectively
| about 30EUR/month.
| aeyes wrote:
| When I started studying at university it was an optional
| additonal fee paid with the Semesterbeitrag and the ticket
| was only valid in the city (not even the state) and its
| close surroundings. A bit later they didn't allow us to opt
| out anymore but lowered the price a bit.
|
| So for students in my region this was never free and still
| isn't, you are forced to pay for it and can't opt out:
| https://www.studentenwerk-
| leipzig.de/mobilitaet/semestertick...
|
| > Studierende der sieben Leipziger Hochschulen im
| Zustandigkeitsbereich des Studentenwerkes Leipzig zahlen
| den Beitrag von 176,40 Euro verpflichtend mit der
| Immatrikulation bzw. Ruckmeldung zum Wintersemester
| 2024/25.
| ygra wrote:
| It varies a lot by university. In Osnabruck the
| Semesterticket basically allowed to travel as far as
| Hanover, Munster and Bremen, which was pretty far as that
| goes. In Rostock on the other hand it only covered the
| city and a few of the surrounding villages (back in 2011,
| though).
|
| I think there was a provision of opting out if you needed
| a regular public transport ticket anyway to get to the
| uni (because you lived too far outside) but that varies
| by uni as well.
| riedel wrote:
| I only pay 20 EUR a month because a 25 EUR subsidy by my
| employer. It is a total nobrainer although, I often even use
| it less, just because I can jump on any local train, tram,
| bus without worrying about a ticket (particularly as we don't
| have NFC payment). Actually the 9 EUR will effectively mean a
| 50% raise for me, so I am not sure if the raise even makes
| sense economically because people like me just would cancel.
| Hugsun wrote:
| It sounds amazing. All these prices seem crazy low. A
| significantly zone limited monthly commuter ticket here in
| Denmark costs over 500EUR
| hskalin wrote:
| That sounds too high, even Switzerland isn't that expensive
| okr wrote:
| They are indeed crazily low. The real prize is just hidden
| by subsidy. But more and more the true cost will be
| revealed. There is no free lunch.
|
| But hey, germany could never really decide, are they living
| in an authoritarian, left or right utopian la-la-land or in
| a free country. For some time the american influence was
| huge, but i fear, the influence will diminish and the
| pendulum swings again.
| mk89 wrote:
| And if I am not mistaken, as a university student you get
| also that ticket for free and you just need to show your
| student card.
|
| So students basically never have to pay for the public
| transportation which is really awesome.
|
| EDIT: by public transportation I mean whatever is included in
| the D-Ticket (no Intercity or similar types of trains).
| lispm wrote:
| Where I live, students pay for it, 29.40 EUR. It's a part
| of the semester fees, IIRC.
| archi42 wrote:
| For those not familiar with how this works/worked: At
| most universities, a similar fee was collected from all
| students. That was then used to finance a regional
| "public transport flatrate".
|
| N.b.: mk89 is technically not quite correct, it wasn't
| free (nothing in life is). It's usually bundled with the
| tuition/enrollment fee.
|
| Implementation details differed per University, but for
| us the fee (80 or 100EUR, can't recall) was socialized
| across all students and payed together with the tuition
| fee; opting out was not possible (with some exceptions,
| like disabilities). The money went from the University
| administration to the AStA - the "general students
| council" (the executive section of the elected student
| self-government). The AStA then negotiated with the local
| public transport company/companies as well as with the
| Deutsche Bahn (e.g. to get access to certain inter-
| regional train connections - we still have cooperations
| with 3 or 4 nearby universities, and students somehow
| need to get there). Those negotiations can be a royal
| pita, and often the students were in a weak position.
|
| Source: I was in the AStA (~12 people), but not involved
| with that task.
| mk89 wrote:
| Thanks for the detailed answer. I guess uni students
| don't know or don't care so it's "for free" (in the sense
| it's part of the tuition fee) :)
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" I LOVE the German transit system"_
|
| I have some experience with the public transport systems in
| Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. In my
| opinion Germany's is the worst. Everything seems to be stuck in
| paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly
| digitized. The tariffs (apart from the Deutschlandticket) are
| overly complicated and suffer heavily under the common
| balkanization.
|
| The _DB Navigator_ is so terrible that I try to book the German
| leg of my international travels from one of the other countries
| apps whenever possible.
|
| For a counter example look at the French _SNCF Connect_ app. It
| is not perfect but it is a pretty workable solution.
| lispm wrote:
| > Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only
| occasionally and very listlessly digitized.
|
| That's nonsense. Most public transport is digital by now.
|
| > The DB Navigator is so terrible
|
| It's not terrible. I managed to book all my train travels
| just fine with it, also using a business bahncard which gives
| me a 50% discount on all trains.
| eptcyka wrote:
| I couldn't pay for my ubahn with a credit card on the bahn,
| and the app required me to use some kind of a paypal
| derivative. I did not pay.
|
| Regardless of whether it is digitized or not, regional
| trains suck. To pay on the train, I think I was forced to
| use cash.
|
| Further, the process for getting refunds when you miss a
| connection requires one to fill in forms on paper and scan
| them in and then send in via email. Or was it snail mail? I
| didn't attempt it, I just saw that my train was delayed for
| hours with no explanation for what can I do about it,
| realized I'm missing my connection and then booked a plane
| ticket and got home faster than if I had traveled by rail
| without any delays. 10/10, will fly whenever possible from
| now on.
| lispm wrote:
| Pay before. That's how the transport systems generally
| work in Germany. In many trains you need to have a ticket
| BEFORE entering the train and also BEFORE entering the
| platform in the train station.
|
| > Further, the process for getting refunds when you miss
| a connection requires one to fill in forms on paper and
| scan them in and then send in via email.
|
| I can do that in the DB app.
| eptcyka wrote:
| The DB app? Definitely was not an option for the people
| who did that. Granted, we are europeans, not Germans
| living in Germany.
|
| Paying before just isn't always practical, but I
| understand that such limitations are often a non-issue
| for locals.
| lispm wrote:
| > The DB app? Definitely was not an option for the people
| who did that.
|
| Yeah, it's in the app.
|
| > Paying before just isn't always practical, but I
| understand that such limitations are often a non-issue
| for locals.
|
| That's how it works. Typical here for local trains: there
| are no barriers in train and bus stations. One can just
| enter the train and bus without any ticket check. But you
| have to make sure that you have a ticket. The local
| trains have no installation to buy a ticket anymore.
| Typically one would buy them online or have a
| subscription ticket. How does the system make sure that
| people pay and don't game the system? There are random
| checks.
|
| If you want a ticket, buy it before entering a train.
| Train stations have either ticket systems or a ticket
| office. But most people by now do it online either per
| website or app.
|
| For long-distance trains I would always book in advance
| (it's often also cheaper) and book a seat, too.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Yeah, cool, I understand, it is how it is done. I am not
| arguing that, and I already conceded that.
|
| Why are you bringing the same argument back up again?
|
| Have you considered that people who travel through your
| country will not install another app on their phone? I do
| not need another quarter of a gigabyte app to pay for
| something that could've been paid for via VISA or
| Mastercard. Oh wait, I did install the app. And it asked
| me to use a paypal account. I do not carry my papyal
| credentials with me.
|
| I have never gotten on long distance trains and expected
| to pay on them, not what I am arguing about.
|
| And when I mean that the app was not an option, I mean
| that in our case, we couldn't use the app to submit a
| return. I was not the one submitting those forms, I was
| too lazy. The people who did told me the app did not work
| for their case. Given that you've told me 2x that "you
| can just do it in the app", what else can I say besides
| the fact that when tried, it did not work? Are you
| dismissing the lived experience of the person you are
| talking to? Why?
|
| All of that notwithstanding, why not decrease the
| friction from needing to use an app (phone needs to be
| supported, charged and have an internet connection) and
| instead use contactless payment terminals?
| lispm wrote:
| > Are you dismissing the lived experience of the person
| you are talking to? Why?
|
| The DB App has this option, now. That's all. If this
| information does not help you, there are other readers
| here, too.
|
| > All of that notwithstanding, why not decrease the
| friction from needing to use an app (phone needs to be
| supported, charged and have an internet connection) and
| instead use contactless payment terminals?
|
| You can buy with credit cards (and a few other options)
| using the usual payment terminals. Again, you usually
| have to pay outside of the train. The terminals are at
| the train station.
| alhadrad wrote:
| The DB app is absolute hot garbage. God forbid you don't
| have internet or it randomally updates logging you out.
| All of his previous arguments are valid.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _That 's how it works._
|
| That's how it works in Germany. Everywhere else I just
| swipe my mobile and I am done.
| lispm wrote:
| I don't even need to swipe a ticket. All my local public
| transport has zero ticket checks, just random&rare
| controls.
|
| In a long distance train I check in on my booked seat via
| the app. That's it. No additional ticket check.
| immibis wrote:
| German people have an understandable historical revulsion
| to the government tracking their every move.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Yes, that is why, instead of using a payment network,
| they choose to use an app, which still needs one to
| transact within the financial system and lets the
| government adjacent company run arbitrary code on one's
| phone.
| immibis wrote:
| It's why they use paper tickets most of the time.
| immibis wrote:
| If you don't pay before, and the train doesn't have a
| ticket machine on it (most don't, but some e.g. trams in
| Berlin do) you are riding illegally. That's how it works
| in Germany.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _> Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes,
| only occasionally and very listlessly digitized._
|
| _That 's nonsense. Most public transport is digital by
| now._
|
| I did a more complicated trip with multiple legs. Booked
| via SNCF, bc DB-Navigator would not let me book some of the
| border crossing legs, I tried. The only leg that required a
| paper ticket was in Germany. In 2023, not last century.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Was there really not even a pdf and/or matrix code option
| ?
| weinzierl wrote:
| _That 's nonsense. Most public transport is digital by
| now._
|
| SNCF, SNCB and EuroStar let me manage my tickets digitally
| in my digital wallet. That is super convenient if you have
| more complicated itineraries because you have all the
| tickets handy in a single app, when you need them.
|
| With Deutsche Bahn it is either _their_ app or a PDF to
| print.
|
| For local and inner city transport you usually don't need a
| ticket a all, just swipe your card or phone at the
| beginning and end of your trip.
|
| You can forget about that anywhere in Germany. It is paper
| tickets everywhere or a gazillion of different apps,
| because every city and network has their own.
|
| That is very much not my understanding of public transport
| being digital.
| lispm wrote:
| > With Deutsche Bahn it is either their app or a PDF to
| print.
|
| They also have an extensive web-based ticket shop.
|
| You don't need to print PDF tickets. One can also show a
| PDF ticket on an electronic device, without printing it.
| I used the DB ticket PDFs for several years, without
| printing it. Nowadays a load the long-distance train
| tickets onto the phone and have it in the DB app, I have
| also a PDF version via mail.
|
| > For local and inner city transport you usually don't
| need a ticket a all, just swipe your card or phone at the
| beginning and end of your trip.
|
| I have that here also in my city. The reality: most
| people have a subscription, that's the by far dominant
| model. Simpler and less tracking needed.
|
| > It is paper tickets everywhere or a gazillion of
| different apps, because every city and network has their
| own.
|
| Larger cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne,
| Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Dusseldorf, ... are central for
| large traffic regions. For example the traffic region
| here in Hamburg serves roughly 3.7 million people.
|
| > That is very much not my understanding of public
| transport being digital.
|
| We now have a Germany-wide affordable subscription-based
| ticket for local®ional public transport. That's my
| understanding of public transport gone digital, nation-
| wide. The basics were operational after only a few months
| of planning.
| jonp888 wrote:
| > The DB Navigator is so terrible that I try to book the
| German leg of my international travels from one of the other
| countries apps whenever possible.
|
| > For a counter example look at the French SNCF Connect app.
| It is not perfect but it is a pretty workable solution.
|
| I am extremely surprised that you would write this. The SNCF
| Connect app has a lot of problems. Just for starters, it
| can't cope with any journey with more than 2 changes. SNCF
| shut down there international ticket sales computer system -
| because it was too old. They no longer sell any international
| tickets, unless it's on a train actually run by SNCF.
|
| The DB App has train services for the whole of Europe. It can
| plan a journey from Oslo to Sofia if required.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| So much this. I often use DB navigator to plan trips
| _within_ france. As soon as you 're not going to or from
| Paris, the sncf offer _and_ app are just terrible. Often,
| sncf-connect will refuse to offer me TER-only (regional
| train) trips, because one of the legs _can_ also be done by
| TGV. Basically impossible to plan this kind of thing with
| the SNCF apps.
|
| But even the basic UX is terrible. The most blatant example
| of this is the choice to make the first text input on the
| search the _target_ station. If you do limit yourself to a
| single text input as the entry point to the search, I see
| the intuition. but the result is that they are the only
| transit search mask I know where I have to first type where
| I 'm going, and then where I'm coming from. I hate it.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" But even the basic UX is terrible. The most blatant
| example of this is the choice to make the first text
| input on the search the target station."_
|
| This is just your preference and not terrible UX. In fact
| I find this the more intuitive way.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| It _might_ be more intuitive if this was the first travel
| app every developed. But I don 't personally any other
| transit UI that uses this pattern, and that makes using
| the sncf search "the weird one" and not in a good way.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" They no longer sell any international tickets, unless
| it's on a train actually run by SNCF."_
|
| I booked ICE trains run by Deutsche Bahn via SNCF
| successfully in the past, the last time three days ago. I
| had them even send me Deutsche Bahn paper tickets for no
| additional cost. (Not because I wanted them in paper, but
| because DB insists on _their_ app or paper if it is not an
| international train)
|
| _" The DB App has train services for the whole of Europe.
| It can plan a journey from Oslo to Sofia if required."_
|
| You can plan that in DB Navigator just fine, but have you
| ever managed to successfully book such a journey. I admit
| that my attempts were always in the east-west direction,
| but I can confidently say that the DB Navigator app bails
| at the last step of the funnel for these journeys every
| time, when I can book the same trains via SNCF Connect just
| fine.
|
| What I love about SNCF connect is that it shows me exactly
| if a train has free seats and is bookable in the inital
| step, where DB-Navigator lets me happily compose a whole
| itinerary only to tell me in the last step before payment
| one of the trains is booked out. Then I have start the
| whole process from the beginning, manually steering DB-
| Navigator to avoid the trains _I_ now know are booked out
| but DB-Navigator still pretends were available.
| DominikPeters wrote:
| I agree that the booking experience of the DB-SNCF
| cooperation trains sucks from the DB end, but the
| underlying blame arguably lies with SNCF which insists on
| compulsory reservations which is against the philosophy
| of trains in Germany. On the other hand, in my experience
| DB offers cheaper tickets for these cooperation trains,
| most of the time.
|
| But these trains are a special case; in other cases DB is
| clearly far more pleasant.
| weinzierl wrote:
| This is not primarily a problem of the cooperation
| trains, I have the same situation with trains within
| Germany. DB-Navigator only tells you if a train is
| bookable right at the end, right before payment. Before
| that, it might show "there is high demand", but this is
| rather useless, especially when you have a school kid and
| want to book a train a the beginning or end of school
| holidays, when every train is in high demand. Your only
| chance with DB-Navigator is to play the whack-a-mole game
| where you run all the steps repeatedly until the very
| last step until you find a train you actually _can_ book.
|
| In the SNCF app I have this information right away, that
| is what makes the difference for me.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| I just used the DB Navigator for extensive travel in Germany
| without any problems. It doesn't provide quite as much
| information about how to deal with connections for a delayed
| train, but that is minor compared to the very transparent
| function for buying and displaying tickets.
| elpocko wrote:
| >Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes
|
| I want to buy a ticket every now and then. I want that
| process to be straight forward: cash money for one-time
| ticket. I don't want your app on my phone, I don't want a
| subscription, and I don't want to be tracked.
|
| Paper based offline processes forever, please.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| lol you know websites exist right. what a luddite approach.
| Paper is expensive, wasteful, environmentally harmful, and
| time consuming.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Sure. And how do you pay? I mean, really. You're forced
| to create an account, then link a payment method (PayPal
| and/or Visa/Mastercard may or may not be supported, Apple
| Pay almost never is). Sometimes you also have to link a
| mobile phone number or the number is the account
| identifier.
|
| How is that an alternative?
| elpocko wrote:
| I don't carry a phone around with me at all times. Phones
| are expensive, wasteful, socially and environmentally
| harmful, time consuming, and they erode our freedoms.
| BirAdam wrote:
| I'd love to see an in-depth analysis of the overall
| production costs for paper and ink vs electronic. Tree to
| processing to ticket vs smartphone, grid, network,
| software, and so on. I imagine the paper process is
| exceptionally cheaper but I could very well be wrong.
| Qwertious wrote:
| Paper is fine for the environment. Paper takes an
| absolutely tiny portion of a tree (and burning the pulp
| waste tends to result in a net energy _surplus_ from the
| pulp mill!), whereas the amount of energy to create one
| computer (even a phone) is massive.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _I don 't want your app on my phone, I don't want a
| subscription, and I don't want to be tracked._
|
| Exactly, no one wants that, no one needs that, but you
| should recognize that most people don't want to handle cash
| money either, nowadays.
|
| Just let me swipe my card or phone and done.
|
| If you insist on privacy we should be able to use a pre-
| paid card or temporary credit card (like Revolut), but I
| have not tried that and I doubt it works.
| locallost wrote:
| You can use a card on every ticket machine.
| psychoslave wrote:
| I can't tell for other countries, but SNCF digital solutions
| have been a great example of everything you should not do for
| as long as I can remember. Actually bahn.de used to be a far
| better interface to consult french train hours than whatever
| fancy new name SNCF would come every few months or so.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes,
|
| It is for that reason I'd love it. Accessible, universal,
| sustainable, resilient technology!
|
| I once got stuck in Nuremberg overnight. The ticket office
| was open all night and an official looked up all my options
| from memory and timetable books and wrote me a diagram with
| pen and paper that perfectly showed me how to get to my
| destination. I'll never forget that helpful clerk.
|
| Not saying you can't have your apps, but systems that lose
| touch with reality and human involvement are part of the
| emerging problem.
|
| For my mind the smartest ticket technology I ever saw was
| Hungarian and used on the Budapest transit system in the
| 1980s - some devious discrete mathematics that coded the
| journey stops, used status, and allowed routes all in a
| matrix of hole punches on a small paper ticket. The punches
| (that you had to use when getting on trains, buses and trams)
| were purely mechanical, and so was the validating machine
| used by inspectors/conductors to see if you had punched your
| ticket. Simply genius.
| euroderf wrote:
| There simply has to be a web page about this somewhere...
| tasuki wrote:
| > For my mind the smartest ticket technology I ever saw was
| Hungarian and used on the Budapest transit system in the
| 1980s - some devious discrete mathematics that coded the
| journey stops, used status, and allowed routes all in a
| matrix of hole punches on a small paper ticket. The punches
| (that you had to use when getting on trains, buses and
| trams) were purely mechanical, and so was the validating
| machine used by inspectors/conductors to see if you had
| punched your ticket. Simply genius.
|
| I think you're giving a little too much credit. In the
| nearby Czech Republic we had a system where there'd be
| eight (or perhaps 10?) places for a hole. Your ticket would
| get marked with a combination specific to the vehicle.
|
| They'd periodically change which vehicle has what holes.
| With 8 holes, 256 tickets would be enough to give you a
| valid ticket for any vehicle. With 10 holes, 1024 tickets.
| I think some people carried around all the tickets to be
| able to ride for free. Others kept tickets with small
| number of holes for later reuse in a vehicle which had a
| superset of those. Good times!
|
| I find it very hard to believe the Hungarians has something
| smarter than that, but would love to be proven wrong!
| dietr1ch wrote:
| As a tourist I agree, and the Deutschland Ticket App is
| Region locked, so you are bound to the complexity of the
| system, which seems unnecessary and way too expensive as
| opposed to the ticket locals get.
| n_plus_1_acc wrote:
| There are many different vendors with different apps.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| One fun experience, arriving in Munchen and trying to buy
| ticket for the airport train online. The app requires your
| birthdate. The date selector starts from present and only
| allows to go back one month at a time. So if you're 40 years
| old, you would need to click 480 times... We bought paper
| tickets from a machine . Machines work well compared to other
| countries though.
| emaro wrote:
| I thought the same thing first, but if you click on the
| year you can choose from a list.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| > The DB Navigator is so terrible that I try to book the
| German leg of my international travels from one of the other
| countries apps whenever possible.
|
| While _DB Navigator_ does leave something to be desired the
| sheer width /breadth of the DB booking system makes it my go-
| to choice for international train travel. They're also quite
| forthcoming in paying back 25% to 50% of the ticket price
| when delayed more than 1 or 2 hours which is a frequent
| occurrence on the longer trips - from Sweden to the
| Netherlands - which I make about every other month. I can get
| prices directly without having to go through some silly
| booking agency, I can book tickets, reserve seats and
| sometimes actually choose which seats I want (something which
| doesn't always work). They did have some problems about a
| year ago when they moved to the 'new' DB Navigator and the
| price I was quoted suddenly quadrupled, this turned out to be
| an omission in the booking system which I submitted a bug
| report for. They fixed the problem and prices returned to
| where they should be (about 5% higher than before the change,
| they used the opportunity to raise prices...).
|
| No, the problem with DB is not to be found in their app or
| the booking system, those are at least on par and often
| better than their foreign equivalents. The problem lies in
| the unreliability of the long distance network, especially
| the ICE service which often sees long delays due to a lack of
| personnel, defective equipment, maintenance work, etc.
| Regional services tend to be more reliable, in part due to
| the higher frequency which makes it less of a problem if a
| single train does not run. All in all I can live with the
| problems and have switched over to rail travel whenever I can
| in Europe. The advantages - more space, more comfort, no
| security theatre, the ability to hack away while travelling,
| usually lower prices, I can take as much luggage as I can
| carry (which is a lot) - outweigh the disadvantages - longer
| travel times, need to change trains, delays which compound
| due to missing connections.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _They 're also quite forthcoming in paying back 25% to 50%
| of the ticket price when delayed more than 1 or 2 hours_
|
| There is nothing forthcoming about that, they are required
| to to that by regulations. No bonus points for DB here
| whatsoever.
|
| _which is a frequent occurrence on the longer trips_
|
| That is something we can agree upon.
|
| _reserve seats and sometimes actually choose which seats I
| want_
|
| SNCF-Connects lets you specify the exact seat
| configuration. You can choose single, double (window or
| not), quadruple (next to each other or face-to-face). In
| addition to that you can express your preference for family
| area and if you do not want to sit facing against the
| driving direction.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| > There is nothing forthcoming about that, they are
| required to to that by regulations. No bonus points for
| DB here whatsoever.
|
| The way they implemented this process makes it easy and
| quick to get compensation while other carriers - who are
| supposed to follow the same rules - make it quite a bit
| harder to get compensated.
|
| > SNCF-Connects lets you specify the exact seat
| configuration. You can choose single, double (window or
| not), quadruple (next to each other or face-to-face). In
| addition to that you can express your preference for
| family area and if you do not want to sit facing against
| the driving direction.
|
| You can do the same on bahn.de or in DB Navigator (which
| is mostly equivalent to a canned version of the site plus
| a few extras). Not all trains allow seat selection,
| sometimes seats are assigned automatically. Other trains
| - e.g. Dutch Intercity trains - do not offer reservation
| at all. The Swedish/Danish Oresundstag (a service running
| mostly in the south and west of Sweden) theoretically
| allows reservation but this hardy ever works, at least
| when booking through DB. Do mind that I use DB to book
| trips crossing several countries using different
| operators, in this case SJ (Swedish state railway),
| Oresundstaget, DSB (Danish state railway), DB, Eurobahn
| and NS (Dutch state railway). All in a single booking
| with a single payment and a single point of contact using
| a single ticket.
| locallost wrote:
| > SNCF-Connects lets you specify the exact seat
| configuration. You can choose single, double (window or
| not), quadruple (next to each other or face-to-face). In
| addition to that you can express your preference for
| family area and if you do not want to sit facing against
| the driving direction.
|
| You can do all that in the DB app. You can manually
| select which seats you want or just say the types of
| seats you want (e.g. compartment or open area, isle or
| window, table or no table, quiet area or not, family area
| etc).
| taffer wrote:
| I couldn't disagree more. You can say a lot of bad things
| about Deutsche Bahn, but of all the travel apps I have used,
| DB Navigator and bahn.de were the best.
|
| SNCF Connect, on the other hand, not only had a terrible UX,
| but also crashed randomly, forcing me to use third-party apps
| to buy SNCF tickets.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I don't know about apps (only used the HVV app, for holding a
| ticket), but in terms of websites SNCF (at least the English
| version, the French one is a bit better) is an absolute mess.
| There is like 3 different ones for starters, one to find a
| connection, one to buy the ticket and one to find current
| status/delays.
|
| bahn.de is actually one of the more decent websites in my
| opinion (definitely better than most rail sites I have
| encountered).
|
| That said, the biggest problem with rail in Europe atm, is
| the lack of an integrated ticketing system. Going between
| places by train is a so much nicer experience than taking the
| plane, but the ticketing experience is such a mess. As others
| have pointed out, on SNCF you can't find any international
| connections any longer (IIRC SJ.se in Sweden still shows
| connections to Norway and Denmark), on Bahn.de you can find
| the connections, but can't actually see a price or book a
| ticket (you are told to go into a station). Train travel in
| Europe could be a surely awesome otherwise.
| taffer wrote:
| The EU should create a standardised system for tickets in
| Europe, similar to the New Distribution Capability for
| flights or SEPA for payments.
|
| There should also be a unified system for passengers to
| claim their money back if their train is delayed.
| tchalla wrote:
| EU has asked the rail companies to do so or else they
| will force their hand if they don't.
| barrkel wrote:
| The DB navigator app is actually decent. The one downside is
| it kicks you out to a website to book many international
| tickets, but you can still plan and track your journey delays
| etc. in the app.
| weinzierl wrote:
| It kicks you out to a website if you are lucky (I had this
| when traveling through Austria), but often it just says:
| "Sorry, I cannot book this for you.".
|
| In any case you will have to start from scratch, which is
| in my opinion the worst UX.
|
| It is good that the app allows to research all
| theoretically possible connections, but I want the info if
| I can practically book a connection right there in the
| process and not just at the end. The SNCF-Connect app shows
| that this is possible, and even possible for Deutsche Bahn
| trains.
| locallost wrote:
| I agree with the part about complicated tariffs/tickets but
| not much else. Although not sure how many countries make it
| simple, the only one I am aware of is Switzerland which
| conveniently solves the problem by making everything
| expensive.
|
| I use the app and bahn.de and things are generally pretty
| easy and just work. I haven't used paper in a while, recently
| once because my phone battery ran out, but that's it. Finding
| connections, adjusting options like transfer time, where you
| want to transfer, buying tickets, checking in through the
| app, getting notifications about changing trains, and even
| recently some things I never did like getting an invoice for
| my employer are all a breeze. It fails rarely and is in
| general slick. Recently I bought tickets through Hungarian
| railways and this was a pain in the ass.
|
| The one annoyance I have is buying regional tickets, where
| you have to buy them one at a time which can be a hassle if
| you travel with e.g. three people and you want to buy tickets
| for all of them.
| jonp888 wrote:
| > Didn't this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no
| strings attached?
|
| The EUR9 ticket was a 3 month temporary offer, which was not
| originally intended to continue permanently at all.
|
| > I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in
| cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new
| system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription
| model. If you're a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of
| the month or you get auto rebilled.
|
| The ticket is subsidised by the German government(beyond the
| amount that all rail infrastructure and most services are
| subsidised) for the purpose what is covered in the article -
| encouraging permanent modal shift of regular
| travellers(primarily commuters) from road to rail. If you're a
| tourist, it's not meant for you. Sorry.
| sadcherry wrote:
| Airtravel is also subsidised by the German tax payer. Much
| more than the 49 EUR ticket. No matter if you are a tourist
| or not. (Arguably mostly for tourists actually.)
| kristianp wrote:
| What's the method of subsidy there? Contributing to Airbus
| shares?
| echoangle wrote:
| Commercial aviation fuel is tax exempt in the EU, I would
| already count that as a subsidy (yes, I count not taxing
| something that's normally taxed as a subsidy, even if it
| isn't done by directly paying out money).
| Qwertious wrote:
| Subsidising airports and fuel, presumably.
| jacooper wrote:
| How is it subsidized while a local flight costs more than
| an international one?
|
| The idea is to push people to use the train, but a train
| isn't an alternative if it takes 9 hours compared to the 2
| hour flight.
| lispm wrote:
| > If you're a tourist, it's not meant for you. Sorry.
|
| Tourist&foreigners can use the Deutschlandticket, too.
|
| But: it's a monthly subscription automatically renewing every
| month, so one has to cancel it early enough when planning to
| leave the country. You'll also typically need a smartphone
| for the ticket.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| Well, on mobile they make you think you need the app, but
| it's region locked. I happened to email them about how this
| is annoying for tourists yesterday and got a very German
| response,
|
| "Downloading the Deutschlandticket.de app from the Google
| Play Store and Apple App Store is only possible in certain
| countries." (ikr, it's THE problem)
| lispm wrote:
| The ticket is available by other apps, too.
| layer8 wrote:
| The problem may be that if they offer the app in foreign
| regions, they are liable to the jurisdiction of those
| foreign regions.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Is a response repeating the thing you just concluded in
| your mail to them very german?
| Zak wrote:
| A factual, but entirely unhelpful response to a customer
| service query is very German.
| juliangmp wrote:
| >I LOVE the German transit system
|
| What? How? I have the ticket and despite that I never use any
| regional train because they're generally awful. (Local busses
| and trams on the other hand work pretty well)
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Regional trains are really okay compared to long-distance
| trains. These are so bad that it's unlikely that you reach
| your destination on time now.
| consumerx wrote:
| True, significant only because offered for 9 EUR initially.
| ben_w wrote:
| Not only -- when I visit friends in the UK, I've had single
| rail tickets cost more than the increased next years' cost of
| a monthly nationwide ticket here in Germany.
| hilux wrote:
| I'm a big fan of public transit, but it's not entirely
| "baffling" why the US lags European countries (and Japan) - the
| US is a MUCH larger country.
| server_man3000 wrote:
| There's a happy medium somewhere though and the US doesn't
| meet it at all. I can't even take a bus from my neighborhood
| in a California city to the grocery store in a timely manner
| and it's often cancelled
| hilux wrote:
| Oh, I know - I live in Oakland. I think even here the
| population density is lower than in European cities. (It's
| definitely lower than in Asian mega-cities.)
|
| But yes, I do wish California did better. People are used
| to bad transit, and have never visited Tokyo or even NYC,
| so expectations are low.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| But the DC to Boston line isn't
| lispm wrote:
| > the US is a MUCH larger country
|
| with much of the population in a few denser areas, where
| public transport would make a lot of sense.
| ben_w wrote:
| The EU is only about half the land area of the USA; Germany
| is roughly equivalent of the fourth largest US state,
| Montana, and only CA, TX, and AK are bigger.
|
| Do any _states_ have something equivalent to this?
| hilux wrote:
| And Germany has a population of 83 million. Montana has a
| population of 1.1 million.
|
| I don't get your point.
| ben_w wrote:
| You said the USA was big. Now you're saying _population_
| is the important thing. Combined that 's population
| density, so does Maryland have this? Connecticut? etc.
|
| On the density front, NYC is famously high density, and
| yet so far as I can tell a monthly pass for _just_ there
| is double the raised price this ticket will be next year:
| https://new.mta.info/document/118601
| cycomanic wrote:
| The size "excuse" is often brought up, I don't think that's
| valid though, e.g. Sweden with a significantly lower density
| has much better public transport. Or if we talk absolute size
| I think even Russia has a better rail transport system than
| the US for example. Like usual I think it can largely be
| attributed politics and to the strength of the car lobby in
| the US (as well as a weird desire to "stick it to poor
| people"), which caused a complete focus on individual travel.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Somehow that wasn't as much of an obstacle in 1920!
| onli wrote:
| > _If you're a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the
| month or you get auto rebilled._
|
| Just in case this is helpful to someone, you can buy the ticket
| from one of those different transport organizations you
| mentioned and avoid that time limit to cancel. The one to use
| for that is https://www.mopla.solutions/, it's a simple app
| (alternatively web site) that worked really well for me (no
| affiliation).
| emaro wrote:
| Surprised how positive you're writivg about the German public
| transport. The Deutsche Bahn doesn't have a good reputation in
| central Europe.
|
| I guess my frame of reference isn't average, given I live in
| Switzerland.
|
| Edit: the 49-euro ticket is great though!
| ben_w wrote:
| As a UK citizen living in Berlin, I assure you that for all
| the cancellations and repair works, there's many places which
| look up to the German system.
|
| (I've also been to the USA, and (IMO) Amtrak makes the UK
| look good).
| Aeolun wrote:
| The UK is _so_ expensive though. I thought I was looking at
| airplane fares.
| JackMorgan wrote:
| I recently needed two tickets from NYC to LA, and was
| astonished to find air tickets for $80 and rail tickets
| for $2200. It's so unbelievably expensive (not counting
| that the flight was a few hours and the train was 56
| hours).
|
| Very disappointing! How is it so expensive?!
| guenthert wrote:
| Competition, I suppose. Still, that seems extreme. A few
| years (might have been eight) back, I traveled Amtrak's
| Zephyr from Chicago to California. The roomette for two
| (coach would have been cheaper) was some $450, about the
| same as 2nd class air fare for one then. But yes, the
| train isn't in a particular hurry, expected travel time
| is some 50h, but 1.5h in, it was already 20m late for no
| apparent reason. Most passengers were tourist, but I also
| talked to a fellow who was going to California to pick up
| a used car for his daughter.
|
| I like the idea of long distance train traveling, as one
| can get off and back on later (check the fine print of
| your ticket though). Apparently, that's not customary
| however and earned me an interview by a TSA agent (a
| _very_ polite fellow, odd as it may sound) who approached
| me (with a local Sheriff in tow) at a scheduled stop.
| ben_w wrote:
| Fair. I've had one flight to the UK that cost less than
| the train ticket from the UK airport to my actual
| destination. Air tickets got a lot more expensive after
| the pandemic, but it's still close.
|
| (OTOH, I've also had one case where it was cheaper to
| take the ferry and trains back from the UK to Berlin than
| fly, presumably because of massive demand as that was the
| day Stansted airport was closed by 1cm of snow and I had
| an 8 hour queue for a replacement flight that was itself
| also cancelled).
| bowsamic wrote:
| I visited the UK, which is my home, and the UK train system
| was amazing. Got multiple tight connections with zero
| delays. Far better than I've experienced living in Germany
| ben_w wrote:
| Even when I lived in the UK, I never had that experience.
|
| End of term, Aberystwyth to Birmingham trains were
| regularly terminated on route at Wolverhampton.
|
| Loose connections generally worked.
| 0x008 wrote:
| Of course your frame of reference is biased because you have
| the best railway system out of ~30 European countries.
|
| Germany's system gets a lot of hate but it still in the top
| ~8 or so.
| ck45 wrote:
| I agree. Let's grant that SBB is more organized than DB.
| But given that Germany is 8 times as big as Switzerland and
| with 33,000 km has a significantly larger train network
| than Switzerland's 5,300 km, it's no surprise that trains
| accumulate more delays in Germany.
| caskstrength wrote:
| > Edit: the 49-euro ticket is great though!
|
| As a Swiss person you want appreciate German tax rates that
| subsidize that 49-euro tickets. The money has always got to
| come from somewhere.
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| > is a bit predatory
|
| what bugs me the most is that i can only book it for a specific
| calendar month. that is _so_ stupid ...
| serial_dev wrote:
| > I doubt I'd ever need a car in Germany given the rail system
| was much more convenient
|
| Sure, if you live in a larger city and you never leave... I
| lived in Munich for years and never needed a car, just
| comfortable shoes, a bike and occasionally a transport ticket.
|
| Try to get to a smaller town or village, you are lucky if you
| only spend twice as much time getting there as with a car.
|
| The trains get randomly cancelled, delay is basically
| guaranteed, the workers go on strikes relatively frequently, so
| you can never rely on trains working for anything remotely
| important.
| sva_ wrote:
| > You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If
| you're a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month
| or you get auto rebilled.
|
| Pro tip: some websites offer to start the subscription later in
| the month and you only pay for those days. So if, for example,
| you were to attend a certain hacker conference in Hamburg at
| the end of December, you could buy the ticket for the last 5
| days of the month for 49/31*5 euro. Just have to cancel before
| 10th of December so that it doesn't renew. ("HVV Switch" App)
| happyraul wrote:
| Cancellation terms vary by vendor. With some better ones, you
| can cancel 24 hours before the end of the month to avoid being
| billed for the next month.
| luplex wrote:
| Yep, it's not really meant for tourists. They really want
| everyone to stay in the subscription model, because it's
| heavily subsidized, so they need to hit a high enough LTV
| anyways.
| dgellow wrote:
| It's not really made for tourists from outside the country, you
| already have special tickets for people who visit for a short
| time. It's for the local population. The price hike is from
| 49EUR/month to 58EUR/month next year. It's the opposite of
| predatory IMHO, you have it on your mobile app in a few tap and
| can cancel easily
| carrja99 wrote:
| As a tourist, the cost was well worth it. Used buses and rail
| to get everywhere, booked one DB train from Berlin to Bamberg
| but otherwise travelled all over Germany during my time there.
|
| Just had to remember to cancel.
| bowsamic wrote:
| > Didn't this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no
| strings attached?
|
| No, you could never use it on IC or ICEs
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| All of these tickets are only for local/regional trains, not
| the faster/long-distance trains. You can get from one end of
| the country to another by changing trains a few time, but e.g.
| getting from Munich to Berlin would be 6h (direct) with fast
| trains and 10+ h (changing 3 times) with the regional ones.
|
| The subscription model is intentional - this isn't meant to
| help tourists or to be bought when you need it, it's meant to
| make sure people have already pre-paid the cost when making a
| decision whether to take a train or a car (by being cheap
| enough that people subscribe even if they don't use it all the
| time).
| Roritharr wrote:
| As someone that avoids the german rail at all costs I applaud
| this move, the freer the roads and airports are for me, the
| better.
| chairmansteve wrote:
| Exactly. I don't understand why most car owners are so opposed
| to public transport.
| waveBidder wrote:
| the same reason omnivores are sometimes highly critical of
| veg*ns: there's a moral claim going on, so their identity/
| moral standing is threatened.
| Aerroon wrote:
| It's not a question of moral standing or identity but
| rather that public transport (and vegan) advocates would
| like to force you to live like they do. Those things
| gaining too much popularity threatens the way you do
| things.
|
| We have examples of this happening, eg smoking. It has
| become unpopular enough that governments pass nonsensical
| bans like banning flavored cigarettes or just making it
| entirely illegal for only a certain year cohort (literal
| age discrimination).
| pkd wrote:
| > public transport (and vegan) advocates would like to
| force you to live like they do
|
| Is there a citation for this claim?
|
| > governments pass nonsensical bans like banning flavored
| cigarettes
|
| Is it nonsensical? There is research[1][2] showing that
| flavoured tobacco is one of the primary factors used to
| attract younger users. We know that tobacco is bad, and
| also that flavoured tobacco increases its usage, so
| unless you are against public health policy measures
| themselves, it follows logically that flavoured tobacco
| should be covered by public health measures.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9007155/
| [2] https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/26/6/709
| Aerroon wrote:
| When public health measures turn into "hello, we're now
| making your life worse" then yes, I am against them.
|
| Imagine you drink coffee your whole life. You rely on it.
| Now your government comes in and goes "coffee is now
| illegal, you're welcome!!!"
|
| It changes your life against your wishes and you can't do
| anything about it. The only action that realistically
| works is preemptive - don't let coffee become disliked
| enough to enact such a ban. That's why people argue
| against it. Principles such as "people should be free to
| make their own choices" aren't values our society cares
| about. (Important to remember: it's popular to hate on
| things everyone else hates on, so you gotta keep it under
| a critical mass.)
|
| > _Is there a citation for this claim?_
|
| Asking for a citation doesn't make sense. You know damn
| well there isn't one. Nobody is going to credibly
| announce that their goal is to ban something popular,
| because that would make it harder for them to force that
| change on you. It's done piece by piece. Maybe the people
| that start it don't even want a ban, but it eventually
| escalates.
|
| But logical reasoning can explains it too: people support
| public transport for climate reasons. Why would they not
| want you to make 'the right choice' like them?
| waveBidder wrote:
| yes, another successful example is slavery. another
| unresolved one is abortion. in all of these cases the
| freedom in question is arguably immoral. laws are
| downstream of moral convictions.
| WJW wrote:
| Vegans? Veg[a..z1..9A..Z]ns? Are there any vegyns out there
| who object to being put on the meat/no-meat spectrum? Are
| you afraid HN will censure you if you spell out the
| complete word?
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Really now. It's obviously veg.+ns: vegans and
| vegetarians.
| WJW wrote:
| Oh aha thanks for pointing that out. Now that you mention
| it that does seem obvious. I definitely didn't catch that
| from the first use though. There should be a better word
| to capture both those meanings that doesn't confuse my
| poor regex sensibilities like that. :|
| fn-mote wrote:
| My regex sensitivities only warned me about the
| persecution of veggggggggns.
| dnate wrote:
| I was more concerned about the vens
| Quekid5 wrote:
| It's a regular veganza in here. (I'm sorry)
| Aachen wrote:
| I didn't get that either; not that obvious after all! I
| thought they were making a joke about vegan being a
| swear/taboo word, given the context of saying people
| don't want to hear of it because it allegedly threatens
| their morality
| noisem4ker wrote:
| veg(etari)?ans
| waveBidder wrote:
| I suppose I really should use veg.*ns
| juliangmp wrote:
| Personally I'm not opposed to public transport, in fact I
| want to like the railway. I tried. But the German railway is
| in such a poor state that I never use it. Not for small trips
| (with regional trains that are covered by my 49EUR ticket)
| and especially not for longer trips (long distance trains
| like ICEs).
|
| Every time you enter an ICE just remember that its a coinflip
| on whether or not you'll arrive on time to get your
| connecting train. Or maybe you won't arrive at all, happened
| enough times to me that I frankly don't trust it anymore. And
| considering how expensive ICE tickets have gotten... yeah I'd
| rather take the highway, despite that I don't like driving
| much.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I don't know where you drive for long car trips, but going
| south from e.g. Hamburg on the A1, or through the
| Ruhrgebiet by car is a much bigger coin flip with respect
| to arrival times (while always being significantly slower
| even on good days). So why the complains about
| punctionality for trains, but somehow it's fine for car
| travel?
| juliangmp wrote:
| Can't speak for Hamburg since I'm from the south. And
| frankly, even if a car trip ends up in congestion and you
| need 6 hours instead of 4, its still somewhat preferable
| to being dropped off at some random station in the middle
| of nowhere in the night and hoping the last regional
| train at 23:48 will actually make it to its destination.
| (Yes this happened to me)
| Toorkit wrote:
| The Autobahn is like a Mad Max movie nowadays. Turn signal?
| What's that? I'm just gonna pop into your lane when you're
| going 50 kph faster than me.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| It takes forever compared to driving in most cases, catching
| the transit often involves a walk, and a lot of public
| transit is kind of grungy. This doesn't apply or matter as
| much in some cases (e.g. the NY subway) but in general it's
| not great, at least not in the USA.
| jvesalius wrote:
| >catching the transit often involves a walk
|
| Tell me you're American without telling me you're American.
| trealira wrote:
| Does transit not always involve a walk, even a small one?
| It's not like everyone lives next to a subway station,
| and most destinations aren't right next to a subway
| station either.
| tmelm wrote:
| He implied that Americans are not used walking places, no
| matter how short the distance.
| scns wrote:
| Walking is good for you.
| Aachen wrote:
| Doesn't that depend on one's weight? Or was that
| jogging/running
| dnate wrote:
| Having a "walkeable" weight is also good for you.
| stavros wrote:
| Why do you avoid the rail system?
| Glawen wrote:
| Because waiting im Stau (traffic jam) is so much better.
| artemonster wrote:
| Because missing important appointment (Termin) that you
| have arranged 3 fucking months before by waiting in a phone
| queue for 30 minutes because your Sbahn was cancelled
| because of a nonsense signal-related reason is so much
| better.
| Glawen wrote:
| I'm not denying that rail service quality has gone down
| the drain in Germany.
|
| The foolproof transportation is to take a bicycle.
| pimeys wrote:
| I kind of agree and disagree with you. My main train
| lines in Berlin are U8 and Ring and it can be annoying
| sometimes.
|
| And I will still probably never get a driver's license.
| Been going without for 40 years already. Just being able
| to jump into any train, bus, tram or ferry anytime is
| really nice. I could pay double the monthly price for
| this privilege.
| scns wrote:
| Sadly related:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI8PlJkqvc0
| nik736 wrote:
| Only 62,7% of the trains were in time (and by in time they
| use a rigged system to count what is in time and what is
| not). So it's basically a 50% chance if you will be delayed
| at your destination or in time. Also note, that if you have
| to change trains mid travel you have that chance again. That
| means you will be late very very often. If you travel as an
| individual and you don't value your time at all this is a
| great deal, if you travel for business purposes good luck to
| you.
|
| Apart from that, it's a lot more stressful (and time
| consuming) to go to a train station and leave at a train
| station instead of just driving by car.
| ant6n wrote:
| Punctuality of local trains is much higher than the long
| distance ones whose stats you're quoting here. For rapid
| transit, punctuality is less of an issue, compared to
| frequency.
| chgs wrote:
| Not exactly hard to nowadays in Germany
|
| Using the rail system? Now that's a trick and a half.
| sadcherry wrote:
| Congrats, now you just need to be on board when tax money is
| used for that infra. I bet that latest there your opposition
| starts.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| As someone who uses the German rail any time I can, I also
| applaud this move.
| fn-mote wrote:
| A old friend used to make the same argument for doubling the
| price of gasoline (in Germany)... something like "it will keep
| the rabble off the road".
| hit8run wrote:
| I can fully relate. No one wants to travel in these unreliable,
| piss-stinking trains full of drunken criminals and islamists.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Except this only helped the folks living close to big train
| station hubs, across the country there are plenty of places where
| the car is the only viable option.
| orra wrote:
| Well, no, it's primarily about regional travel, so it clearly
| helps folks near to smaller stations.
|
| Plus: your point, caller? Investing in roads only helps folks
| with cars. There are plenty of people for whom public transport
| is the only option.
| pjmlp wrote:
| 1h car, 3h public transport, that is the point.
| Glawen wrote:
| Germany is a dense country with a developed rail network, you
| are never far from a train station. Bear in mind that this
| includes also city transportation, which makes it a great deal.
|
| My gripe with the ticket is that traveling with bikes in
| regional train became a gamble, you never know if you can get
| in as there is so many people inside already (and even more
| when the previous train got cancelled, which happens a lot...)
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yeah, but doesn't make the Bahn more punctual, or reduce
| those comute times from 3h down to the 1h that is possible by
| car, not having to jump across four connections, with related
| delays and dropped connections.
| panick21_ wrote:
| The 49 Euro ticket is about local transportation, when you
| are talking about 3h you are talking about intercity
| transportation not covered by this ticket.
|
| Intercity travel has lots of punctuality problems but many
| of the local train operations and S-Bahn are often much
| superior. At least in places where I have been, like
| Karlsruhe, Berlin, Hamburg the local transport has been
| very good.
|
| Not everything in live is about long distance communing.
|
| > 3h down to the 1h
|
| That completely depends on the details of your route and
| ignores lots of possible aspects. As a universal statement
| its just outright false.
| heftig wrote:
| No, they're talking about the local connections that are
| covered by the ticket. They're that bad.
|
| I've had similar experiences commuting into Cologne where
| it's 40 minutes by car or 2 hours by train, and that's
| without delays. In the rush hours it's 60 minutes by car.
| A missed train connection adds another half hour.
| Glawen wrote:
| In that case, you better take the car. I have 40min car
| commute or 1h30 by train, of course i'm taking my car in
| that situation.
| dgellow wrote:
| 3h, that's like Hamburg-Berlin, and would not be covered by
| the Deutschland ticket anyway
| pjmlp wrote:
| I wish, more like 80km, with the luck to jump between
| bus, two connecting trains, plus bus on the destination,
| and better not lose any of those connections.
| blueflow wrote:
| The density is not that great, its not good enough if you
| don't have a car.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > you are never far from a train station
|
| What exactly do you mean by that? "never far" as in "always
| within walking distance"? That would be very wrong.
|
| The other factor is that frequency of service is low outside
| of major cities. At the need to change and a small-distance
| trip can take a couple of hours.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| I wonder, would a foldable bike be a solution ?
| Rotundo wrote:
| This helped those people too. There is considerably less
| traffic cutting commute time significantly.
| lispm wrote:
| > Except this only helped the folks living close to big train
| station hubs
|
| Every city has public transport.
|
| There is a large density of public transport throughout the
| country: trains, local trains, underground trains, busses,
| ferries, ...
|
| The ticket is valid there, too.
| pjmlp wrote:
| There is a big difference between doing 1h with car, and 3h
| with public transport.
| lispm wrote:
| maybe 3 hours in the car and 1h with public transport.
|
| if you are in the rushhour and a traffic jam (not an
| unusual problem), then the train will be faster. Plus one
| can work in the train or relax.
|
| My regional train here 20km going into the city center is
| impossible to beat by car.
|
| 77.77% of the people live in cities. 55% live in cities
| with >20k people. Generally Germany is a decentralized
| country with a lot of regions with local center cities.
| There are 15 cities with >500k people. France has only
| four.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Nope, it suffices to live 80 km away from workplace, and
| not being lucky to live in places with direct
| connections, where at least three changes are required,
| with local connection bus, two train changes, plus
| additional bus/metro/tram on destination.
| lispm wrote:
| You don't need to be lucky to live in places with good
| connections. There are many such places.
|
| That car traffic has generally less problems than the
| train system is a myth. Check the ADAC traffic event
| overview on a random workday.
| pjmlp wrote:
| And yet Bahn manages to outdo the Autobahn chaos without
| much effort, and better not lose those hourly regional
| bus connections.
| epolanski wrote:
| You mean the other way around.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| It really depends on a lot of factors but I generally
| agree that many people vastly overestimate the time
| savings of taking a car.
|
| And that's before we get into questions like "How many of
| your hours of paid work are required to make car
| payments, insurance payments, tag, title and
| maintenance?"
| pjmlp wrote:
| Not at all, it is that bad in many areas, not everyone
| lives in Berlin.
| lispm wrote:
| There are a lot more cities with good public transport...
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| True, but that's how trains work.
|
| As a counter example I live in Rome where city trains are the
| best public transport available and house prices are heavily
| linked to closeness to subway or train station, yet we still
| are the city with most cars per capita in Europe and probably
| in the whole west.
|
| If only those living close to train stations used trains it
| would massively reduce the need for cars and consequently the
| heavy traffic we usually experience.
|
| I live 15 minutes walking from the closest station and it's so
| much better to go to work by train than by car, the trip is
| shorter, I don't have to drive, find a parking spot, a legal
| one, where I can't be fined and don't have to pay for it, while
| on the train I can read and air conditioning actually works and
| train cars are usually not crazy full like subway ones.
|
| TL:DR that's how trains work they are not supposed to solve
| every commuting problem but the solvable ones
| Sakos wrote:
| It helped anybody and everybody that wanted to travel for any
| reason. It meant I could go to the nearest big city to catch a
| movie at an IMAX theatre, something that was significantly more
| expensive before. You don't need a big train station hub to
| have trains, and you only need a few trains or buses to make up
| for the cost and make it worth it. Since, you know, it applies
| to buses as well. I live in a small shithole town, and it's
| extremely convenient to have the Deutschlandticket because it
| means I can take the bus to anywhere in the area, including the
| nearest train station, and I can take a train to anywhere I
| want from nearby towns to cities hours away. Even though I own
| a car again, I still have the ticket because of how useful it
| is and how much money it saves.
|
| I don't understand how anybody can paint this as a bad thing.
| Are you also against universal health care by any chance?
| eesmith wrote:
| Just about all of which used to have train service, right?
|
| I mean, in the US I've been to a lot of small towns where there
| is no train service, but the old station is still there, with
| the rails all torn out and replaced with houses, or roads, or
| bike paths.
|
| And in the UK, the infamous Beeching cuts in the 1960s removed
| lines based on a profitability model which wasn't applied to
| roads, causing many communities to lose rail service and
| essentially require everyone there to shift to cars (replacing
| trains with bus service failed.)
|
| How much of Germany is like that, where the people in the
| country insisted on good roads for their cars, causing the rail
| system to be decommissioned, and now they are stuck with that
| decades-old decision to prioritize the more environment
| destroying option?
| chgs wrote:
| Most beeching stations were of no use- the service wasn't
| there. The village my son's school is at had a station, a
| mile out the middle, with 5 trains a day. You would have to
| change to another train to get to a station with a regular
| service to London, and increasing services wouldn't be
| possible without significantly increasing terminal capacity.
|
| Menawhile the far larger village I live in has never had a
| station.
|
| Some lines would be useful nowadays and could possibly be
| worthwhile, but there was no realistic way to know which
| should have been kept in the 60s. Far better would be to stop
| all the nonsense and just start digging new lines. But we
| proved we can't do that - look at the billions of pounds
| spent attempting to appease the millionaires in
| Buckinghamshire with tunnels. Billions the m40 never had to
| spend.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > But we proved we can't do that - look at the billions of
| pounds spent attempting to appease the millionaires in
| Buckinghamshire with tunnels
|
| Some political groups will never be happy, I wonder if
| better strategy is confrontating them then appeasing them.
| At least would have kept the budget down
| eesmith wrote:
| That's really not my point.
|
| Okay, now the village has no train service, so they are
| required to use cars or buses to get around.
|
| Then the UK introduces a "UK ticket", PS50/month for local
| train service anywhere in the UK.
|
| If those villagers protest against the ticket, because it's
| funded by their taxes while they can't use it, how should
| we understand that complaint?
|
| One way is to use their anger to justify shutting down the
| new ticket scheme. This is typical us-vs-them politics.
|
| A second is to say "suck it you car-addicted freaks", as if
| they had a choice in the matter and were not stuck with the
| results of decisions made during their grandparents' time.
|
| A third is to re-connect train services, an option made
| much more expensive by the decision to not bank the rail
| lines for possible future expansion; a hidden debt which
| must now be paid.
|
| But then who will pay those costs?
|
| Simply saying 'only helped the folks living close to big
| train station hubs, across the country there are plenty of
| places where the car is the only viable option' is entirely
| too simplistic to be meaningful.
| chgs wrote:
| My village - which is far larger nowadays - never had a
| station.
|
| Subsidising buses like the PS2 fare makes far more sense
| for most people than subsidising trains. Not that we get
| a bus which goes anywhere useful like a train station
| there's 6 a day but you then need to change to another
| bus to get to the station.
|
| Offering free parking at stations would help with a
| "living close to station" lot. I went to Birmingham a few
| weeks ago, choice is drive 30 minutes to station, pay
| PS12 to park, then pay PS17 for the train fare. Instead I
| just drove the extra 40 minutes and paid PS10 to park in
| Birmingham.
| eesmith wrote:
| > Offering free parking at stations
|
| From everything I've read, that's a huge subsidy. It
| takes land away from people willing to live without a
| car, and who would pay to be in walking distance from the
| station.
|
| Put subsidized parking around a station and you lose that
| tax base, and encourage even more car dependency.
|
| Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts#Replacem
| ent_buse... and you'll see why you need to bribe people
| with cheap parking to use the trains:
|
| > The assumption at the time[citation needed] was that
| car owners would drive to the nearest railhead (which was
| usually the junction where the closed branch line would
| otherwise have taken them) and continue their journey
| onwards by train. In practice, having left home in their
| cars, people used them for the whole journey. Similarly
| for freight: without branch lines, the railways' ability
| to transport goods "door to door" was dramatically
| reduced. As in the passenger model, it was assumed that
| lorries would pick up goods and transport them to the
| nearest railhead, where they would be taken across the
| country by train, unloaded onto another lorry and taken
| to their destination. The development of the motorway
| network, the advent of containerisation, improvements in
| lorries and the economic costs of having two break-bulk
| points combined to make long-distance road transport a
| more viable alternative.
|
| You've built a lot of your country around car transport
| (and diesel trains instead of electrification). Less than
| we did in the US, certainly, but the fundamental problem
| is to reduce the severity of the greenhouse crisis. If
| rail subsidies reduce CO2 emissions and parking
| subsidized does not, then why do the latter?
| panick21_ wrote:
| People talk a lot of nonsense about 'Beeching cuts' without
| really understanding the history. 'Beeching' has simply
| become a political buzzword anybody who knows even a little
| about rail likes to bandy about.
|
| Lines started closing around the 1930s and after WW2 this
| continued. Beeching was only working on this topic a short
| time and produced a report that suggested lots of things.
| Some of those things were done, others weren't. Cuts happened
| before Beeching and after him. And they happened during
| various different railroads organization schemes.
|
| That it was strictly about profitability is also false. If
| anything it was about cost. They believed in future buses
| (and yes cars) would take car of those communities. At that
| time bus services were often government run.
|
| And Beeching was actually correct in many cases. The British
| rail system was simply not rationally build. It was basically
| built by partly speculation driven rush. While this is not a
| bad and certainly gave Britain a great rail system, once you
| have centralized control it does actually make sense to
| reevaluate. Lots of lines didn't make rational sense to
| continue.
|
| Now of course I agree that to many lines were closed that
| shouldn't have been closed. But that is only a small part of
| the issue with the rail system. Britain still has a pretty
| high rail density.
| eesmith wrote:
| > Beeching
|
| The Beeching report of course cut no lines. It was just a
| report. By "Beeching cut" I mean the systemic policy of the
| time of prioritizing roads over rail, using the report as
| synecdoche.
|
| > They believed in future buses (and yes cars) would take
| car of those communities.
|
| That belief is the core of my comment, not the specific
| details of which lines were cut.
|
| Once the lines are torn up, and the land not banked for
| future possible reuse, it's very hard for a car-centric
| area to switch away from cars.
|
| How much should the sore feelings of those consigned to
| live in a car-only area affect the decision to promote rail
| service in order to reduce CO2 emissions?
|
| In my opinion, zero.
|
| > That it was strictly about profitability is also false.
| If anything it was about cost.
|
| When I wrote 'profitability model' I wasn't saying it was
| strictly about profitability. The report clearly uses
| profitability as one of the driving factors, but not the
| only factor.
|
| My point is that the model which lead to statements like
| "As soon as the required procedure permits, it is desired
| to withdraw those passenger train services which are
| clearly uneconomic" was not applied to roads. Outside of a
| few toll roads and bridges, the direct earnings of a road
| is zero, resulting in an expected loss in total gross
| revenue.
|
| The environment impact to the cuts clearly wasn't included,
| but neither was the implied increased demand for new roads,
| nor the higher road maintenance costs, much less concepts
| of induced demand that Leeming was just then formulating.
| panick21_ wrote:
| What's your definition of 'big train station hubs'? There are
| plenty of places that have small train station that connect to
| bigger hubs. The claim that its only useful for people close to
| 'big hubs' is simply false.
|
| Yes there are places where cars are better in some aspects, but
| that is the case no matter how the ticket is structured. You
| can't magically extend the train network by reducing ticket
| price.
|
| And if cars are the only viable option is questionable, as
| there are many people even in those places who don't own a car.
| They just have to live with subpar bus system or other local
| transport.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Well, of course, if we didn't have traffic ministers again and
| again, who do everything they can to make rail less attractive
| and road more attractive, then we could probably have a great
| system. But automobile lobby is so strong, they buy all the
| politicians in that role, probably even before they land in that
| role, so I guess normal people will have to keep suffering, so
| that those politicians can have a life of luxury. Thank you.
| gacklecackle wrote:
| Automobile lobby? That's BS. The German rail system has been
| cost-saved to death, it now barely handles the increased
| passenger volume as a result of the D-Ticket. Overcrowded
| trains, even more delays and train cancellations (b/c of
| insufficient staff coverage, malfunctioning doors, etc.) even
| with S-Bahn trains are getting out of hand. "Transitwende" my
| ass! Same with the "Energiewende".
|
| How i envy the Dutch and Belgian transport situation!
| Fanmade wrote:
| I don't get why you would write your first two sentences. It
| is very obvious how the automobile lobby has a direct
| influence here. Here is an excellent documentary (in German)
| that analyzes the issues with the DB.
| https://youtu.be/-dmtNToFwuI?si=3ydA_QOjzOvTke2_&t=480 At the
| linked time stamp, they mention that every minister of
| transport in the very influential period from 2009-2021 came
| from Bavaria, with heavy influence from companies like Audi,
| MAN, and BMW.
| hobofan wrote:
| > The German rail system has been cost-saved to death
|
| Yes, because the the traffic ministers allocate the spending
| of their resort to the Autobahn instead of the Deutsche Bahn.
| petesergeant wrote:
| I really really would like to see Labour in the UK to use their
| sizeable majority + Parliamentary sovereignty to upgrade the UK's
| infrastructure, including more train subsidies, but they seem
| very cautious and also terrified of raising taxes. Such a waste
| that the UK is one of the few places where Parliament could just
| ram shit through and yet building anything in the UK is so
| hampered by self-imposed red tape.
| chgs wrote:
| 15 years of all major parties supporting hs2 and it couldn't be
| rammed through
|
| Want to improve things for people in the UK, ram through
| massive new housing akin to the newtowns of 50 years ago.
| panick21_ wrote:
| HS2 was an ongoing project, it was threw. It was simply
| cancled by a fucking asshat person who tried to appeal to the
| far right in a series of stunts to save his sorry ass.
|
| New housing has to be built along transportation corridors.
| If you want to efficiently build housing, you have to extend
| transportation infrastructure into areas and then grow towns
| around that.
|
| This isn't actually hard and has been done for 100 years but
| somehow in modern day many countries are to stupid to
| understand this.
| chgs wrote:
| HS2 spent years and billions trying to keep the moaners in
| the chilterns happy. The number of tunnels is insane.
|
| The M40 didn't have this problem.
|
| Yes transportation goes without saying. Places like Telford
| and Milton Keynes and the likes. There are tons of places
| on the WCML that could have MK style communities.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > through massive new housing akin to the newtowns of 50
| years ago
|
| New towns will just be full of commuters and have no life in
| them. We need to build high rises in cities, and give people
| living in apartments real rights - the leasehold system is
| feudalism.
|
| And give Manchester and Birmingham real metro/tube systems!
| flooow wrote:
| Lots of people seem surprised that the new government
| apparently have no desire to improve the dire state of the UK.
| But that was never on the cards and the idea that they might
| have done so is pure projection. The current leadership of the
| Labour party are from the right-wing Labour First faction who
| have always been very clear that their aims are not to improve
| the country but to keep the left out of power. They will govern
| in the same business-as-usual nothing-can-ever-get-better vein
| as the Tories and their Blairite predecessors.
|
| However I don't blame the public for not knowing this fact.
| There was (and to some extent still is) a media lockdown on
| reporting who is behind the Starmer project. (Because if it had
| been reported on it might not have succeeded).
| surfingdino wrote:
| Terrified of raising taxes? I dunno, they are planning to raise
| taxes and introduce new ones. Cautious? Not in the least.
| Walking into one PR disaster after another.
|
| There is no way to fix the UK railways, because it would
| require expensive engineering projects and purchase of private
| land/properties at low prices. People would vote them out as
| soon as they could. So no chance of that happening anytime
| soon.
| jdietrich wrote:
| Providing these EUR49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of
| around EUR3bn, on top of already substantial subsidies for the
| rail industry. If we accept that it reduces carbon emissions by
| 6.7 million tonnes per year, then that works out to EUR447 per
| tonne. That really isn't good value - most carbon abatement
| methods cost well under $100 per tonne.
|
| I do recognise that modal shift towards rail may have other
| positive externalities, but I don't know how to price any of
| them.
|
| https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/ghg-abatement...
| szundi wrote:
| Secret plan of car driving politicians to decrease the traffic
| for themselves
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| When you say "carbon abatement" do you mean carbon
| credits/cleanup or other ways of emitting less of it in the
| first place?
| V__ wrote:
| > already substantial subsidies for the rail industry
|
| Though to be fair, there are also substantial subsidies for the
| whole road network.
| theendisney4 wrote:
| Roads are much more efficient with fewer cars.
| kachapopopow wrote:
| The weather would like to have a word with you.
| bmoxb wrote:
| By what metric?
| lispm wrote:
| A German study from 2021 says road traffic created 70
| billion euros costs per year. Of that 45 billion had to be
| paid from general taxes.
| msandford wrote:
| This was phrased poorly if I understand the meaning.
|
| "If there is limited use, roads are more efficient than
| rail"
|
| That's probably true as roads tend to cost less per mile
| than rail and you don't have transfer problems.
|
| When heavily utilized the opposite is true: rail is more
| efficient than roads.
| theendisney4 wrote:
| I dont know how things are in germany but in the
| netherlands a lot more people own cars which slows down
| traffic.
|
| All over the world they keep rebuilding congestion points
| only for traffic to increase.
|
| If making public transport cheaper attracts more
| travelers there will be fewer cars on the road. The money
| spend on public transport will aso make car travel more
| efficient. Roads will last longer. Fewer upgrades are
| needed. Cars will last longer. etc
|
| It is hard to picture how many cars it takes to move a
| train full of people.
|
| > 7.6 percent fewer kilometres travelled by car.
|
| > German cars were recorded to have travelled 582.4
| billion kilometers.
| taberiand wrote:
| That's why motorists should always vote for more public
| transport, instead of increasing road lanes - road per user
| is improved if you reduce the number of other cars
| jdietrich wrote:
| Road vehicles are heavily taxed in European countries. I
| don't have the figures for Germany, but the UK spends PS12bn
| per year on roads, while it collects PS25bn in road fuel duty
| and PS7bn in vehicle excise duty.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/298675/united-kingdom-
| uk...
|
| https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-
| spend/...
|
| https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-
| spend/...
| V__ wrote:
| Vehicle, gas and similar taxes are about EUR50bn in
| Germany. The cost of the road system is about EUR70bn.
|
| [1] https://www.forschung-und-
| wissen.de/nachrichten/oekonomie/au...
| taffer wrote:
| According to a study by the HTW Berlin, Germany collects
| EUR50 billion in road taxes and duties, but spends EUR30
| billion on road maintenance and EUR30 billion on traffic
| police and road accident victims. Add to this an estimated
| EUR10-30 billion in environmental damage due to air and
| noise pollution.
| threeseed wrote:
| There are also deaths caused by road accidents and health
| issues caused by pollution.
|
| Those have real economic impacts which aren't being
| reflected in the true cost of cars.
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| > Providing these EUR49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of
| around EUR3bn
|
| and how was this number actually calculated?
| jdietrich wrote:
| https://urban-mobility-
| observatory.transport.ec.europa.eu/ne...
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| just around 2 billion
| iggldiggl wrote:
| Where are you reading that? The 2 billion (2.3 billions
| exactly) figure was for _2023_ and only covered the
| period from the ticket 's introduction in May through to
| December, i.e. only two thirds of a fully year.
| ccppurcell wrote:
| I find the word subsidy to be a possible weasel word here. I
| don't know all the details but a railway system has certain
| costs (fuel, personnel, water, upkeep, the trains themselves
| and so on) and takes in a certain amount of revenue (fares and
| subsidies, also food etc). It might be true that the government
| increased the subsidy in order to support the cheaper tickets.
| But that's not the same as "requires". Perhaps I'm splitting
| hairs but there's a strong danger of comparing apples and
| oranges if these things aren't spelled out imo.
| Swizec wrote:
| Here's another way to think about it: Germany invested N
| billion into shifting behavior to rail.
|
| How many billions in subsidies has OpenAI gotten to build us
| a chatbot?
| vkreso wrote:
| You mean another example of apples and oranges?
|
| Is software and transportation really a good example?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I'm not aware of any subsidies openAi has received. Did I
| miss something or is this one of the situations we're we
| are making up new definitions for words?
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > I'm not aware of any subsidies openAi has received.
|
| It is rumored that the military (and perhaps three-letter
| agencies) has/have special contracts with OpenAI. This
| can definitely be called a subsidy.
| punchmesan wrote:
| A contract isn't a subsidy... A subsidy would be giving
| them dollars without any particular strings attached
| except perhaps to use those funds to develop the product.
| If the contract is to provide money in exchange for
| services, that's called a transaction.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| I see it differently: for example the fact that the US
| government spends a lot of money on military can in my
| opinion clearly be called a subsidy for the military-
| industrial complex.
| punchmesan wrote:
| So then if the government buys pens and reams of paper,
| then it's the government subsidizing office supply
| stores? But it's not a subsidy if a corporation spends
| money on the same supplies?
|
| My employer does business with the DoD and with private
| corporate entities. Both the government and the private
| sector spend the same money and receive the same products
| and services. I appreciate that you have a different
| perspective, but I have a hard time considering my
| employer "subsidized by the US government" just because
| the government purchases our product.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > So then if the government buys pens and reams of paper,
| then it's the government subsidizing office supply
| stores?
|
| If the government is a particularly important customer:
| yes.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| It's important to distinguish between an operational cost
| and capital investment here.
|
| If rail usage continues once the spending stops then it's
| an investment. Otherwise is an operating subsidy.
| chii wrote:
| paying for part of the ticket is not an investment, as
| there's no residual value from this payment. An
| investment must have some sort of residual value, which
| over time, is recouped and perhaps even makes a return
| (hopefully).
| ericmay wrote:
| I'm not sure if it's the case here with Germany, but
| typically we refer to transit spending like this as
| "subsidies" but for some reason we forget that building and
| maintaining roads and highways and such are subsidies too.
|
| In the case of the US and probably everywhere else, the
| highway subsidies are a little insidious too because not only
| do you pay a boatload of money for highway expansion you have
| to then go and buy an expensive car and fuel too.
| gruez wrote:
| >not only do you pay a boatload of money for highway
| expansion you have to then go and buy an expensive car and
| fuel too.
|
| the federal excise tax on fuel pays for (at least in part)
| the "boatload of money for highway expansion "
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Not much. A lot more comes from state funding, which can
| be anything from property tax to sales tax to additional
| fuel taxes. Because you pay about the same fuel tax per
| mile on a 60 mph road as a 25 mph road (but the 60mph
| road costs 100x as much), you also find driving on slow
| roads becomes a subsidy to building fast roads.
| diordiderot wrote:
| No it doesn't.
|
| Fuel tax income is ~100 Billion
|
| Road expenditures are ~200 Billion
|
| (Combined state and federal)
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| Don't forget too that the cost of proving roads is also
| 'subsidised' in most countries, but we're tend to be a bit
| blind to that.
|
| (This is not an argument against rail - I just find that
| subsidies are often mentioned with respect to rail but not
| with roads).
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Calculating the subsidy associated with state maintenance
| of roads for private vehicles is difficult.
|
| Some basic level of signage and hazard prevention
| (potholes, ice etc) is necessary for emergency vehicles and
| other government operations.
|
| Thereafter, although there is some maintenance cost
| associated with the road wear from private vehicles and the
| additional infrastructure required for higher traffic
| volumes, we don't have an easy way to calculate the cost.
| clhodapp wrote:
| Wouldn't the very patterns of development be different
| (and more amenable to rail) if the state didn't spend
| oodles of money building nice roads to make sprawl
| livable?
| treflop wrote:
| Sprawl happens when there is available undeveloped land.
| Roads are just a symptom.
|
| People build outwards first and then upwards.
| Arainach wrote:
| There is plenty of undeveloped land that people don't
| move to because there are no roads to get to.
|
| We have more than a century of data showing that roads
| are subject to induced demand. If you build more roads,
| people move and sprawl (and take more trips in general)
| until traffic is once again unbearably bad.
|
| If you build more lanes, more people move further out.
| Roads create sprawl.
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| And active urban planning avoids sprawl.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| At a high level, urbanisation rates increased through the
| road building binge of the 20th century.
|
| Perhaps those new migrants to cities would've chosen to
| stay in the countryside without roads? Worsening the
| economics of rail.
|
| Or maybe they'd use their collective voting power to get
| more rail friendly new towns built?
|
| I don't think the answer is obvious.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Before the road building binge there was the rail
| building binge, though limited to the largest cities.
|
| As an example, see the history of the Metropolitan Line
| in London.
| xg15 wrote:
| Also bridges and tunnels, which seem to be very expensive
| to maintain.
| halostatue wrote:
| I disagree that it's difficult: excepting toll roads and
| "unassumed" roads++, the subsidy is 100% (and most toll
| roads are likely subsidized at a substantial fraction of
| their cost, since the tolls are rarely high enough to be
| self-sufficient).
|
| It doesn't matter whether the money used to pay for road
| maintenance comes from property taxes (like in Toronto),
| income taxes (Ontario areas not maintained by cities /
| regions / counties), or gas taxes (much of the U.S.?). If
| you're not paying per use of the road, there is a 100%
| subsidy on the maintenance of the road.
|
| There are definite costs to _not_ maintaining those roads
| (people won 't move where there aren't roads;
| unmaintained roads will result in more costs to the
| people using those roads as their vehicles are damaged
| more frequently--which may result in costs to the
| municipality for not properly maintaining those roads),
| but we should not pretend roads are self-sustaining or
| aren't entirely subsidized.
|
| ++ Unassumed roads are those built privately by the
| landowners in common and are not maintained by the local
| government. When used for private dwellings, these roads
| _usually_ fall under the sway of the local government
| after a period of time, even if they were built initially
| by a subdivision subcontractor.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| People don't think of it as a subsidy because they are not
| charged per use a la toll road.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| People also pay fuel tax, registration tax, and other
| taxes that fund the roads
| usefulcat wrote:
| I think the point is that if they had to do those things
| every time they used a road it would be more obvious
| (like buying a train ticket).
| komali2 wrote:
| They do have to do it every time, through the fuel tax.
| Driving costs fuel. I guess people just don't think of it
| though.
| chii wrote:
| it's not a subsidy if it's a user-pays system.
|
| A subsidy is only a subsidy if users don't necessarily
| pay the full cost, and the rest is borne by some other
| group of people who _don't_ use the service.
| geysersam wrote:
| One issue is that people often benefit from
| infrastructure without explicitly using it.
|
| Example, road network isn't paid by car owners. But non-
| drivers clearly benefit from the road network, is the
| road network subsidized?
|
| Other example, people who rarely take the train still
| benefit from rail infrastructure (freight, reduced
| congestion etc). Is the rail network subsidized?
| komali2 wrote:
| Oh to clarify on that point, the majority of roadwork is
| paid for by property taxes in I believe everywhere in the
| USA. Certainly in Texas.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| In the United States, often a large amount of road
| funding comes from property tax, so it has nothing to do
| with operating a car.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| At least in the US, those taxes are nowhere near enough
| to pay for maintenance, let alone new construction. The
| rest is a straight subsidy from the general fund,
| typically paid for by passing the debt to our children.
| geysersam wrote:
| Do you think that covers the cost of building and
| maintaining the road network infrastructure?
|
| Do you think that it covers the cost of excess death
| caused by particle emissions and road fatalities?
|
| We don't have the option to completely replace car
| infrastructure, but we shouldn't act like it isn't
| heavily subsidized.
|
| That said, the positive externalities are also
| significant, but so are the positive externalities from
| rail traffic.
| ozim wrote:
| Everyone has access to a road. Not everyone has access to
| rail. No business can run without access to road, most
| businesses can run without access to rail.
|
| There is basically no way to compare rail vs roads and
| making some arguments based on that.
| geysersam wrote:
| Everyone who don't own a car have significantly less
| access to roads than someone who do.
|
| Of course it's possible to compare the advantages and
| drawbacks of different modes of transport. No society can
| function without roads, but it's still a question of
| priorities.
| jjav wrote:
| > Everyone who don't own a car have significantly less
| access to roads than someone who do.
|
| Most weeks I spend more hours cycling on these roads than
| driving.
| geysersam wrote:
| Imagine how much less maintenance cost your biking causes
| than driving a car.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| > Everyone has access to a road. Not everyone has access
| to rail.
|
| Similar argument can be made about highways to which not
| everybody has (direct) access, they are not a matter of
| life and death for most businesses and are heavily
| subsidized.
| stephen_g wrote:
| You don't generally see figures from any jurisdiction
| (and I've seen numbers for a lot of countries and states)
| where those charges and taxes make much more than 50% or
| so of the actual costs of building and maintaining road
| networks, and that's just the actual spend before even
| trying to quantify all the social and environmental
| costs!
| OJFord wrote:
| I don't really follow that, a toll is a way for it not to
| be (or to be less) subsidised?
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| I remember Brad deLong did back of the napkin analysis to
| determine how much a bart fare should be including the cost
| of freeways. It was minus $2.00 or something.
| kortilla wrote:
| It's not a weasel word, it's a word used to describe any
| program provided by the government that does not bring in
| enough revenue on its own to pay for itself.
|
| The same word applies to roads that do not pay for themselves
| through gas tax and/or tolls.
|
| If the government pays for something through a general fund
| from income/property/corporate taxes, it's subsidized.
|
| It's important to call these out whenever they are because it
| means the program is not sustainable on its own and that puts
| it at risk during austerity, etc.
| eschaton wrote:
| > not sustainable on its own
|
| Or it is something that provides a benefit to society as a
| whole and therefore deserves to be maintained by the
| institution established by society to do such things,
| government, without assuming economic efficiency is 100%
| correlated with societal benefit.
| kortilla wrote:
| Yes, that's the argument for all subsidized things.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >The same word applies to roads that do not pay for
| themselves through gas tax and/or tolls.
|
| I'm German and I can tell you it really does not. Like in a
| lot of countries car infrastructure is treated like the
| state of nature, it's just somehow there, and the
| infrastructure burden of parking, road construction and
| what have you isn't a topic. It's the 'default culture' and
| the support it gets is just the status quo, when you try to
| internalize the cost you cause a shitstorm. Look at how
| well surge pricing or road toll debates go over in most
| places, or how sensitive people are to fuel prices.
|
| Rail transport be it commercial or individual despite the
| fact that it's so much cheaper (in particular on emissions
| as well) is always one political decision away from being
| privatized or culled.
| immibis wrote:
| The far-right Berlin government is currently doing its
| darnedest to build the most expensive highway in all of
| Germany, that nobody actually wants, through a cultural
| area. Probably because their friend owns the highway
| construction company.
| okr wrote:
| Oh please, far-right? It is leftists, that sees
| everything beside them as far-right. I would call it
| conservative. Something the 'left' forgets, that there
| are also some real people, who do not want to pay for the
| leftist dreamworld. Yuck.
| nerdbert wrote:
| > people, who do not want to pay for the leftist
| dreamworld
|
| Except that time and time again, it turns out that the
| "leftist dreamworld" is actually cheaper.
|
| Providing subsidized housing for poor people costs less
| in the long run than dealing with homelessness.
|
| Providing nationalized or strictly regulated healthcare
| costs less than fully privatized systems where healthcare
| operators do as they please.
|
| Facilitating active transport such as bike lanes costs
| cities less, and moves more people more quickly, than
| focusing exclusively on cars.
|
| What these people actually want is not to save money, but
| to carefully ensure that any money spent suits only their
| preferences and identity groups rather than benefiting
| society as a whole.
| okr wrote:
| The thing is, it is never enough and ends up usually in a
| disaster and people lose their life, because their
| opinions get in the way.
|
| Subsidy kills innovation. There is no incentive anymore
| to make things better. You always must know someone, you
| can bribe, so that something gets done.
|
| I get it, hackernews is flooded with well meaning people
| making way more money than normal people do. They see,
| how 'unfair' the world is: why am i making so much more
| and they so little. It is the ground, where this
| despicable left mind virus can grow, and then they start
| to steal people's money for their grandiose ideas.
| immibis wrote:
| Then let's stop subsidizing cars and fossil fuels.
| okr wrote:
| Good luck!
| VancouverMan wrote:
| I don't see how any government, regardless of location,
| that spends large sums of taxpayer money on a
| construction project could ever be considered to be
| "right wing" in any way, let alone "far-right".
|
| Such behaviour fundamentally contradicts even the mildest
| of right-of-centre ideologies.
|
| An actual right-of-centre government would never even
| consider starting such a project.
|
| If a right-of-centre government happened to inherit one
| that had been started by a previous administration, for
| example, such a project would be immediately terminated,
| any assets liquidated, and the proceeds directly returned
| to the taxpayers.
|
| The only way that such a project would ever exist under a
| right-of-centre government would be if it were initiated,
| funded, built, operated, and maintained solely by the
| private sector, without any government involvement at
| all.
|
| Practices such as the collection of taxes, raising public
| debt, and government built/run infrastructure are part of
| left-of-centre ideologies, and certainly not right-of-
| centre in any way.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Unfortunately right wing parties throughout the West have
| been taken over by grifters, and anything like
| traditional conservatism has been tossed by the wayside.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| You're absolutely right that some political parties
| wrongly use a term like "conservative" in their party
| name, or otherwise incorrectly portray themselves as
| being "right wing".
|
| Ultimately, though, they're still left-wing parties in
| practice, pushing left-wing ideologies, regardless of the
| facade they might try to put up.
|
| A party doesn't just become "right wing" because they
| claim to be, especially when their actions and policies
| are decidedly left-wing.
| immibis wrote:
| Pray tell, was Adolf Hitler left or right wing?
| lolc wrote:
| Sure if you define terms in your own strict way you can
| write a long comment on how everybody else is using the
| term wrong. Why should people use your definition though?
| VancouverMan wrote:
| That isn't "my definition".
|
| Left-wing ideologies inherently promote concepts like
| collectivist big government, high taxation, massive
| government spending, and government-controlled
| infrastructure.
|
| Right-wing ideologies, on the other hand, inherently
| promote individualism, minimal to no taxation, minimal to
| no government spending, and privately-controlled
| infrastructure.
|
| That's just the fundamental nature of a two-dimensional
| political spectrum. It has nothing to do with me.
|
| Anyone claiming that a government exhibiting decidedly
| left-wing traits is somehow "far right" is simply making
| a wrong analysis.
| immibis wrote:
| This is observably false. One observation is that the US
| government debt grows more quickly when the Republican
| party is in power.
|
| What is true is that left-wing ideology promotes taking a
| bit from everyone to give a lot to everyone, while right-
| wing ideology does not promote giving a lot, or anything,
| to everyone, but often still promotes taking a bit, or a
| lot, from everyone and funneling it to places that do not
| benefit very many people.
|
| Leftists will promote plans like: tax carbon emissions
| and use the money to subsidize clean power plants.
| Rightists will enact (without promoting) plans like: give
| a lot of taxpayer money to this company for unclear
| reasons, and don't worry about how to raise the money -
| make it the next government's problem to deal with the
| debt pile. The latter is, of course, individualist.
| jjav wrote:
| > Right-wing ideologies, on the other hand, inherently
| promote individualism
|
| Right wing promotes authoritanism, which is pretty much
| the opposite of individual rights. Right wing governments
| stand for strict laws and strong enforcement, where the
| people must obey or else.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Left-wing ideologies inherently promote concepts like
| collectivist big government, high taxation, massive
| government spending, and government-controlled
| infrastructure.
|
| Incorrect. Left-wing ideologies promote downward
| distribution of power from established elites; one
| particular subset of left-wing ideologies (socialism)
| promotes labor control of the means of production, and
| one particular subset of socialism promotes a situation
| in which the working class controls the state which then
| acts as the vehicle through which control of the means of
| production is exercised (but libertarian socialism, for
| instance, also exists.)
|
| Right-wing ideologies instead promote systems which
| concentrate power in narrow elites; different varieties
| of right-wing ideology justify this based in various
| mixes kf views of inherent merit, whether based on
| sex/gender, race, individual bloodline, "revealed merit"
| in notionally competitive environments where capacity at
| time t is heavily influenced by success at t-1, or
| whatever else.
|
| You are confusing the left-right axis with the
| libertarian-authoritarian axis, which is a different axis
| of ideological (or sometimes merely praxis) variation.
| immibis wrote:
| Destroying "degenerate" cultural institutions is very
| much right wing; so is giving taxpayer money to cronies;
| so is overloading the government with debt.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| This entity you're describing clearly isn't "right wing"
| if it uses left-wing practices like taxation, public
| debt, and government-funded "cultural institutions"
| (whatever that actually means).
|
| Taxation is inherently a left-wing concept. Under right-
| wing ideologies, there would not be any taxpayer money to
| give "cronies" because such funds never would be
| collected from taxpayers in the first place.
|
| Public debt is inherently a left-wing concept. Under
| right-wing ideologies, there wouldn't even be any
| government entity capable of incurring debt.
|
| "Cultural institutions" involving the government are
| inherently a left-wing concept. Under right-wing
| ideologies, the government simply wouldn't have the
| resources to create "cultural institutions" and any such
| entities that did exist would be created, funded, and
| operated by the private sector alone.
|
| If you're truly upset about the things you just
| described, then it's because you dislike left-wing
| ideologies, even if you don't recognize it.
| immibis wrote:
| US debt increases much faster when the right wing is in
| power. This is an empirical fact which trumps theory.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > The same word applies to roads that do not pay for
| themselves through gas tax and/or tolls.
|
| More or less all non-toll roads (and a few toll roads too).
| Which makes "applies" seems a bit pointless.
| kortilla wrote:
| I don't think you know what the word "applies" means.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| If I tell you that the air is clear, and you respond
| "That applies to all air on earth", you've provided no
| additional information.
|
| If I tell you that humans are generally between zero and
| 120 years of age, and you respond "That applies to most
| humans", you've provided no additional information.
|
| If I tell you "most comments on HN are well-written and
| thoughtfully constructed" and you respond "That doesn't
| apply to yours", you've provided some additional
| information.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > the program is not sustainable on its own
|
| So arrest, investigation prosecution and imprisonment of
| anyone who steals from Amazon is a massive subsidy, since
| Amazon pays no tax.
| reshlo wrote:
| Not to mention the money spent on funding food stamps for
| Amazon's underpaid employees.
| immibis wrote:
| Yes. The government massively subsidises owning physical
| property.
| kortilla wrote:
| Amazon collects sales tax and most certainly pays
| property taxes that fund the law enforcement you are
| talking about.
| klipt wrote:
| Most of the value created by public transit goes into the
| land near the stations. Employers want offices near
| stations and employees want homes near stations.
|
| You can recover as lot more money from taxing the land than
| from fares.
| Sabinus wrote:
| I read about train infrastructure development that was
| privately funded and built from the profits from land
| speculation near the new stations.
| smcl wrote:
| > The same word applies to roads that do not pay for
| themselves through gas tax and/or tolls.
|
| It's very weird how people talk about roads as a sort of
| universal public good whose construction and maintenance
| needs to be financed by local authorities and taxation. Yet
| rail is expected to not just stand on its own two feet but
| to yield a profit. Both facilitate commerce and improve a
| regions productivity (rail inarguably does so with greater
| efficiency, especially when integrated into a public
| transport system) - why is rail treated so differently?
| nerdbert wrote:
| > why is rail treated so differently?
|
| Because there's a huge ecosystem that is substantially
| dependent on private use of roadways - car manufacturers,
| sellers, insurers, storage facilities, cleaners, and
| repairers; petrol extractors, refiners, transporters and
| sellers; and so on.
|
| Each of these parties has a vested interest in
| maintaining the perception that driving is the baseline
| mode of transport and anything else is a deviation from
| that which requires extra consideration before it should
| receive any resources.
|
| On the one hand that's also a lot of jobs and profits,
| but on the other hand if all this activity is in service
| of a mode of transport that causes considerable short and
| long-term damage, and is less efficient for many
| journeys, then it means we're wasting labor and resources
| that could be put to better use.
| zdragnar wrote:
| There's also a large percentage of the country that
| simply wouldn't benefit from rail in their day to day
| lives, because most of the country doesn't have the
| population density to make rail make sense. It would at
| best be an alternative to flying, assuming it didn't take
| longer.
|
| These are the same people for whom owning a car is an
| essential part of life.
| pfdietz wrote:
| And all those people are going to look at proposals for
| rail spending and say "what's in this for me?" This will
| produce strong headwinds to any rail expansion proposal.
| chii wrote:
| > why is rail treated so differently?
|
| roads are much cheaper per mile than rail, so you can
| have more roads than you can have rail.
|
| you can also have lower grade roads, which is once again,
| cheaper (so you can have more of it). You cannot have
| lower-grade rail - the train will crash.
|
| Therefore, to provide a massive network of transport,
| roads are the only option. Rail provide cheap point-to-
| point transport, but only make sense between heavily
| populated centers, and therefore, you can expect to make
| back the cost of the rail from this dense usage.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| This looks like a strawman. Nobody advocates for
| replacing roads with rail, it's about complementing.
|
| > Rail provide cheap point-to-point transport, but only
| make sense between heavily populated centers
|
| Yes, so the idea is to build rail for those use cases
| (which is somewhat the case in Europe, but not in US).
| pfdietz wrote:
| In the US, we see many places where rail has been
| abandoned. In the place I live (upstate NY, Finger Lakes)
| there are multiple walking trails that were previously
| locations of rail lines, which shut down more than half a
| century ago. The rails themselves are long gone. In some
| places you can see where earth was moved and concrete
| structures were installed to allow drainage. Maintaining
| these lines made no sense with the existence of a road
| network carrying motor vehicles. There are also abandoned
| canals from an even earlier time.
| Symbiote wrote:
| You have invented this.
|
| Rail can absolutely be made to different standards. High
| speed rail vs a tramway, and everything in between.
|
| Exactly as with roads, the more you pay the faster the
| vehicles can go. Except with close to zero accidents.
| xienze wrote:
| > It's very weird how people talk about roads as a sort
| of universal public good whose construction and
| maintenance needs to be financed by local authorities and
| taxation.
|
| Because you need roads to e.g., get produce from a farm
| to the grocery store. You can't have a functioning
| society that doesn't involve roadways for moving people
| and goods the "last mile."
| kortilla wrote:
| It's not different. The same word applies to both.
| drawkward wrote:
| Ths US military is not sustainable on its own...
|
| Or maybe, governments have programs that are funded by all
| to benefit all, because they are onlt beneficial when they
| are society-scale? 1/350,000,000th of the US army won't be
| very useful to any individual American on its own.
| kortilla wrote:
| Yes, that is the argument for subsidies. What's your
| point?
| drawkward wrote:
| There seems to be, implict in the term "subsidy," the
| notion that it is government largesse. My notion is to
| rebut that pointing out we do not expect a positive ROI
| on most government expenditures.
| arcticbull wrote:
| What's the subsidy to road and oil companies right now? Might
| be nice to just shift it over.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > requires an annual subsidy of around EUR3bn
|
| I suspect the key is to find ways to run railways cheaper. It
| has been a long time since railways were under severe cost
| competition encouraging people to look for efficiencies.
|
| I think the main one would be to find a way for railways to
| operate with no staff. Just like a typical road operates most
| of the time with no staff.
|
| That means you need to redesign everything that currently uses
| people to not need people. Sure - there would still be
| occasional maintenance - but nobody always on duty driving
| trains (automated), nobody selling tickets (online), nobody
| cleaning stuff (automated cleaning of trains inside and out)
| etc.
| luckylion wrote:
| I doubt that moves the needle a lot unless you're making
| _everything_ fully automatic, i.e. including the
| infrastructure creation & maintenance and streamline that
| extremely well.
|
| If you take a ride from Hamburg to Berlin with the ICE,
| there's maybe 8 staff on board, 200-300 passengers, it takes
| ~2 hours and the average ticket price is 77EUR according to
| some travel app.
|
| Even if you get rid of all 8 of them, the price per ticket
| isn't going to be lowered significantly.
| londons_explore wrote:
| But there is also the ~80 staff manning stations at each
| end and along the route, and more staff in the control
| room, the cleaning staff, the people who manually do
| maintenance checks every single night, etc.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| You can get rid of the cleaning staff right now. The
| terminals will become disgusting and people will stop
| using them. There is no way around this type of overhead.
| If you have larger numbers of people passing through, you
| need cleaning and maintenance.
|
| Your original point isn't even true - in California there
| is constant maintenance of the road network and crews of
| community service workers doing their sentence cleaning
| trash on the highway shoulder.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Roads still have far fewer staff per mile than railways,
| however you measure.
|
| In turn, that makes them cheaper.
| froddd wrote:
| Is there a source for this? Is this source heavily
| context-dependant?
| _visgean wrote:
| Lol, that depends heavily what you consider staff. E.g.
| look at freight, if you move cargo by trucks you need 1
| staff member (sometimes called drivers) per truck. Train
| on the other hand needs only 2 people per hundreds of
| meters of train...
|
| Even worse for individual car transport. You need one
| staff (driver) per vehicle...
| Paradigma11 wrote:
| Why would there be 8 staff on board? Isn't there typically
| one train driver and one attendant?
| luckylion wrote:
| I don't know. They have the restaurant car on some trains
| so that's another 2-3 people, and I really have no idea
| about their operation so I added some buffer. I wouldn't
| expect there to be more than 8 on a train unless it's
| some special event.
| macbr wrote:
| For some high speed routes there's a limit on how many
| carriages one attendant can supervise (maybe to ensure
| timely evacuation?) so a 12 carriage ICE train needs 3
| attendants to fully operate.
| MandieD wrote:
| The staff on board also contribute to keeping the train
| safe and pleasant - if there's an unruly passenger, or a
| washroom malfunctions, I'm happy to have paid a bit extra
| for my ticket for a couple of people to be on hand to deal
| with the problem instead of being trapped for two hours.
| enaaem wrote:
| In Japan, rail companies also own the land around the
| station. There is often a mall or office right on top of the
| station. So they capture a more of the value of having public
| transport.
|
| In western countries land lords benefit a lot from nearby
| public transport for free and maybe only contribute in taxes.
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| You see the same thing in Hong Kong - the rail company
| practically creates new towns when they add a new station
| or extend a rail line.
| Discordian93 wrote:
| I was under the impression Hong Kong was one big urban
| area already, is there really empty land new towns can be
| built on?
| verall wrote:
| Most of the new territories is not highly developed.
| Kowloon and hk island are both entirely urban.
| mkl wrote:
| Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong#Geography,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_towns_of_Hong_Kong.
| FabHK wrote:
| You can be smack in the middle of Central, and then walk
| up a path behind the Cathedral of the Immaculate
| Conception and be on Old Peak Road hiking up to Victoria
| Peak. Or be in Wan Chai, take the stairs next to the
| Rolls Royce car dealer, and be on Bowen Road Fitness
| Trail and in Aberdeen Park within minutes.
|
| HK island, New Territories, the outer islands and even
| large parts of Kowloon are predominantly green, parks and
| forests.
|
| As GP mentioned, occasionally the subway operator MTR
| will build a new station, build a shopping mall on top,
| and housing for 50,000 people.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| Originally, rail worked kind of like this in the US too.
| Alternating squares of land adjacent to tracks were ceded
| to railroads, so you'd have sections of public land and
| private land beside each other.
|
| I learned about this when someone was trying to make a test
| case of "corner crossing" from one patch of public land to
| another a while back.
| andrepd wrote:
| A Georgist Land Value Tax would fix this!
| okanat wrote:
| When installed and kept up properly with good policymaking
| railways are always a positive for the economy. They cause a
| huge amount of cheap movement that increases business
| activity. Little towns that become railway stops develop much
| faster. The bigger stations are great for shops and food. The
| access to education and high-value driving extracurricular
| activities increase for younger people too. They overall make
| the economy resilient against all sorts of crisis (energy,
| markets)
|
| The more railways are used for commuting, the less people are
| on the road. So it increases the road efficiency too and
| reduces degradation. Railways are great drivers of innovation
| and the technology they generate can be backported to cars,
| they are initial investment drivers.
|
| However, the first if/when is a big one. You can half ass
| roads. You pay compensation for a pothole every now and then
| and make small improvement to get votes. You cannot half ass
| railways. They require constant maintenance and a whole
| mindset built around them.
|
| Japan does railways correctly. China is getting there. The
| Netherlands is nearly a paradise of bike and railways.
| Germany isn't. The countries with almost the same culture,
| Austria and Switzerland, care much more about their railways
| and invest them properly however their government aligns.
| Germans keep electing the right wing party with their
| ministers of ~BMW~ transport and then complain about 50% of
| the non-cancelled trains are late and the maintenance cost of
| the falling apart rail system is quadrupled.
| intellix wrote:
| As someone who's been to both China and Japan I'd say
| railway is far ahead in China than the rest of the world.
|
| Again, according to GPT, the price per kilometre between
| them is EUR0.03-0.06 in China vs EUR0.15-0.26 in Japan.
|
| I know Japan has a lot of high speed rail coverage but so
| does China and the difference in price is absolutely
| insane.
|
| Rail between Beijing and Shanghai for example has an
| average speed of 300kmh. I believe their high speed network
| is vaster than Japan's.
| zdw wrote:
| Most of these numbers are probably due to differences in
| wages and the size of the respective countries.
| smrq wrote:
| If they aren't completely fabricated.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > That means you need to redesign everything that currently
| uses people to not need people
|
| Simplest redesign is running longer trains - they still need
| just 1 driver.
|
| Britain's trains are sometimes comically small (3 carriages)
| and overcrowded. French trains are 2-3x longer, Russia/China
| even more so.
|
| Second is standardisation - all of Uks train companies run
| different stock and it's ovsoleye
| SoftTalker wrote:
| At some point the train is longer than the station
| platform. Then you need to extend the platform, or
| passengers have to know that they need to be in specific
| cars to be able to exit.
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| When you rent each carriage from a rolling stock company
| you're incentivized to run as short trains as possible to
| keep them as full as a sardine can. Renationalize the whole
| lot.
| theluketaylor wrote:
| Longer isn't always better for trains. Longer trains need
| bigger platforms and stations are often the most expensive
| parts of the network. Big trains also weigh more, so they
| accelerate slower and have longer trip times.
|
| Weight savings can also translate into cheaper bridges and
| viaducts, though that's only true for dedicated track. If
| you're sharing with freight they are always going to be far
| heavier.
|
| Much better is upgrading signalling, automating the train,
| and running far more service because frequency is king for
| public transit. Many short trains at high headways vs less
| frequent long trains has the same total capacity but the
| short, frequent trains provide far more value. When people
| don't have to think about the schedule and can just show up
| and ride public transit is great.
|
| There are also limits to the value of standardizing rolling
| stock. You don't want every train set to be bespoke, but
| there is also danger in every train being exactly the same.
| If there is a parts shortage or identified design flaw your
| whole fleet can be grounded all at once. If you have some
| diversity you can limp along if one design has to be
| sidelined.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| Yeah, it seems that "self-driving trains" are a much, much
| more tractable problem than self-driving cars. On the other
| hand, the cost of the driver is amortized over many
| passengers, and much of the labor isn't driving but rather
| serving as conductor, etc, so it may not even matter too
| much.
|
| > automated cleaning of trains inside and out)
|
| For the outside, you can imagine a carwash.
|
| For the inside, my brain goes to scary dystopian places.
| Like, "what if we make the inside out of chemically-inert
| glass-based materials, and clean it by immersion in pirhana
| solution?" One would just need to recycle the solution, and
| recharge it with hydrogen peroxide. This would rule out the
| use of plastics in the interior, however.
|
| Maybe something more like a dishwasher could also work, but
| I'm not sure it'd be Strong Enough for Tough Stains. It could
| even just make a mess. I've heard stories of Roombas that
| encounter dog poop; they say it goes badly...
| thrance wrote:
| Opening the railways to competition has utterly ruined the
| UK's rail network. Ticket price has skyrocketed while service
| quality has fallen.
|
| In the 30s, French rail companies begged and lobbied the
| government to nationalize them, so they could exit the burden
| that was maintaining a rail network.
|
| Rail just isn't profitable, but is vital to society, and will
| become even more so as gas becomes increasingly
| expensive/lacking. Some things should just never be opened to
| competition.
| intellix wrote:
| According to GPT, the price per kilometre for rail travel
| is between EUR0.23-0.46 in the UK and EUR0.13-0.20 in
| Germany. I'm not able to verify those numbers but from my
| own personal experience I wouldn't doubt it.
|
| Rail in the UK is just so bad that I stopped using it to go
| to the airport. Everything is constantly delayed or
| cancelled like I can plan a journey to arrive 2hrs before
| my flight and the train will randomly pause for 1hr when
| I'm half way... also the luggage situation is extremely
| stressful as the racks are out of sight and generally full,
| like where else am I meant to put my large suitcase after
| that?
|
| It seems like trains are much larger in Europe with a lot
| of double deckers.
|
| If there's two of us it's easier and sometimes cheaper to
| pay PS100 for a taxi to the airport door to door (we're
| fairly rural)
| dingaling wrote:
| There is very little true competition on UK railways. Most
| services are run on Government-granted franchises which
| give a monopoly or at best a duopoly on specific routes.
|
| There are a handful of open-access train operators who
| operate outside the franchises, but they can't just decide
| to compete on a route if that route is already covered by a
| franchise.
|
| To create true competition, the infrastructure and stations
| would need to be taken into public ownership and the train
| operators would run whatever services they see fit.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| > To create true competition, the infrastructure and
| stations would need to be taken into public ownership and
| the train operators would run whatever services they see
| fit.
|
| The problem with that is that on a mixed-traffic railway
| it's very easy to run out of capacity once you have a
| mixture of trains with differing stopping patterns (and
| perhaps some freight on top) running along the same line.
| Once you reach that point, competition stops being
| directly about passengers and starts being about train
| paths, which can have rather annoying side effects for
| passengers.
|
| Plus connections don't really work well with competition,
| either, because a) that'd require coordination between
| possibly differing operators, which is anathema to
| unfettered competition, and b) where a regional feeder
| route might only run hourly or half-hourly, it's
| impossible to have good connections with more than one or
| at most two sets of connecting trains anyway.
|
| (Also c) through-ticketing with sufficient passenger
| rights in case you miss a connection enroute - at least
| the UK kept a national ticketing system even throughout
| privatisation and including all open-access operators,
| whereas in Germany it's an incompatible free-for-all,
| despite a legal obligation for railway companies to
| ostensibly offer through-tickets.)
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| That is so the wrong approach. If I'm very reductive, I could
| say that if we automate everything there would be no one to
| commute left. Staffing is good for people: for safety,
| information, help for the vulnerable, expertise, robustness
| of the system, etc.
|
| Perhaps some public services can't turn a profit but are
| still necessary. Perhaps they can turn a profit if even more
| people use them. Perhaps other economic models are needed for
| these companies, see for example Singapore and Hong Kong
| where the rail company owns the land at stations and are
| allowed to develop there which funds the network and
| incentivizes buildout.
| ericd wrote:
| The only carbon capture/sequestration method I'm aware of
| without significant tradeoffs outside of price is direct air
| capture, and last I saw, that clocked in at $600-1200/ton
| (Climeworks). So maybe not such a terrible deal?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Wetlands do a better job of carbon sequestration than trees.
|
| Globally, we've lost 85 percent of our wetlands since the
| 1700s.
|
| Maybe we should restore them.
| hedora wrote:
| The startups in this space were targeting $100/ton before the
| recent inflation hit.
|
| It turns out if you divide the $/ton by 100, you get $/gallon
| of gas equivalent.
|
| Burning a gallon of gas emits 20 lbs of CO2 (most of the
| weight is in the oxygen), and a ton is 2000 lbs.
|
| Anyway, at $6-12 dollars per gallon of gasoline, direct air
| capture is clearly much worse than just not burning oil. At
| $1-2, it's less than the current gasoline taxes in the US.
| asmor wrote:
| The system simply doesn't have more capacity right now.
|
| Germany neglected or even removed their rail infrastructure,
| especially for the past 25 or so years, after privatization.
| These "subsidies" are a course correction.
|
| These investments also make it a real pain to use the system
| right now, because a lot of lines are closing months at a time
| and the alternatives are already overloaded. I'd rather have a
| car for the next 5-10 years too - and I live very central with
| many connections.
|
| Here's a map of disruptions for reference:
| https://www.zuginfo.nrw/map.html#!P|HimSearch!histId|1!histK...
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Me and my wife are certainly considering getting a car. Cars
| are a pain in cities, but it would save literally hundreds of
| hours over the course of even a single year due to just how
| poor the infra is.
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| Everybody say it with me: "privatization of natural
| monopolies is dumb and wasteful!"
| jamil7 wrote:
| For people less familiar. Germany privatised its national
| rail company in the 90s but the federal government is the
| only shareholder. It's a weird model that doesn't make much
| sense. DB is a monopoly so the rules of competition don't
| apply (and don't work with railways anyway) it's led to
| perverse cost cutting incentives and fat bonus programs for C
| level employees. Combine that with a conservative
| government's austerity politics since the GFC and the whole
| system is at breaking point at the moment. Reforms and work
| is happening but the amount of work is staggering and means
| frequent line closures. DB estimates its trains to be running
| reliably in 2070.
| Pamar wrote:
| Expat in Germany since 2014. (Also, I do not own a car).
|
| I can confirm that Dbahn service was not so great from the
| start, and became noticeably worse after COVID.
|
| I live in Rostock. 2 weeks ago I landed in Hamburg at
| 2:30pm and tried to return home by train. Distance is 185
| km, and I arrived home at 10:00pm
|
| Reasons: works on the line that forced us to go to Lubeck
| first, then take two more regional trains to reach Rostock.
| On top of that, one train from Lubeck to the next stop was
| so full that a hundred passenger could not get in (me
| included).
|
| The next train was canceled.
|
| Finally we got a (packed) train at around 8pm.
|
| All "fine" except that this is the third time in the last
| 12 months that the same line undergoes maintenance forcing
| you to move to Lubeck first and adding 1 hour to your trip.
|
| Rostock-Berlin: similar story. For three times in the last
| year there were some problems between Oranienburg and
| Berlin, forcing you to either travel around it with a 1
| hour detour or to disembark in Oraniemburg and move to
| S-Bahn (sort like BART).
|
| In other words: railways are overstressed and failing
| repeatedly causing massive delays; Oraniemburg is 40km from
| Berlin Central Station. I find it unconceivable that you
| have to repair the same short segment thrice in 12 months.
| greyw wrote:
| So it is still a state enterprise in all but in name.
|
| The swiss federal railyway has the exact same model (a
| company fully owned by the federal government) and it works
| very well.
|
| Blaming the ownership model for the DB's woes is just wrong
| in my opinion. German railways have been chronically
| underfunded, overburdening the company with below cost
| ticket and the company has some perverse incentives with
| respect to rail maintenance and other things.
| barrkel wrote:
| Cars also have a huge subsidy in the form of roads
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| There are generally taxes (e.g., car or gas taxes) that cover
| the costs. I don't know about Germany's situation, but it is
| not impossible to make that net zero.
| eigenspace wrote:
| Not even close to net zero in Germany. Do you have any
| examples of countries where car and gas taxes do actually
| cover the cost of roads?
| threeseed wrote:
| In Australia, petrol tax raises ~18bn.
|
| Cost of road infrastructure is ~36bn.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| And these comparisons often exclude externalities like
| carbon emissions, pollution from tires and brakes, road
| accident costs, noise pollution and the cost of suburban
| sprawl.
| andrepd wrote:
| If you would even attempt it to make it net zero you would
| get truly ungodly amounts of pushback, I don't think you
| understand how bad it would be. Truly, for those used to a
| privilege, fairness is an attack.
|
| Furthermore: you have a state of affairs where you are
| pretty much forced to own and drive a car to e.g. get to
| work or move around. You make it reflect its true cost
| making it impossible to afford for anyone except the rich.
| What now?
| addandsubtract wrote:
| A more fitting complaint about cats would be the
| Pendlerpauschale, which is paid out to people driving to and
| from work in their car. It's a much larger sum than the EUR3b
| spent on the train ticket subsidy.
| okr wrote:
| I think it is an invalid argument. Please inform yourself
| about the reasoning before you post half truths.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| It used to be different, but these days that one is paid to
| everybody who commutes, no matter by which mode. And people
| who commute by public transport are actually slightly
| privileged, in that they can claim their actual ticket
| costs if that works out more advantageous, whereas
| everybody else is limited to the basic km-dependent
| allowance, even if their car commutes maybe actually costs
| more.
|
| And while there are arguments to be had about negative
| incentives posed by it with regards to incentivising people
| to commute farther than necessary, the original basic
| principle is quite simple: Just as companies are mostly
| only taxed on their profits, so workers ought to pay their
| income tax only on the money made _after_ deducting any
| work-related expenses.
|
| And Germany hasn't solved the cost-of-housing problem,
| either, so a certain degree of commuting is unavoidable. In
| fact, recently the housing minister basically declared her
| defeat by announcing that her latest plan for dealing with
| that problem wasn't building more where people want to live
| and can make a living, it was subsidising people to move
| back to the countryside.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Yes, lets subsidize the aviation and car industry more
| instead!!
|
| Face it, trains is the better option here.
|
| Bike and walk is best of course but troublesome long distance.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well it's not just a carbon credit, it also provides subsidized
| public transport to everyone, reduces congestion, improves city
| air and likely cuts road deaths. Arguably tax dollars extremely
| well spent.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Except that due to this cheaper ticket congestion on trains
| is horrible and since the infrastructure is poorly maintained
| it's quite common to be late by 1-2 hours while being packed
| in a sardine tin.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| That's a matter of train infrastructure and frequency
| keeping up with demand. There's a big lag there. You don't
| just buy 100 new trains overnight. It's a symptom of
| ramping up. Not of high usage.
|
| I live in Barcelona and here the metro comes every 2-3
| minutes. Even during the night it might be 7 minutes. This
| helps so much with congestion but also trip planning: no
| need to check train times before you go. Id imagine busy
| routes in Germany could do similar.
|
| The big benefit of this is also not needing a car. Not
| having to worry about maintenance, write-off, finding
| parking and the cost thereof, summer and winter tyres,
| damage, no-claim bonus, travelling while having drunk,
| going back from a different place than you arrived. It's so
| incredibly more convenient than having a car. All at a flat
| rate of 21EUR here.I hope never having to need one again.
| intellix wrote:
| EUR21.35 for a T-Usual card which allows unlimited travel
| on all public transport for 30 days, yet you still have
| people in here kicking and screaming to use their car and
| roads
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yeah this is true but it's a minority. And some people
| come from outside the city where it's more
| understandable.
|
| I think Ada Colau did really great pedestrianising
| streets like Consell de Cent, unfortunately Collboni
| doesn't seem to care as much.
| okr wrote:
| Thats the end goal of the leftist dreamworld. Make everyone
| equal, so that everything becomes more shittier. We need to
| educate more!
| oxfordmale wrote:
| This analysis is too simple. Roads need to be maintained, road
| accidents are a burden on the national health service and air
| pollution has a long term negative impact on people's health
| epolanski wrote:
| Why do you need to price them?
|
| Also, there are countries out there where the average tax payer
| subsidizes car drivers a lot too.
| risyachka wrote:
| Who said rail industry should be profitable in the first place?
|
| I would fully support if part of my taxes would subsidize rail
| industry and I get cheaper prices. Imo good use of tax dollars.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Maybe but it's also subsidizing travel for people, possibly
| increasing revenue for tourist spots and restaurants, it could
| keep people from buying a new ICE vehicle etc. It seems like
| one of those things that has a lot of benefits outside the
| immediate situation.
| postpawl wrote:
| Focusing on the cost-per-tonne for carbon reduction misses the
| broader value of railways. They're not just about reducing
| emission! They facilitate daily commutes, expand job
| opportunities, and help drive the economy. It's a subsidy for
| businesses too.
| dreadlordbone wrote:
| Doesn't having a car do this too?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Cars destroy walkability, cyclability, ability for kids to
| freely play outside, enable sprawl (hence more energy
| consumption hence more carbon emissions).
|
| There's no free lunch with using more surface area, which
| cars greatly expand people's ability to consume.
| dreadlordbone wrote:
| That's a goalpost moved from my response.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The poster you responded to wrote:
|
| > They're not just about reducing emission!
|
| Cars increasing emissions seems to be a relevant
| disqualifier.
| nsokolsky wrote:
| True to a degree but cars also make parenting easier: you
| get bigger houses, bigger backyards, don't have lug your
| kids around on public transit, deal with the weather,
| don't need to worry about rail worker strikes, etc.
|
| All America's missing is laws that allow kids to walk to
| school and adding more sidewalks to enable this, but this
| is changing over time (see Utah's free range parenting
| law).
| Aeolun wrote:
| Do bigger houses make parenting easier, do bigger
| backyards? I'm inclined towards a large communual yard (a
| park, if you will) being many times more efficient at
| keeping them busy, especially if you have a single child.
|
| Lugging your children around on public transit builds
| character that chauffeuring them around in a car does
| not. They'll be exposed to a variety of people and
| situations they'd otherwise never experience.
|
| Similar thing for the weather. I don't want my children
| to grow up thinking that any kind of weather limits their
| options if a car is not available.
|
| I realize my opinions might be different if I were living
| in a US city, just wanted to give a different
| perspective.
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| The other great thing about public transport is you don't
| have to "lug" / "chauffer" them at all after about 8 or
| so (what age makes sense depends on area and the kid of
| course). They can exercise some independence.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Maybe that's true in small, peaceful countries like
| Denmark, but in the US children "excersising some
| independence" would likely be kidnapped, raped or killed.
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| Are you sure that's true? How do you know?
|
| How much does it depend on where in the US you are?
| danaris wrote:
| This has never been significantly true, and becomes less
| true every year.
|
| The probability that any given child will be kidnapped or
| otherwise threatened by a stranger is minuscule compared
| to the chance that they will be abused, kidnapped, or
| killed by a family member.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| People don't like to think about this harsh reality.
| Stranger danger is much easier for them to accept.
| itronitron wrote:
| It's a low probability, high impact event in a country
| with limited public access to affordable health care and
| very limited access to therapists.
| maigret wrote:
| By that thinking, looking at the data, you should prevent
| kids from seeing their family... Understand the nonsense?
| But nonsense gets often commonsensical when everyone in
| your circle believes it. Going outside has more benefits
| than risks. Like biking, yes you are at risk of accident,
| but in the average you'll be fitter and live longer.
| itronitron wrote:
| >> in the average you'll be fitter and live longer
|
| That's sort of the point about low probability events
| though, it doesn't affect the average but it has a
| significant impact on the individual.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| The US has much better access to mental health care than
| any European country. Not to mention everyone who lives
| in a walkable city there lives in a state where
| healthcare access is good.
| itronitron wrote:
| That is simply not true.
| nsokolsky wrote:
| > Lugging your children around on public transit builds
| character that chauffeuring them around in a car does not
|
| I'm talking about ages 0 to 3 when parents need to use a
| stroller. It's a huge pain to do this in public transit.
| It's easier when the kids are older but if you have more
| than one child the car still wins.
| ido wrote:
| Both my kids were born in Berlin (now 6 & 8 years old)
| and we never owned a car. In some ways transit is even
| easier with a stroller as you can just roll into the
| subway/train instead of having the disassemble the
| stroller and put it into the trunk. Buses require a bit
| more effort to board with a stroller but newer busses
| allow the driver to lower them near the curb to make
| boarding with stroller easier. We've done that for the
| entire time our kids used strollers.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >All America's missing is laws that allow kids to walk to
| school and adding more sidewalks to enable this, but this
| is changing over time (see Utah's free range parenting
| law).
|
| Laws and sidewalk curbs don't stop a giant SUV/pickup
| truck driven by someone looking at their mobile at 40mph
| in a residential area.
|
| And crossing a 50ft+ wide intersection of a 40mph road
| (which means people drive 50mph) is daunting even for
| adults, and simply not advisable after the sun goes down.
| Those arterial roads basically box in your kids' roaming
| area.
| Symbiote wrote:
| A law could ban those SUVs.
|
| It's currently being discussed in Europe, since the
| "independent import" route to import a special vehicle
| has started to be exploited to import unsafe American
| vehicles. (The Cybertruck is one example.)
| jjav wrote:
| > And crossing a 50ft+ wide intersection of a 40mph road
| (which means people drive 50mph) is daunting even for
| adults, and simply not advisable after the sun goes down.
|
| At least here (California) those intersections have
| stoplights and pedestrian crossings, so the width and
| moving speed of the road are not relevant. The cars will
| be stopped when you cross by walking.
|
| I don't remember exact age but certainly before
| kindergarden age my child (and all the neighborhood
| friends in that age range) knew how to operate the
| pedestrian walk buttons and cross safely.
|
| I fully agree it can be nicer walk when you don't have to
| cross a larger road. But at the same time, the difficulty
| of doing it is often greatly overstated. Press button,
| wait a bit, cross. Done. This is not in the top-100
| things I'd like to see improved in society.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > The cars will be stopped when you cross by walking.
|
| You live in a place with some combination of far more
| traffic enforcement or far more conscientious drivers
| than me.
|
| All I see when I look around is a sea of people glancing
| up and down between the road and their phone. It would be
| negligent to let my kids cross an arterial road,
| especially after dark.
| komali2 wrote:
| As someone who grew up in suburban sprawl, maybe it makes
| parenting easier, maybe. But they also had to drive me to
| and from school every day, and band practice, and every
| single game, and whenever I wanted to hang out with my
| friends. I would argue my parents basically were
| moonlighting as my Uber driver for about 16 years until I
| got my own car.
|
| Big yards are great, but empty. Mom, can you drive me to
| my friend's bigger backyard? That times the 5 other
| friends that want to go to the friend's house that has
| the biggest backyard. Comically the 5 cars all waiting at
| the same stop light before the final turn, taking up the
| entire residential street as we all get dropped off and
| later picked up.
|
| Eh, going to my friend's house is tedious. I'll just
| fully immerse myself in world of Warcraft, get fat, get
| socially maladjusted by spending all my time on the
| internet and 4chan, and enter college as a practically
| sociopathic asshole with no social skills.
|
| Could just be me. But if I have kids, I'm raising them
| somewhere where they can just get on a train to get to
| band practice.
| maigret wrote:
| Funny, I was basically mobile with bike from age 10 or
| so. Had some friends I needed the parents for until I got
| a small motorcycle aged 14.
|
| So living outside a city is not an issue, although I
| often wished we'd be nearer to a city.
|
| But society has changed a lot since and everyone is
| scared of the beautiful outside world.
| komali2 wrote:
| This was the life of my farmland friends in Wisconsin. In
| Houston if I had ridden my bicycle the mere 2 miles to my
| friend's house (half mile to leave my neighborhood, half
| mile to enter his, one mile or so on actual roads), I
| would almost certainly have one day been killed by a car
| or truck that failed to expect a kid on a bike.
|
| We didn't have sidewalks. That area is still missing
| sidewalks actually.
|
| In some ways our beautiful outside world is safer than it
| was 60 years ago, in others perhaps it's more dangerous.
| pikelet wrote:
| And yet I frequently see (in New Zealand), properties
| with oversized double garages (often built to fit
| oversized American vehicles) and driveways that take up
| half the land on the property. Cars use a huge amount of
| space in roads, carparks, garages, and are responsible
| for pushing things further and further away from the
| home. And then somehow cars are seen as the solution for
| the very problems they create. There's plenty of real
| world evidence that there are better ways to solve this.
|
| I don't think cars are responsible for bigger backyards
| at all. The size of the average property where I live
| only seems to be shrinking as the roads get more and more
| congested.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Here's easier parenting: walk from your house/apartment
| to a close by square, and play with your kids there
| eertami wrote:
| Anecdotally, I frequently take day (or weekend) trips to
| other European cities by rail. It is usually quicker than
| the roads but also crucially you can be productive on the
| train. If I had to drive my car there then I probably
| wouldn't bother.
| netsharc wrote:
| This reminds me of this Swedish office on a train
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HbrI3refig , made for a
| company which had an hour train commute from Stockholm.
| It's even got 8 telephone line (4 in and 4 out)!
|
| I guess a lot of people would use work booths/conference
| rooms on trains, but the price/profit has to work for
| both sides (the train company and users). As for trains,
| the old-fashioned 6 seater compartments offer more
| privacy for groups.
| intellix wrote:
| you could also work from a car if someone else is driving
| it like a taxi, but imagine the price difference to
| travel such a long distance every day over rail versus
| metro + rail.
|
| Another point I haven't seen mentioned much is safety.
| Rail is vastly safer than cars and results in less strain
| on the medical system.
| beAbU wrote:
| I like your taxi idea. I hate driving myself.
|
| We could bring down the cost of the taxi by putting more
| people in the car, to share the cost of the driver.
| That'll bring the costs down significantly.
|
| If the car is sufficiently large, we can get, say, 50
| people in a car with a single driver. That should make
| the extra cost of the driver split between the 50
| lassengers significantly cheaper.
|
| We could go further and link multiple cars together, with
| a single driver up front. They will be driving on one
| another's slipstream vastly improving fuel efficiency
| which will bring down costs even further.
|
| Imagine if we can get them to run on some sort of rail or
| metal track, which makes rolling resistance of the wheels
| basically 0. No more expensive rubber tyres that need
| replacing and yet again improved fuel efficiency. This
| will bring down the costs even further!
| ikawe wrote:
| This is an aside, but I'd never seen that "Beyond 2000"
| show before.
|
| Retro future is a favorite topic of mine, so thanks for
| sharing.
|
| Yeeesh though, re: part 2 of that episode, it's wild to
| watch people in 1988 articulate the looming threat of
| global warming, and to hear them say on this 25 year old
| program "we've known about this for 30 years"
| dbspin wrote:
| Yeah - as someone born in 1979, I find repetitions of the
| idea that global warming / climate change only came into
| public awareness 'in the last 15 to 20 years' on TV news
| and in documentaries deeply troubling. Global warming was
| constantly discussed on (British) television during my
| childhood. At least as much as the hole in the ozone
| layer and acid rain. Perhaps this wasn't the case in
| America?
| Vinnl wrote:
| The funny thing is that people were calling for
| protecting the future of the children - and now we've
| just moved the goalposts to those children's children.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Europe is not exactly the standard bearer for
| productivity though, is it? If one wants to advance an
| argument for emulating European style passenger rail,
| this is _really_ not the right argument.
| okr wrote:
| Trains are just big cars, where you stuff in a lot of
| people, to make it efficient. Because otherwise it is
| not.
|
| And you can only work in it, because no one wants to use
| this monster on a daily basis, so its empty and you dont
| fight for space. :)
| dpe82 wrote:
| Having a car also entails _massive_ subsidies; when taking
| that into account the all-in costs per unit traveled are
| basically always cheaper with rail.
| gruez wrote:
| Source?
| postpawl wrote:
| Trains scale better than cars in dense areas and offer more
| than just emissions reductions. Good rail infrastructure is
| a big part of makes a large city world-class and improves
| everyday lives. Subsidizing trains is better than a lot of
| other uses of government funds.
| layer8 wrote:
| A car is more expensive, and clogs the roads, which causes
| other costs to the economy and penalizes commutes.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| No. This is something Texas is having to come to terms with
| right now. Cars and roads only scale so much before you
| physically can't move more people fast enough even with
| more roads and more lanes. Rail scales way better.
|
| So Texas is pushing a high speed rail line that will allow
| people to commute 30-90min into a city from locations that
| currently are 1.5-3 hours away. And at that allow those
| people to commute to cities on either ends of the line
| while still being a relatively accessible commute for
| anyone in between the cities.
|
| And of course as great as that is, the rail line will be
| able to relatively trivially scale capacity by adding more
| trains to the same line at a rate far above massively
| expensive road expansion projects that cost comparable to
| the entire planned rail line.
|
| So if you want to grow past a certain density you do have
| to start switching to rail and higher density does mean
| more business opportunities and generally greater options
| for prosperity for the populations in the area.
| kyleee wrote:
| Good comment except for the first word. Obviously cars
| enable all sorts of movement and economic activity, so
| why not just admit it? The rest of your comment is just
| talking about how rail may do all those things to a
| greater extent than cars. You don't need to deny benefits
| of cars, it doesn't bolster your arguments. Better to
| just be honest and then extol the virtues of rail and
| other transportation methods.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Of course a car does, but does that mean you should
| ignore all the benefits brought by bicycles? And if we go
| that far, should we overlook our own muscular locomotion?
| It all enables the same mobility after all.
| nine_k wrote:
| Cycling at 110F ambient temperature can be outright
| hazardous (speaking of Texas).
|
| Cycling at 80F is okay as long as you have a shower at
| the destination. (Most offices don't.)
|
| Also, cycling in a city, when you cycle for 2-3, maybe 5
| miles, is fine. Cycling for 20 miles is pretty taxing and
| time-consuming, but in a low-density, car-oriented
| environment 20 miles correctly qualifies as "nearby".
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _Cycling at 80F is okay as long as you have a shower at
| the destination. (Most offices don 't.)_
|
| 1. Shower at home.
|
| 2. Have a change of clothes.
|
| In the Before Times (pre-COVID) I cycled to work five
| days a week and never showered there (even though
| available). (And believe me: people I worked with would
| have told me if it was a problem. )
|
| Sweating does not make you stinky. Sweat is not stinky.
| It is bacteria that causes the stinkiness. If your skin
| is (relatively) clean, there would not be any (food for)
| bacteria and you won't stink.
|
| Also:
|
| 3. How much you sweat depends on your exertion level:
| take it easy and you don't sweat as much, at least in the
| morning when it's cooler. (I'm in Toronto, where summer
| afternoons are sometimes >30C, and I've cycled home in
| 35C weather; high-ish humidity too.)
| jacoblambda wrote:
| I actually do stand by my assertion in this case. The
| reason is because unfortunately, after a certain scale,
| cars are actually actively harmful to growth.
|
| That's why I brought up Texas in particular. Interstate
| 45 as an example is effectively at saturation. Even if
| you add new lanes to it, you only get marginal throughput
| benefits when you actually try to get between Dallas and
| Houston or commute to either city from the region between
| them. The same goes for I-10 out of Houston.
|
| Texas has reached the point where car ownership is
| actually costing the state and local governments
| astronomical amounts of money for marginal amounts of
| congestion relief (that is then immediately saturated).
|
| I don't deny that cars have a place in low density
| regions and I think they are great for specific uses or
| areas but generally I believe that cars hinder growth in
| any metro environment in the long term. Doubly so because
| car centric infrastructure is extremely hostile to anyone
| who doesn't use a car which makes transition at that
| density threshold extremely painful for everyone
| involved.
| nsokolsky wrote:
| Is Texas "coming to terms" with it, though? Cars don't
| scale infinitely but are also way more flexible than rail
| lines could ever be. If your goal is to have everyone
| work in downtown Dallas then yes, they suck. But you can
| just build offices and manufacturing facilities all
| around the state instead, avoiding the creation of single
| bottlenecks.
| nerdbert wrote:
| Then you've instead created sprawl which has huge ongoing
| costs in terms of resource and energy use, as well as
| disconnecting people and communities.
| nsokolsky wrote:
| > has huge ongoing costs in terms of resource and energy
| use
|
| TxDOT (government organization responsible for road
| maintenance) has a budget of $30B/year or about 10% of
| the total state's budget. Not that big of a deal for
| Texas.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Do they pay for the streets in low density suburbs or do
| local towns and cities? Also, water infra, electrical
| infra, etc.
| nsokolsky wrote:
| That figure includes every single government-owned
| street, AFAIK. Total infrastructure costs are higher but
| don't seem that much higher than in Germany?
| verall wrote:
| TxDOT does not maintain local or county roads which are a
| massive portion of cost in sprawl.
| jaccarmac wrote:
| To add specifics: Dallas does not cover road maintenance
| with its budget and must sell bonds to cover the $10b in
| "deferred maintenance".
|
| https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2024/04/a-voters-
| guide...
| diordiderot wrote:
| The term is called 'growth ponzi scheme'. Regions wax and
| wane in economic importance, less so when they're dense
| and urban.
| cromka wrote:
| > Cars and roads only scale so much before you physically
| can't move more people fast enough even with more roads
| and more lanes.
|
| The Induced Demand observed in car traffic, also known as
| Downs-Thomson paradox.
| verall wrote:
| At this rate I would be surprised if the Texas HSR is
| complete before 2050. Texas has not come to terms with
| anything. I say that as a resident for the last 10 years.
| jjav wrote:
| > Cars and roads only scale so much before you physically
| can't move more people fast enough even with more roads
| and more lanes. Rail scales way better.
|
| Before scaling people moving up so much, I'd question why
| encourage so much movement.
|
| Instead, let's encourage local areas which are
| walkable/cycleable that contain 95% of what people need.
| By eliminating the need for 95% of high-speed people
| moving (whether by car, train, bus, no matter), that
| problem becomes automatically solved. And we get a nicer
| life walking/biking to most places and when we need/want
| to drive farther, there's no congestion.
| dxuh wrote:
| Germany has a pretty high population density and the
| metropolitan areas have evolved around medieval cities, so
| they are sometimes very bad a carrying a lot of traffic.
| Getting around by car in lots of major German cities is a
| major PITA and parking your car there (if you live there)
| is just as horrible. Inside cities, public transport is
| much more efficient.
| resonious wrote:
| Gp said they know about these other factors but doesn't know
| how to price them. Do you know a way?
| jordanb wrote:
| "These things aren't important unless you can wedge them
| into my spreadsheet" is the time of consultant-brained
| nonsense that got us the world we're living in.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Nobody said that. But if you're gonna spend the public
| money, you need _some_ way of determining "how much are
| we willing to pay for this good thing".
| jordanb wrote:
| Who's "we"? The public is mostly not made up of
| consultants and do not appreciate consultant logic being
| applied to everything. People would prefer to define
| values and then act on those values.
| kurthr wrote:
| So you would be good with spending more money and even
| increasing total carbon footprint, if it just felt good?
|
| Seriously, if you're not going to measure anything or use
| logic, I'm not sure how you can even call them "defined"
| or "values". It sounds like, "I saw it on
| TV/internet/billboard so it must be true".
| jordanb wrote:
| I didn't say that. The OP argued "Actually this is bad
| because the cost per ton of carbon saved is higher than
| some other way to save carbon."
|
| The original replyer pointed out that "ways to save
| carbon" are not necessarily fungible and there are other
| benefits to subsidized rail travel. The followon
| dismissal was to throw back and come up with a way to
| "price" those other benefits.
|
| What I am objecting to is the entire chain of thinking
| that starts with trying to do simplistic, reductionist
| price comparisons and then refusing to consider other
| factors that don't fit in the pricing exercise.
| sedansesame wrote:
| Yes, because that is exactly how American cities are
| currently built today -- expensive carbon-intensive roads
| paved out to sprawling suburbs, the independent financial
| upkeep of which is not sustainable long-term. [0]
|
| The costs for car-based infrastructure are also sky high:
| $1+ million per mile of new road, excluding constant
| maintenance in repavings, potholes, and drainage systems.
| [1]
|
| From an economic lens, transportation infrastructure is a
| net gain to the economy. To me, there is no reason why
| public transit subsidies should be scrutinized on
| financials above and beyond how public roads are
| scrutinized.
|
| If we recognize roads are useful, then public transit
| should be an even more efficient use of taxpayer dollars
| on mobility per infrastructure footprint costs alone --
| even before carbon reductions are considered at all.
|
| ---
|
| [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/5/12/6-princ
| iples-f...
|
| [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-
| much-does-...
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| That isn't "consultant logic", that's the way the world
| works. Resources are finite. We can't do everything
| everyone wants to do, so we need some means of
| prioritizing which things we are to do. You can call
| names all you want, but this is an unavoidable reality of
| existence.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Here's an alternative proposition then: try those things
| and if there's demand - stick to them.
|
| No need for estimations, especially that they're
| typically wildly off, as the world is too complicated to
| summarise it on a spreadsheet.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| We spend public money on things that are almost
| impossible to put a concrete value on all the time.
| Parks. NASA. University subsidies. Animal welfare. The
| list goes on. "How much are we willing to pay" is
| entirely subjective and can't be produced by a nice clean
| spreadsheet.
| akoboldfrying wrote:
| If you could make a park for 5 million dollars, or _the
| same park_ for 3 million, you would do the latter, would
| you not? Then you 'd have 2 million left to do something
| else with.
|
| Because that is the comparison being drawn here. A valid
| objection would be that there are other axes that are
| material but are not being considered when we reduce the
| question to dollars per ton of CO2 -- but arguing that we
| ought not even try to put a value on how we spend public
| money will not be a reasonable stance until public money
| is infinite.
| komali2 wrote:
| The park to park comparison is the opposite of what's
| being discussed. That's comparing the value of apple to
| another from the same tree - there are many subjective
| elements to compare but given that they're both nearly
| identical it's quite easy. Still doesn't fit on a
| spreadsheet e.g. bitterness, likelihood of having a worm
| inside, prettiness, whatever.
|
| What is being suggested is comparing a train subsidy
| to... Unknown. Other modes of transportation? The money
| being spent on other carbon reduction efforts?
|
| I don't understand why carbon reduction is the primary
| topic for discussion when trying to put a dollar value on
| the thing. Two apples are still a little difficult to
| compare but you at least can agree that the bigger
| tastier one is probably better value (unless the smaller
| is cheaper and you need to do gram for dollar value, idk,
| good luck). A train vs other things though is imo
| essentially impossible to compare, a genuine apples to
| oranges comparison.
|
| For carbon reduction, I challenge the OP estimate. It
| assumes everyone drives if no train, as I understand it.
| So that's the carbon reduction comparison - wow great so
| many people not driving. But it's not just that. Less
| parking lots need to be constructed. Less concrete, less
| carbon. Less roads need re paving every 10 years or
| whatever - let's compare the carbon of rail maintenance
| to an asphalt road. Less car accidents, less cars needing
| to be recycled at plants. Maybe city designs start
| accommodating the train subsidy, less car centric design,
| more vertical and dense, less car travel that wouldn't
| have been served by the train but is now served by
| walking. On and on and on.
|
| You can't compare these two on carbon alone, and that's
| not even considering the fact that I find it kinda
| ridiculous to focus on just carbon as a measure of worth-
| to-humans. There's so many other factors at play that I
| genuinely think it's impossible to put a dollar value on.
| Reduction in road noise for people near the highway.
| Reduction in smog and thus a reduction in lung cancer and
| related medical costs. Reduction in human deaths from car
| accidents. Increase in psychological happiness in
| commuters not exposed to daily road rage and also
| suddenly having more time to read or play games. Endless,
| endless comparisons.
|
| Dollars are a bad way to measure value. We either need a
| new way to describe value-for-dollars or a new way to
| describe actual value. Conflating the two was
| capitalism's ultimate coup and this thread is a great
| example of why.
| akoboldfrying wrote:
| >Less parking lots need to be constructed. Less concrete,
| less carbon. Less roads need re paving every 10 years or
| whatever - let's compare the carbon of rail maintenance
| to an asphalt road.
|
| Yes, these are all valid other axes to consider. I
| nevertheless think it's necessary to estimate each of
| their values as so many "points", which, yes, may be
| subjective. Those points might as well be dollars,
| because dollars are what we (as the local government)
| finally wind up spending on whatever projects we decide
| on.
| komali2 wrote:
| Why "might as well be?" Dollars can't accurately
| determine something's real value and I'm baffled that
| people continually assume this.
|
| A teacher is more valuable than an investment banker and
| yet the investment banker is paid more. Maybe I can make
| a spreadsheet of all the instances of such things and it
| would reach tens of thousands of rows. It seems to me
| plain as day so I don't get it.
|
| Sometimes the dollar value is accurate, often not. The
| frequency that it's incorrect makes me wonder at the
| authority we grant dollar valuations.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| This analogy simply doesn't work because transit isn't
| fungible. Trains and air travel or cars simply aren't
| "the same park". The benefit of trains is objectively not
| just the carbon footprint. The money spent by the
| government benefits the public in other ways, not just
| environmentally. Ignoring the wear on (and cost of
| ownership of) personal vehicles, for instance, dismisses
| a huge amount of savings for folks who can take trains
| instead. Rail travel is safer and results in fewer
| deaths. The list goes on. Even "having a train that takes
| me to work so I can relax on my commute" is an important
| one. And many of those things are almost impossible to
| truly quantify the monetary value of and jam into a
| spreadsheet.
| akoboldfrying wrote:
| All the things you listed are examples of "other axes"
| that I listed as being valid objections. I also agree
| that it's hard to estimate the dollar cost or benefit of
| these things. But I think we do have to attempt to
| estimate it, since we have no other sensible way to
| decide how to allocate public funds.
|
| It's not even all that difficult to estimate, really. For
| example, _every_ business does it, of necessity.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Can you estimate the dollar value of happiness?
| nkmnz wrote:
| Can you estimate the additional happiness brought by
| trains?
| jona-f wrote:
| No, but we can look at the amount of misery, that is
| prevented by not using cars. Traffic jams, pollution,
| accidents, waste of resources,... The difference is so
| huge, we don't need to put a number on it. Public
| transport might be unpleasant for the individual, but is
| clearly very much better for everyone than using cars.
| withinboredom wrote:
| > Public transport might be unpleasant for the individual
|
| Where is this true?
| chgs wrote:
| When it's overcrowded, typically caused by policies such
| as work from office.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Yes. For that matter, you can calculate the dollar value
| of a human life:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
|
| Numbers vary around the world, but FEMA in the US decided
| on $7.5M in 2020.
|
| Financial investments are economic decisions. Whether or
| not you like the idea of assigning financial value to
| fuzzy concepts like happiness or quality adjusted life
| years, you still have to do it. The simple act of
| choosing to spend $N or not choosing to spend $N puts an
| implicit price on the result.
|
| By putting approximate numbers in the spreadsheet - no
| matter how crude - we can at least end up consistent and
| fair. Otherwise we could end up spending vast sums to
| make a few people a little happier instead of smaller
| sums to make lots of people a lot happier.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Society is not a business.
|
| Markets are a useful tool that societies use to optimize
| certain kinds of capital allocation and goods production,
| where that makes sense. No more no less.
|
| Most of the things societies value most highly don't fit
| into the market hole.
|
| If trains were exclusively a mechanism for capturing or
| avoiding carbon, then the metric of $ / tons would be
| valid. Trains very obviously are not that.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| > It's not even all that difficult to estimate, really.
| For example, every business does it, of necessity.
|
| This isn't even true. I run a business, and I frequently
| make decisions based on what I believe to be the right
| thing to do rather than what the data shows as being the
| most profitable outcome. The very notion of a "loss
| leader" is driven on fuzzy data where execs _simply hope_
| the loss in revenue from sales is made up for in other
| benefits that can 't be concretely valued.
| realusername wrote:
| > "how much are we willing to pay for this good thing"
|
| We don't even do that for cars. We shifted most of the
| transport cost to the individuals without any
| calculation. Nowadays, cars are the most costly item in a
| household besides the house itself, is that okay? I'm not
| so sure.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| A car is an incredibly complex and incredibly useful
| machine. In a non-feudal banker run economy, a car would
| cost 5 times as much as a house. Or rather the house
| would be 5 times cheaper than the car.
| Iulioh wrote:
| The concept is called "measurability bias"
|
| These incentive is not permanent or has to be.
|
| You try it, if thing gets better you keep it or you stop
| it.
| chomskyole wrote:
| Yes, that is right. Opinion building is a thing in a
| democracy.
|
| The problem with op is that he attaches a strong value
| statement ("isn't good value") to an incomplete
| assessment. Now that's doing politics! Isn't that what we
| want to get away from? Don't we want to have it all
| objective and fact based?
|
| So here is the question: How should we make decisions? Is
| it possible to use $ as a neutral decision making data
| point? Or do we have to discuss things broadly, and
| include elements that haven't been broken down to the
| cent, to reach a consensus about how we want to organise
| society?
| fsh wrote:
| I believe that this idiotic short-sighted minmaxing
| (mainly due to the conservative party) has led to many of
| Germany's current infrastructure issues. Laying fiber?
| VDSL is cheap and has been good enough so far. Renewable
| energies? Importing Russian gas halves CO2 emissions
| compared to coal and is way cheaper (surely Russia would
| never think of abusing the dependence). Maintaining the
| railway network? That would cost money, and it wasn't
| broken yet.
| okr wrote:
| If Germany wants to be a militarized state again, the
| infrastructure will be fixed again. You have to transport
| things around.
|
| Tbh, i think, germany has too much not needed but costly
| infrastructure maintained only for a few people.
| staunton wrote:
| > germany has too much not needed but costly
| infrastructure maintained only for a few people
|
| What infrastructure do you mean? Can you give an example?
| chii wrote:
| so how do you propose the limited public money ought to
| be spent on which project? Perhaps just feel good vibes?
| im3w1l wrote:
| I agree with you that it's important to avoid using such
| a bad strategy as feel good vibes, which could easily
| happen if one is careless.
|
| However it might suffice to find a strong justification,
| rather than a pure quantification. One way to build such
| a justification is to consider rail transport as a part
| of a coherent whole, as part of a broader vision.
|
| Indeed I think such a strategy can result in a better
| outcome than the one arising from optimizing everything
| in isolation; the latter risks leading to a local
| optimum.
|
| However it is key that the vision is feasible and
| correctly evaluated. If one were to bet everything on one
| vision and that vision failed, if say one important
| factor was forgotten and not accounted for, the result
| might be rather unfortunate.
|
| So concretely, making local public transport cheaps could
| fit into a vision of "where will people live, where will
| they work, and how will they commute from the first place
| to the second". Whereas including intercity rail and bus
| is harder to understand maybe it would fit into a vision
| of "how people will keep in contact with old friends and
| relatives after moving cities". Maybe "how people will
| spend their vaction, or go on business trips"?
|
| Let's focus on the former one. It could then go hand in
| hand with zoning regulation, public-private partnership
| of building housing+utilities etc. Trying to encourage
| certain industries to provide jobs.
| bagels wrote:
| Road building and maintenance avoided?
| bluejekyll wrote:
| Ok, the GP is only using carbon offsets, but the economic
| one are just as good. Forgoing car ownership allows for
| that money to then go other economic uses. Forgoing fuel
| costs, $20 for electric, $100 for gas, again allows that to
| go into the other areas of the economy. These are easy to
| calculate, why not use them?
| com2kid wrote:
| Asthma from air pollution is calculatable.
|
| Cancer reduction, road repairs, reduction in vehicle costs
| for tax payers, reduction in road fatalities, all of these
| can be added up.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| I know a way.
|
| Politics.
| nsokolsky wrote:
| How much of the increased rail use is helping increase GDP,
| though, rather than being purely leisurely trips with little
| long term value for the economy? More people going to hike in
| the forest on the weekend technically increases GDP but
| doesn't add much value to the economy overall.
| postpawl wrote:
| Keep in mind there's only about 50 miles of high-speed rail
| in the U.S. so far. With major cities like Dallas and
| Houston or San Francisco and LA still unconnected by fast
| rail, there's significant room to boost GDP and improve
| lives. Expanding rail isn't just about GDP growth, it's
| about enhancing daily living and connecting communities
| more effectively. As RFK famously noted, GDP measures
| everything 'except that which makes life worthwhile'. Rail
| development does both, supporting the economy and enriching
| our lives.
| oldpersonintx wrote:
| no one has ever been able to explain who will be the
| daily rider for SF/LA or Dallas/Houston rail
|
| I don't mean people trying it out once, or tourists...I
| mean people who will commit to riding it daily
| bastawhiz wrote:
| If I could take a train instead of a plane, I would. Doubly
| so if it saved me money. Savings for individuals means more
| money to spend on other things.
| dbspin wrote:
| I wonder if it's possible that you have the telescope the
| wrong way around?
|
| People leading more fulfilling and rewarding lives is the
| point of the economy, not the reverse.
| maigret wrote:
| For many it helps cover the gigantic rent hikes. Many
| workers need public transportation to commute because they
| can't afford a car, which keep becoming more expensive
| because cheap cars don't make profits. It was not rare
| before for public transport subs to cost upwards of 100 EUR
| Mawr wrote:
| Fast travel between major cities skyrockets GDP:
| https://youtu.be/T3LLgzO_PrI?t=264
| andrepd wrote:
| How much does it cost to keep up the motor roads in Germany?
| Likewise, how much do the externalities of it (like pollution,
| and massive numbers of deaths and injuries) cost?
|
| Without it this comparison is meaningless.
| rzwitserloot wrote:
| The sheer amount of additional benefit means this is a
| gallingly reductive view of it all.
|
| The subsidy for maintaining car infrastructure is causing
| _more_ co2 per euro invested, how's that fit into these
| calculations?
|
| This is so useless, it sounds like propaganda.
| ch0wn wrote:
| Show me an effective carbon abatement method well under $100.
| clukic wrote:
| You're not pricing in the primary impact of the subsidy - the
| value of the travel itself. Those tickets subsidize travel
| _and_ reduce carbon emissions.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Disturbingly, your link includes Carbon capture and storage
| from a fossil power plant, which has never been demonstrated
| practically and is basically a scam at this point, pushed by
| oil companies.
|
| Second, you are conflating subsidy with cost. If everyone
| switches to electric trucks, cost is enormous, but subsidy is
| zero because private sector pays for it themselves. For
| electrics freight trains, cost could be lower, but the
| government has to pay for it.
|
| However, everyone with a grasp of physics knows that freight
| train is more efficient, so focusing on subsidy is stupid
| thelastgallon wrote:
| It saves the commuters the cost of buying a car, insurance, gas
| and maintenance. it saves building new roads and lifecycle
| costs of maintaining a road. Trains allow dense developments
| with a little bit of walking. Walking is healthy, a bit of
| exercise saves a ton on healthcare costs. Density makes
| everything cheaper. Carbon emissions are just a bonus.
| Crunchified wrote:
| A big externality is time-savings, and can be calculated.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| The cost of carbon capture is not equal to the value it
| provides to humanity. In fact, not emitting CO2 that you could
| have, is even more valuable than CO2 you remove later from the
| atmosphere.
| thrance wrote:
| Roads, highways and gas are massively subsidized, much more per
| kilometer travelled than rail. I think if you factor in spared
| road maintenance alone, from travellers using the train instead
| of their cars, you might see the operation is actually saving
| public money.
| nerdbert wrote:
| I suspect that's peanuts compared to all the subsidies and
| unaccounted externalities for car use.
| simonhorlick wrote:
| Germany actually subsidises fossil fuels to the tune of
| EUR20bn/year, so in that context EUR3bn doesn't sound so bad.
| Some of the latest estimates of the true cost per ton of carbon
| put it around $1000 USD, so in purely economic terms it's still
| a win.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Don't forget to factor in the reduced costs of road
| maintenance, accidents, non-CO2 pollution, and traffic delays.
| ic_fly2 wrote:
| You make a very valid point.
|
| I'd ignore unpriced other externalities, that is a large rabbit
| hole. (Do people increase consumption of other goods thanks to
| the savings of this ticket...)
|
| I'd rather look at the project, subsidies again and the cost
| and realise that at this scale there are few individual
| projects. So this is a very large knob to dial down the
| emissions.
|
| Secondly, the subsidies go into the German economy. The rail
| system is very domestic economy heavy, so at a time where the
| German economy is going into a recession, spending 3bn to
| subsidise transport and reduce people's cost of living and pay
| for German workers and investments is not such a terrible idea.
|
| So while the price tag is high, the money isn't turned into
| trees or buried like in pure abatement projects and at this
| scale it is a nice leaver to pull.
| Asmod4n wrote:
| We are paying 70bnEUR annually for roads. And gain 25 in taxes
| for it.
| gmerc wrote:
| - Air Pollution and related deaths / morbidities - Road tear
| and wear - Congestion related loss of business and time - Can
| actually work on train or rest
|
| Many of these can be calculated and measured.
|
| Rail doesn't significantly pollute more or deprecate faster on
| the infrastructure side empty or full.
| SECProto wrote:
| Funding road repairs, construction, and expansion from general
| tax revenues is similarly subsidizing a different mode of
| transit, and it's likely a much higher value than the 3bEUR you
| mention (and likely more than overall railway sector
| subsidizing, tho I'm not familiar with Germany's budget). Also
| recognizing that other positive externalities exist, but
| pricing them at $0, seems silly.
| Happily2020 wrote:
| Not to mention subsidised parking spaces. Free and even paid
| street parking is highly subsidised by the city and by other
| tax payers. There's also the environmental cost of not having
| that land be a park or nature and instead have it contribute
| to being an urban heat island with all its asphalt.
| looofooo0 wrote:
| Healthcare cost also decline, and people become less sick
| because you have to walk some amount to get to the train.
| piyuv wrote:
| The air quality improving should also be a factor.
| shankr wrote:
| Although you fall sick more often in winter when using
| public transportation.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Is that a rigorous statistical analysis or just your
| impression?
| throw4950sh06 wrote:
| Some people actually try these things... And not writing
| an academic paper about it doesn't make it wrong.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Not writing an academic paper about it doesn't make it
| right either. This is the problem, when it's just
| hearsay, the rest of us have nothing to judge its
| accuracy with.
|
| When looking at something as complex as people's
| behaviour, then it's worth allowing for seasonal
| variations in public transport use (e.g. when it's
| raining people may decide to get the bus rather than
| walk). Could it be related to the length of their
| journeys and/or their net worth? (There's a strong
| correlation between health and wealth). How does it
| compare to a similar section of the population that drive
| or cycle instead?
| throw4950sh06 wrote:
| You can look into it yourself. This is a web forum, not
| university.
|
| I don't understand how are your questions going to answer
| anything anyways - it's not like the answer is going to
| be the same anywhere.
| finikytou wrote:
| in Paris (and pretty sure that applies to pretty much any
| big western city, new york for instance is worse in a few
| of the criterias ill reference) subway increase stress,
| frequent delays(if you have 2-3 train as part of your
| commute you will experience it daily), pollution down
| under is high, virus/covid transmission is high,
| pickpockets are everywhere if not worse, bedbug, pee
| smell, junkies. Id take a car any day.
| neither_color wrote:
| This is much less of a problem in large Asian cities.
| They're only really stressful in rush hour crowds. But in
| places like NY the public seems much less interested in
| the initial policing, maintenance, and cultural attitude
| shifts that would be required to make it happen. Like,
| you could still have the artists, street performers, and
| other so-called charming quirks while still making sure
| the problematic passengers get the help they need. What's
| it going to take? You could even do a trial period, like
| one year of safe, clean metros and see if people want to
| go back to the way things are now.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It is easy to say but not easy to do.
|
| Post Szasz and Reagan we've had the policy of
| deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. Thus you have
| a lot of people with schizophrenia who have no insight
| into their condition who are very hard to manage. Even in
| a town where services are relatively available there are
| many people who take years to accept a diagnosis which
| can get them on disability and receiving permanent help.
|
| Probably the best we can do for these people is get them
| stabilized on an antipsychotic drug and then get them in
| the clinic every few months for a depot injection but
| even that is pretty hard.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| So I live in NYC, and constant honking and worrying about
| being run over by cars when I'm trying to cross the
| street contribute way more to my stress than the state of
| the subway in NYC. Driving, or being around vehicles
| driving, is incredibly stressful.
|
| Also, I was in Paris last year and I found your subway
| system more pleasant than ours. Methinks you doth
| complain too much.
| retinaros wrote:
| I lived years in NYC and in Paris, it might be more
| pleasant on the touristic places and crime is definitrly
| less violent. for everything else it stays true and id
| take crossing the street and honking anyday versus having
| to deal with public transportation with all the drug
| addicts and violence that is in NYC subway. hell I was
| commuting walking 40 min morning 40 min night not to deal
| with subway
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| The Paris metro is amongst the most frequented in the
| world and operates near peak capacity. You absolutely
| can't compare it to anything in Germany. Germany doesn't
| really have a city which can be compared to Paris. Berlin
| has the most populated urban area and it has less than
| half the population of the Paris one. The only similar
| city in Europe is London.
|
| Plus there is no bed bugs and pickpockets are an oddity
| outside of the most touristy stations.
|
| Anyway, considering how awful it is to drive and park in
| Paris, you would have to be crazy to use a car instead of
| taking the train which is why nearly everyone does. Plus,
| with the mandatory employer subvention, it's incredibly
| cheap at 44EUR a month. The only credible alternative is
| biking which is indeed more and more popular.
| retinaros wrote:
| pickpockets an oddity? brother I took all the suburban
| trains you can think of, the paris subway on a regular
| basis ive seen people injecting their arms on the wagon,
| antisemitic attacks, stabbings, punching, people shit on
| the floor, drunks and pickpockets are a daily thing in
| paris in EVERY public transportation. some bus lines in
| non-touristic areas are even so infamous that everyday
| legions of comments tell stories of how people got robbed
| their phones or wallets. ill take a car any day and guess
| what? that is what every rich person including the city
| mayor will do once they ban outsiders from having car in
| the name of greenwashing. they will ban cars in paris for
| middle class and then have people that drive ubers coming
| from poor suburbs and exploit them to drive around while
| us commoners have to live through the criminal hell that
| is paris public transportation.
| 6510 wrote:
| It has secretly become unrealistic to have cars in a city,
| we still do it but more out of tradition. You wouldn't
| build parks (tho that would be nice) 1 parked car, the road
| next to it and the second side walk take about as much
| space as an apartment and we stack those one on top of the
| other.
|
| Something like this is quite hilarious if you think about
| it.
|
| https://www.alamy.com/parking-in-the-courtyard-of-high-
| rise-...
|
| It reminds me of grazing cows having 80 times as much space
| as people in some parts of my country.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| You don't _have_ to build it like that. Where I live now,
| the parking lot is effectively the basement under the
| apartment buildings and playground. You 'd barely
| interact with it unless you're driving.
| 6510 wrote:
| Housing is getting so expensive that people share tiny
| apartments while still able to afford two cars. With that
| ratio you need 10 floors of parking for 10 floors of
| housing.
|
| I always thought it funny how popular elevators are for
| vertical travel. A monorail station in the basement or
| even a ski lift seems a lot less space consuming.
|
| If it means you can get a home 120m2 (1300 sq ft) in
| stead of 60m2 (650 sq ft) it seems worth considering.
| andrepd wrote:
| Absolutely. Next time you see a free parking spot mentally
| calculate the rent of ~10m2 on that part of the city to
| understand how much of a subsidy that is. Then multiply by
| 50 parking spots in a street. Then think how many thousands
| there are all over the city...
| finikytou wrote:
| do you have free parking? cities are making money out of
| parking spots. a lot of money. so much than one would say
| they have an incentive to reduce parking space to
| increase price and reduce expenses
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| Cities and councils should not be making decisions based
| on how to raise revenue.
|
| They should be making decisions based on how to improve
| quality of life for residents.
|
| Parking should exist where public transport is not a
| viable option. Ideally the work to make public transport
| an option should be prioritised over the work to making
| parking exist.
|
| Cities and councils can make money from public transport
| too, it'll work out OK revenue-wise, and quality of life
| improvements can be considerable.
| eru wrote:
| > Cities and councils should not be making decisions
| based on how to raise revenue.
|
| Why not?
|
| > They should be making decisions based on how to improve
| quality of life for residents.
|
| Residents can use money to purchase goods and services to
| improve their quality of life.
|
| > Parking should exist where public transport is not a
| viable option.
|
| And the market can provide parking at market-prices.
| (And, cities and councils can perhaps also offer parking
| at market prices on their properties.)
| bratwurst3000 wrote:
| > Residents can use money to purchase goods and services
| to improve their quality of life.
|
| i live in a city with pollution problem. where can i buy
| this clean air to improve the quality of my life?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Air filters are a fairly common purchase to increase
| this.
| eru wrote:
| You might want to look up Coasian Bargaining.
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| You have a fundamentally different model of the social
| contract to me. We're unlikely to ever agree. However...
|
| I believe that relying on individual purchasing power
| ("utility"), to improve the average quality of life is an
| experiment (often referred to as "Reganism" or
| "Thatcherism"), that after 40+ years of trialling has
| shown to be net negative to social mobility, overall net
| happiness and other factors important to me as a UK
| middle-class (this isn't the same as what middle-class
| means in the US), citizen with a significantly-above
| median income for my age, social background and other
| predictive factors, as compared to natural experiments in
| free market economies where such trials did not take
| place (most of Northern Europe), in the same time frame.
|
| The core problem with free markets being used as a
| mechanism to settle all societies ills is that theory
| ignores natural monopolies. You can't have a car parking
| space and a children's park in the same place: you must
| make a choice. And if you choose based on economic
| utility, the outcome with the direct revenue will allow a
| realised "win" over that which has indirect or non-
| utility rewards such as "happy, well-adjusted, children
| who have learned to be nice to each other".
|
| If you believe in the right wing view of economics
| without taking into account the lack of natural
| monopolies, you and I are unfortunately going to be so
| far apart from being able to find common ground we might
| just be wasting each others' time.
|
| If you do understand the nature of a natural monopoly
| from a land use to utility company infrastructure, then
| you'll realise that when you follow the thread that car
| parking at market prices denies other monopoly uses of
| that land, that residents can't influence that through
| purchasing decisions, and that cities and councils would
| be failing in their duty to provide an equitable and
| comfortable city/town in which to exist by making
| decisions about monopoly situations purely based on
| revenue potential.
| ipaddr wrote:
| You can't have a car parking space and a children's park
| in the same place: you must make a choice.
|
| They also provide utility. If you remove parking spaces
| near a children's park less children can/will visit. You
| need a balance.
| ciceryadam wrote:
| Tell me you are an American, without telling me you are
| an American.
|
| You can reach a children's park on foot or by taking
| public transportation, so ideally there's no need for a
| parking lot right next to it.
| ipaddr wrote:
| You can visit your local park hopefully you live in an
| area with one. You can invest time using transit to get
| to another park. Traveling during rush hour would be
| difficult. Traveling with many children or younger
| children adds a difficulty. Being disabled or older or
| worse disabled with children more difficult. For the
| young, childless, plenty of time on their hands or live
| next to a park of course walking a few steps is a no
| brainer.
|
| But it's like buying a gym membership across town with
| the idea that you would walk everyday. You aren't going
| once winter hits.
|
| Not American but have been young and took transit and
| walked everywhere but also seen seniors in wheelchairs
| who stopped going to the park after they stopped allowing
| cars to park.
| eru wrote:
| What social contract? That's a convenient fiction, but no
| one ever agreed to any social contract anywhere.
|
| My adopted home of Singapore goes a lot harder on private
| initiative than Thatcher and Reagan ever dreamed off. And
| thanks to that, and some other factors, they went from
| third world to first world (or arguably zeroth world) in
| less than a generation.
|
| > The core problem with free markets being used as a
| mechanism to settle all societies ills is that theory
| ignores natural monopolies. You can't have a car parking
| space and a children's park in the same place: you must
| make a choice.
|
| You might want to read up on how
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
|
| What you are describing here has nothing to do with a
| 'natural monopoly'.
|
| Funny enough, most places in the US have outrageous
| mandatory minimum parking space requirements. A free
| market would most likely provide less street parking. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parking_mandates and
| especially https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Cost_of
| _Free_Parking
|
| Revenue means people are willing to pay for something,
| something they value. So it's not the be-and-end-all for
| how to run your city, but it's better than many other
| ways political decisions are made. (And better than
| whatever political decision procedure leads to mandatory
| minimum parking requirements, IMHO.)
| tremon wrote:
| The fact that you didn't explicitly opt-in to it before
| you were born does not mean there is no implicit social
| contract between you and your fellow citizens.
| shswkna wrote:
| Without trying to ridicule you, asking "what social
| contract?" In this kind of discussion is like a first
| year university student asking "what's a fraction?" in
| first year maths classes.
|
| An entire section of philosophy is built on this question
| alone, and why there is such a thing as a social
| contract.
| rstuart4133 wrote:
| > What social contract? That's a convenient fiction, but
| no one ever agreed to any social contract anywhere. My
| adopted home of Singapore goes a lot harder on private
| initiative than Thatcher and Reagan ever dreamed off.
|
| Do you chew gum when you are at home in Singapore? No,
| you don't, because it's illegal. Did you agree to that,
| were even you given a choice? No, of course not.
|
| Singapore is more authoritarian than most liberal
| democracies. That means you do as your told. That's the
| social contract. If you disagree with the people in power
| to loudly, you got to rot in jail.
| https://www.smh.com.au/world/lee-kuan-yew-a-towering-
| figure-...
|
| As it happens, Singapore got lucky. The people in charge
| are good at running a country efficiently. In particular,
| they didn't line their own pockets too aggressively -
| certainly not in a way that was out of line with liberal
| democracies. The Singapore it's an outlier compared to
| other authoritarian countries. Generally, once
| politicians eliminate the competition, they use their
| control to milk the economy for all they are worth.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| > Cities and councils should not be making decisions
| based on how to raise revenue.
|
| ... although if they were, the price of parking would be
| way higher. The optimal price for parking is a time-and-
| day-dependent price set high enough that around 10% of
| spots everywhere in the city are free at any given time,
| so that people who need parking can generally find it
| conveniently nearby to where they're going.
| jjav wrote:
| > set high enough that around 10% of spots everywhere in
| the city are free at any given time, so that people who
| need parking can generally find it conveniently nearby to
| where they're going
|
| OTOH, if there is always that much space available (and
| presumably there didn't used to be before the price
| hikes) then it is evidence that a lot of people have
| chosen to go elsewhere because parking became too
| expensive.
|
| Can the location compete with that "elsewhere"? If it is
| a unique location with unique reasons to visit, probably
| yes. But if it is the typical old downtown with stores
| competing with the strip mall with similar stores but
| free parking, probably not.
|
| I've seen the depressing cycle of multiple vibrant
| downtown cores become abandoned after parking meters came
| in. I very much prefer a strong active downtown core even
| if finding parking is a pain, to one that is mostly all
| boarded up and abandoned but there's plenty of paid
| parking.
| retinaros wrote:
| parking costs over 200euros a day in Paris. the city also
| is on the board of private parking companies.... conflict
| of interest is high, corruption is also knocking at the
| door. greenwashing is the new criminal activity for suits
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Practically in a city like Ithaca NY there are stores
| like Wal-Mart that have oceans of free parking about a
| mile from the Ithaca Commons which is a pedestrian mall
| surrounded by parking meters and concrete corkscrews that
| cost about $1 an hour. Years ago local shops could stamp
| your parking ticket and give you a few hour for buying
| something but the city decided it couldn't afford it.
|
| That $1 isn't much, but many believe the Commons can't
| compete on that basis and shoppers will avoid the Commons
| and go to stores on the commercial strip instead, it
| doesn't help that the Commons doesn't have a diversity of
| shopping, instead it has some gift stores, a legal
| cannabis dispensary that is just about to reopen after
| being closed for some reason, numerous head shops, a
| bookstore, and numerous CBD stores that I think sell real
| weed in a back room.
| retinaros wrote:
| public transportation is not a viable option in the west.
| too much crime too many lenient judge. in asia it is top
| notch. because people are educated and this just works.
| once we fix this you can take our cars.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| They make money because they don't have to pay for the
| true value of the land. It's free to them.
|
| It's still a subsidy because they are charging less than
| the market value of the most valuable possible use.
| eru wrote:
| Yes, though all of that is more of an argument in favour of
| dropping car subsidies, than an argument in favour of more
| rail subsidies.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Road wear scales with the fourth power of weight over the
| axle so, even with personal cars getting heavier, I'm not
| sure that moving people from cars to trains makes much of a
| difference - I think most wear typically comes from heavy
| vehicles or weathering - so it mightn't make much difference
| to repair costs.
|
| That doesn't mean there aren't other advantages. Eg reducing
| parking spaces (as a sibling points out) to increase urban
| density is probably good for the economy, and time on a train
| can be better spent than time in a car because one doesn't
| need to pay as much attention, which could be a small
| improvement to many people's lives.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| > Eg reducing parking spaces (as a sibling points out) to
| increase urban density is probably good for the economy
|
| Looking at most German cities, the effect of this is
| negligible.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| I actually observe reduction of parking spaces in public
| spaces.
|
| Although I don't think it could be an effect of
| Deutschlandticket, too little time to have an effect
| IMHO.
| lucumo wrote:
| > time on a train can be better spent than time in a car
| because one doesn't need to pay as much attention, which
| could be a small improvement to many people's lives.
|
| This is not really true on busy trains. I've commuted both
| on trains and in cars, and when comparing transportation
| methods near the saturation point, cars win when it comes
| to personal comfort.
|
| A traffic jam is no fun, but you can still sit, aren't
| jostled about by other people, have your personal space,
| and keep your climate controlled to a good level.
|
| In a full train, you will be standing up, pressed against a
| bunch of other people. The climate will be other people's
| sweat. You may be able to use your phone, but not much
| more.
|
| On a longer quiet route the train can be very nice. Get
| your laptop out, do a little work, nice coffee or tea with
| you. But on a busy commuter line it's more annoying than a
| car.
| willyt wrote:
| But if the train is that busy it likely couldn't be
| replaced by people travelling in personal cars anyway as
| they would take up to much road space and cause a huge
| traffic jam and there would be nowhere to park at the end
| of the journey in a presumably dense city centre.
| mu53 wrote:
| Most people are likely buying this for the regional
| tickets. Those trains sell seats, and do not have
| passengers standing for the 1-3 hour journey.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > _I 've commuted both on trains and in cars, and when
| comparing transportation methods near the saturation
| point, cars win when it comes to personal comfort._
|
| Note that if you're at the saturation point of both
| modes, you're moving _a lot_ more people with (light
| /heavy) rail:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Passenger_Capacity_o
| f_dif...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity
|
| Also worth considering that while it may be personally
| comfortable for you in on saturated rail, _you 're still
| moving_ towards your destination, whereas at car
| saturation you may be physically comfortable, but you are
| not making progress towards your goal of actually
| achieving your goal of getting to your destination while
| your speed is zero.
| jansan wrote:
| That is like saying that with pig factory farming (aka
| intensive pig farming) you can produce far more meat per
| square foot than with organic pig farming and therefore
| it must be better.
| throw0101c wrote:
| > [...] _and therefore it must be better._
|
| Yes, it _is_ better from a _capacity_ point of view.
|
| If you have a linear path that is _x_ metres wide, and
| you want /need to move a certain number of people, not-
| cars will move more people:
|
| * https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Cor
| ridor...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis-Mogridge_position
|
| Or, from another perspective, you have a budget of $/EUR
| _y_ for transportation, what mode of transportation will
| allow you to move the most people for that money? Unless
| you believe in MMT, government budgets are a finite
| resource, so how do we get the most bang for our buck?
|
| Certainly you need _some_ roads as vehicles such as
| trucks (UK: lorries) are very handy for society in
| running the economy. I myself own a car, a motorcycle, a
| bicycle, and have a transit pass (though I can use debit
| /credit tap-to-pay) and use each mode when appropriate.
| But the _overemphasis_ on automobiles-- _specifically_
| for private transportation--is suffocating the
| availability for other options.
|
| To go back to your analogy: if you have a starving
| population, then factory farming _is_ better because you
| can provide more calories to more people (and probably at
| lower cost). In that case organic is _worse_ because you
| may be sacrificing people 's well-being by not having
| enough capacity. Once you solve your first problem
| (enough calories/capacity), _then_ you have the luxury of
| other considerations.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Obviously it is better. The better alternative to
| intensive animal husbandry is not eating meat (or other
| animal products, but in a lesser way) than greenwashing
| via "organic" designation.
| rtpg wrote:
| I.... I really don't feel like driving in a traffic jam
| is better than being in a train in anything except the
| most extreme cases of train crowding. I haven't
| experienced massive commuter driving but even the cases
| I've just been stuck in stop and go traffic for 30
| minutes it felt worse than any train ride I've taken
| except for the few times I was in "I feel like I'm going
| to get crushed" levels of crowded.
|
| And like... generally speaking, the crowded train is
| still going to get you where you need to go. I don't know
| how you walk away from the 30 minute trip that took 2+
| hours with any happy feelings. To each their own of
| course
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| > I don't know how you walk away from the 30 minute trip
|
| You never drove with the DB before I take it (die Bahn -
| German trains). You routinely have that a 30min trip
| takes multiple times of what it should.
|
| * train coming in late * no replacement * suddenly from
| another track * people taking their life * missing the
| follow train * having to wait because an ICE gets
| priority
|
| You don't know how many trips I had to cancel because
| coming 3 hours to late (when starting the trip 30min
| early) isn't viable.
|
| Yeah sure being in a traffic jam sucks! Big time. I hate
| it with all my heart, but I then start playing a podcast
| or calming music and actually get something out of it.
| It's actually not so nervewracking if you change your
| mindset. It bothers me more that I know that my mileage
| will tank for that short while... But yeah if I can I
| stay at home...
| bratwurst3000 wrote:
| i also live in germany and its crazy. we are one to of
| the most developed country in the world and our train
| suck that hard that beeing stuck in traffic is way more
| pleasant and faster then beeing stuck somewhere for hours
| because of die bahn.
|
| and that's frequent. i did have to take the train for 6
| months with 1 change of train and it was completely full
| all the time and late half the time so a missed the other
| train. its not all trains but some are freaking late all
| the time. especially those between frankfort and
| stuttgart.
|
| there is a talk from daniel kriesel on youtube called
| bahn mining. very worth it
|
| edit:// i use the 49 ticket because it is nice to use
| trams and buses in towns.
| jajko wrote:
| German chancellor plans to put road repairs into 2% mandatory
| defense budget to meet NATO requirements, so not that much of
| a load to overall german budget.
|
| Not trying to detract discussion, just finding it hilarious
| that when facing a potentially existential threat from
| russians who repeatedly claim they will wipe them out, they
| will do just about anything rather than making their military
| into something a bit better than an chronically underfunded
| joke its now.
| diordiderot wrote:
| I believe the road budget was 132.8 billion between 2016
| and 2030
| chgs wrote:
| A strong German military with an ascendant far right party.
| What could possibly go wrong.
| fransje26 wrote:
| Actually, it makes quite a bit of sense to plan ahead to
| make sure that your infrastructure can efficiently
| transport the weapon systems you already have, or you are
| planning to have.
|
| What's the use of tanks if you can't get them to the
| battlefield? [1]
|
| Although some infrastructure was already built taking
| logistics into account [2], concrete structures have a life
| expectancy of about 50 years, and many bridges are past
| that age and need urgent replacement. And that costs a lot
| of money.
|
| A small reminder on the importance of bridges: [3]
|
| [1] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/what-can-stop-
| nato-...
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Load_Classific
| ation
|
| [3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64664944
| xienze wrote:
| Aren't roads necessary from a "last mile" perspective for
| like, all sorts of things a functioning country needs? Last
| time I checked trains don't run directly from farms to
| grocery stores and so we need trucks and therefore roads in
| order to get food to consumers, among other things.
| bluGill wrote:
| Much less roads. Humans can walk - and for health should.
|
| a few trucks are still needed but trucks used to haul are a
| minoricy of traffic
| SECProto wrote:
| > Aren't roads necessary from a "last mile" perspective for
| like, all sorts of things a functioning country needs?
|
| Yup, absolutely! But at least where I've worked on road
| design, the number of lanes on a local road is governed
| pretty much solely by the number of cars (trucks just have
| a larger impact on asphalt structure choices and, balance
| with the impacts of freeze-thaw, resurfacing schedule).
|
| But this is about longer distance travel - trains generally
| being used for intercity travel vs highways. Even still, I
| don't argue against road subsidization, but rather in
| favour of more train subsidization.
| rakoo wrote:
| They're necessary because cities are built around the idea
| that everything must be done through a car, so roads become
| necessary. It's a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The
| underlying discussion is all about urban planning and how
| we want societies to organize space.
| graemep wrote:
| I do not know about Germany, but most countries have taxes on
| car ownership and fuel, so you need to offset those against
| the expenditure on roads. Road construction and maintenance
| also benefits other road users - transport vehicles, cyclists
| and pedestrians and emergency vehicles etc.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| The degradation of road surfaces is caused almost entirely
| by automobiles.
|
| Think of how often dedicated walking and cycling routes
| need to be repaved--almost never.
|
| Car owners only pay about half of the cost of road
| maintenance in the US[1].
|
| [1] https://frontiergroup.org/resources/who-pays-roads/
| graemep wrote:
| How much in germany, which is what the post is about? How
| much in other countrie?
|
| > The degradation of road surfaces is caused almost
| entirely by automobiles.
|
| Given the fourth power law I find it hard to believe that
| larger vehicles, especially good vehicles , are not
| significant.
|
| Even without wear, surfaces deteriorate. You cannot claim
| that pavements and cycle lanes are zero maintenance, or
| have negligible costs to build.
| solatic wrote:
| I'm not sure you've fully accounted for the full carbon
| reduction here, which is not just the replacement of cars from
| the road but also the transition to a car-free lifestyle.
|
| It gets people out of their cars because it's cheaper than
| petrol. When train tickets (in other countries) cost more than
| the cost of petrol for the journey, commuters who already sank
| the cost of buying a car + insurance ask why they should bother
| paying a premium for the train ticket when the cost of petrol
| will be cheaper.
|
| _Only after_ people transition to taking the train in the
| morning, do they then start to ask questions like "do I get
| value out of paying for insurance on a car I don't drive?" and
| start to make decisions like selling their cars. In this case
| the carbon reduction is not only the carbon reduction of the
| trips that would have been taken by train, but the carbon
| reduction from the use of the car altogether, and future car
| maintenance and replacement.
| baxtr wrote:
| Additionally the ticket has not only shifted traffic but also
| led to an increase of trips in total.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Fewer people in cars means fewer road deaths, safer streets for
| walking and cycling, quieter cities, less nimby obstructionism
| due to parking complaints, and less inhaled tyre participates,
| among other benefits.
| locallost wrote:
| It's head and shoulders above all the subsidies to the car
| industry that just increase emissions. In terms of value it
| can't even be compared, one is positive and the other negative.
|
| E.g. during the original 9 Euro Ticket, the government also
| reduced taxes on gas to fight inflation, and this cost as much
| as the subsidies for the 9 Euro Ticket. The gas tax reduction's
| costs were 3 billion, and the 9 Euro Ticket costs were 2.5
| billion.
|
| So I would call it exceptional value when compared to other
| things.
| sooheon wrote:
| You're right, subsidies aren't enough. They should tax carbon,
| road use, and car ownership also.
| panda-giddiness wrote:
| Germany spends some 70 billion euros maintaining the road
| system, only about a third of which is offset by taxes on
| drivers [1]. If we accept that investments in roads reduce
| carbon emissions by 0 million tonnes per year, then that works
| out to NaN EUR per tonne -- much worse than other carbon
| abatement methods!
|
| Naturally there might be other positive externalities to owning
| a car, but I don't own a car and therefore wouldn't be privy to
| them. Instead I rely almost exclusively on Germany's public
| transport for my daily commutes, which I find perfectly
| satisfactory for this purpose and significantly more convenient
| than parking and maintaining a car.
|
| ---
|
| [1] https://www.forschung-und-
| wissen.de/nachrichten/oekonomie/au...
| cinntaile wrote:
| A third can't be right. 15 billion from petrol and 18.2
| billion from diesel alone make up almost half of that. 48.76
| million vehicles times EUR100 (back of the envelope
| calculation) for vehicle tax puts that number above half.
|
| https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Government/Taxes/Excise-
| Du...
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/810662/passenger-cars-
| st...
|
| https://www.zoll.de/DE/Unternehmen/Kraftfahrzeugsteuer/Steue.
| ..
| panda-giddiness wrote:
| From the article (sorry for the bad link before; fixed
| below [1]):
|
| > The revenue from taxes and levies on road traffic amounts
| to around 50 billion euros annually. Around half of this is
| earmarked by law via the mineral oil tax, i.e. around 25
| billion euros. This means that just over a third (36%) of
| the earmarked revenue from road traffic covers the costs of
| roads and other facilities such as parking lots and the
| like. It is therefore clear that the public sector is
| heavily subsidizing road traffic.
|
| My understanding is that these two forms of taxes add to
| more than 50%, but then almost half of those taxes must be
| reinvested elsewhere by law (i.e., not into roads), hence
| the 1/3 figure. But even if you ignore this reallocation of
| taxes, you still have a deficit of around 20 billion euros.
|
| ---
|
| [1] https://www.forschung-und-
| wissen.de/nachrichten/oekonomie/au...
| sideshowb wrote:
| I'm a bit baffled why Germany's numbers are so bad here.
| In the UK the government takes far more in revenue from
| drivers than it spends on the roads.
| hollerith wrote:
| Although the UK probably still makes cars, making and
| exporting cars is not as big a part of the UK economy as
| it is of the German economy.
|
| Maybe that is why.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Maybe in UK local roads are funded differently? If you
| counted only national roads in Poland it would seem that
| Poland takes more in revenue than spends on roads, which
| isn't true if you count expenses on all the local roads
| that aren't in national budget.
| sideshowb wrote:
| No my op includes local roads though you're right you do
| have to gather the data from local authorities
| tame3902 wrote:
| That's because the selection of numbers is a little bit
| weird. The 70 billion on the cost side are composed of 38
| billion for construction and maintenance, 14 billion for
| traffic police and 18 billion for public funds spent for
| accidents. The generated income is only taxes on fuel and
| the tax car owners have to pay.
|
| If you include the cost of the traffic police, there is
| way more stuff that you can include on the income side
| like taxes on car sales and part of the cost comes also
| back to the government in the form of taxes. There is
| likely also a large part of the costs that is missing.
| Doing this properly is a lot of work and doing it
| precisely is hard to impossible. These sort of things
| almost always include estimates for the higher order
| effects.
|
| Btw: I googled the study[1] and apparently it was funded
| by the "Netzwerk Europaischer Eisenbahnen e.V." (Network
| of European Railways Association). I would take any
| statements and numbers with a huge grain of salt.
|
| [1]: https://www.htw-berlin.de/forschung/online-
| forschungskatalog...
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| > 15 billion from petrol and 18.2 billion from diesel alone
|
| Not all petrol or diesel is consumed by motor vehicles that
| (primarily) drive on the road.
| jojobas wrote:
| Even if you don't drive a car yourself you depend a lot on
| things delivered by road. Most of the road wear is done by
| trucks bringing you food, construction materials and whatever
| else. You can't exactly replenish your local grocery store by
| rail or cargo bike.
| xandrius wrote:
| But we could definitely have 99% being done over rail and
| 1% by road.
| looofooo0 wrote:
| Health care cost decline as people walk more compared to car
| transit!
| vaylian wrote:
| > That really isn't good value - most carbon abatement methods
| cost well under $100 per tonne.
|
| That assumes that there is still sufficient potential for
| additional use of these cheaper carbon abatement methods. The
| tricky part about fighting climate change is that we have to
| make change in many different places. Each partial solution has
| only a limited capacity for deployment.
| jona-f wrote:
| This is so wrong, I don't even know where to begin, my head is
| spinning. Luckily HN came to the rescue for once. But sadly
| this is the kind of reasoning that actually works in politics
| and finance.
| chipdart wrote:
| > Providing these EUR49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of
| around EUR3bn, on top of already substantial subsidies for the
| rail industry.
|
| I'm perplexed by the way you omitted the fact that these
| subsidies cover bus services, both local and regional (it's in
| the article's leading sentence).
|
| From there you proceeded to use that cherry-picking to single
| out a specific type of service while also cherry-picking the
| tradeoffs.
| znpy wrote:
| $ 3bn is a fairly small price to pay when you consider that you
| get less co2 ON TOP of more people using public transport
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > That really isn't good value - most _carbon abatement
| methods_ cost well under $100 per tonne.
|
| You spelled "counterfeit carbon credit" wrong. There's no
| carbon sequestration technology that can fix carbon at
| industrial scale at that cost yet (and maybe never).
| izacus wrote:
| Until 2024 the budget for German Autobahn company ("subsidy")
| was at 6.2bn EUR for comparison.
|
| And this is JUST the roads. No other subsidies and incentives
| given to car manufacturing and car transport.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Many "other externalities" are priceless: Many poor people
| cannot afford a car.
| Scarblac wrote:
| But the roads and cars are used less, which means they require
| less maintenance. CO2 emission isn't the only pollution caused
| by cars either. People get cheaper transport options available
| to them.
|
| All those other wins for society should be counted too, there
| may not even be a cost left to count towards CO2 reduction.
|
| But most importantly, taking 3 billion in taxes and handing
| them out as subsidised pricing to some of the people isnt
| really a cost (to society as a whole), it's an income
| redistribution.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| Not everything has to be priced. Some things can be desired and
| pursued, even if they don't make sense monetarily.
| 7bit wrote:
| If we look past carbon emission, we can see that the value is
| much bigger.
|
| You mention that the rail industry is already substantially
| subsidized. What you did not mention is that the automotive
| industry is as well. Roads are paid by state and republic. Car
| purchases are often subsidized via a flat return by the
| republic (which primarily benefits the rich). Petrol is also
| subsidized.
|
| Now all these automotive subsidiaries benefit only the people
| who own cars, and much more the wealthy ones. In Germany, only
| 43 million private households own a car. That's just roughly 50
| %.
|
| But if you get people to choose public transport over your
| auto, then this benefits everyone. Better air quality, less
| noise pollution, less streets and more space for pedestrians.
| Anecdotally, a close neighbourhood removed some parking spots
| in favour of space for local cafes and public benches with
| plants. Removing just two parking spots give enough places for
| 10 people to sit together and enjoy a sunny Sunday -- which
| otherwise would be dead space occupied by the cars of two or
| even one household.
| briandear wrote:
| How many tons of CO2 are in 1 degree of global temperature?
| This idea that removing "a lot" is somehow "helping" just seems
| hand-wavy to me. If the goal is "reduce temperatures," then
| what precisely is the goal number? And then, how much CO2
| equals that? And how much is the cost per degree to reduce and
| what is the cost per degree to not reduce?
|
| There is a lot of "modeling" but has anyone actually proven
| "reducing 8000 tons of carbon reduces temperatures by n
| degrees?" And is it beneficial to lower temperatures? Are there
| benefits to higher temperatures that haven't been quantified?
|
| Just seems like the plan is "spend whatever it takes forever"
| -- when whatever it takes isn't even quantifiable. Basically
| investing without ever knowing the return on the investment.
| cromka wrote:
| The cost of the road deaths is also significant and I think
| it's safe to say it dropped as people switched to using rail.
| chomskyole wrote:
| If you recognise that there are other positive impacts that you
| haven't allowed for, then why stating that your incomplete
| assessment shows that it isn't good value? Does that show bias?
| RobinL wrote:
| In the short run, the trains are running anyway, so you might
| as well fill them up.
|
| This is something that particularly frustates me in the case of
| buses the UK. They're ridiculously expensive (well, except for
| the temporary current PS2 scheme), and empty. There seems to be
| a political consensus that we should have them, so it would
| make far more sense for them to be free in all instances,
| except when demand is so high they're full (e.g. rush hour)
| manmal wrote:
| One other positive externality could be this: The health
| effects of tire abrasion in cars are not clear yet, not least
| because tire manufacturers don't disclose their ingredients.
| For all we know these fine particulates could be as bad as
| PFAS.
| eru wrote:
| Thanks for doing the math!
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| "social cost of driving" and "vehicle mile travelled" are two
| key phrases that will lead you to research on various costs of
| car travel e.g.
|
| > The air pollution-related damage attributable to driving,
| therefore, can be estimated at $10.7 billion to $41.6 billion
| per year - an average of between $93 and $360 per U.S.
| household per year.
| m1n7 wrote:
| did carbon dioxide write this?
| graemep wrote:
| They are certainly very big. Rail is extremely safe so you
| reduce deaths and injuries from accidents. You reduce other
| types of pollution. You make towns and cities a lot pleasanter.
| You save individuals a lot of money.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's arguable that $100 per ton is a real carbon price.
|
| It translates to about $1 a gallon tax on gasoline which is (a)
| not enough to change people's behavior (at its peak gas was
| almost $2 more than it is now and I drove just the same) but
| (b) people in 2024 will complain bitterly about it anyway. That
| is, polities are hypersensitized to that sort of imposed
| solution right now: for a long time people in the US accepted
| fluctuations in the gas price because it was seen as a market
| price so we only had riots whenever a black person was shot by
| the cops; in "normal" countries (including France and Egypt)
| you have riots when the price of petroleum goes up because it
| is seen as being controlled by the state. I think the US has
| gotten more "normal" post COVID-19 and with GHG controls on the
| horizon. $1 a gallon is not quite going to make EVs beat gas
| but it certainly happens at a price below $500 a tonne.
|
| Favorable CCS from industrial sources is quoted around $100 a
| tonne but that is (c) from a plant that runs 24-7 (e.g. if your
| natural gas plant runs 20% of the time the capital cost of CCS
| is multiplied 5x at least disregarding that the plant might not
| run well when it is starting up and shutting down) and (d) has
| few realizations.
|
| The biggest positive externality of rail is suppressed traffic
| congestion, it is a big quality of life thing if you can avoid
| sitting in a traffic jam. (Reminds me of posters I saw in
| Germany that said _Zukunft onhe Stau_ )
|
| I find rail tourism to be luxurious compared to motortourism in
| that one gets to the center of town and doesn't need to stress
| about parking, traffic and all that. Contrast that to the fight
| to refuel your rental car at the airport.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Not disagreeing but it's important to point out that the US
| is a different beast because of the car and roadway
| dependency. In Europe a large part of the population lives in
| places easily _reachable_ without a car. But in the US EVs
| are completely central to reducing CO2 from transportation,
| unless you'd rather rebuild the entire country. In Europe you
| can make meaningful changes by simply improving, expanding,
| investing in existing infrastructure. Most people I know who
| have a car in EU region are not fully dependent, but enjoy
| more convenience due to overcrowded or unreliable public
| transit, grocery stores being further away etc. Those
| problems are orders of magnitude easier to solve than "let's
| build rail through a giant web of sparse suburbs".
| PaulHoule wrote:
| When I spent a year in Dresden I greatly enjoyed using the
| train instead of the plane for travel around the area as
| far as London in one direction and Sunny Beach, Bulgaria in
| the other. I lived close enough to walk to work and could
| do a lot of shopping on foot (great bakery 2 blocks away, a
| fancy chocolate store, a butcher, etc.) but sometimes used
| the tram to go to the city center and to further out towns.
|
| I was maybe 3-4 blocks from a regional rail or S-Bahn
| station which that ticket entitles you to ride and it is a
| great ticket that can get you to nearby mountains or the
| Czech Republic or nearby cities like Leipzig. Really you
| could ride across Germany on the S-Bahn comfortably
| stopping where you want and staying overnight in a hotel
| occasionally. Nothing beat those sleeper trains which
| eliminated the hotel stay then you wake up in Dortmund and
| change trains for Amsterdam.
|
| (EMEA people in 1998 seemed more inclined to use airlines
| than rail to go to distant domestic and international
| cities, they had service that was better and cheaper than
| the US; air service has become even more competitive in
| EMEA since then)
|
| Dresdenites I knew who had cars would drive them to the
| appliance and furniture stores and even to nearby places
| like Quedlinburg and even to Berlin, Munich, Bremen, etc.
| with a resignation to traffic jams like that of the Los
| Angelino.
|
| Delivery service is far along in the US and I would expect
| a truck to deliver anything larger than 7 cubic feet of
| sawdust even on my farm so I don't need a truck. I have 8
| horses but no trailer because we know many people who will
| move a horse for us for less than a month's payment on a
| big ass truck.
| piombisallow wrote:
| I do recognise that "X" may have other positive externalities,
| but I don't know how to price any of them.
|
| Modern policy in a nutshell.
| konschubert wrote:
| Having such a very heavy subsidy also makes transit very
| dependent on the current political climate.
| k__ wrote:
| It's pretty awesome, but it gets more expensive all the time.
|
| First it started as 9EUR ticket for 3 months.
|
| People loved it, and the government talked about doing a
| permanent 29EUR ticket.
|
| But now we pay 49EUR and it's already planned to become 59EUR.
|
| Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.
| lispm wrote:
| > Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.
|
| Depends. In my city "poor" people pay less. Just 19 EUR per
| month. Pupils don't pay at all. Students pay 29.40 EUR.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| It's still super affordable for the average worker using these
| tickets to commute.
| epolanski wrote:
| It's meant to be an alternative to car drivers which are still
| gonna save over driving even with multiple hikes ahead.
| Aachen wrote:
| Remember that it cost a small rent to get this subscription
| until the 9EUR experiment. Flat fee national transport, I don't
| remember the exact price but it's multiple hundreds a month in
| both the Netherlands (NS altijd/trein vrij) and Germany
| (Bahnkarte 100). Even my local subscription to go ~10km between
| two cities in Germany (NRW) cost 90EUR a month until that
| experiment
|
| A nationwide subscription for 60 euros is a steal, even when
| the long distance trains are excluded
| dunefox wrote:
| Except for people who simply don't have 60EUR a month easily,
| so they're left out. Also, it will absolutely not stay at
| 60EUR, it will become more expensive each year until the
| local tickets are cheaper again - defeating the whole purpose
| (if it won't be reverted outright after the next election,
| which the conservatives will win).
| Aachen wrote:
| I'm not saying it shouldn't be free like in Luxembourg,
| just made the comparison with how it has been for decades
| until the recent 9EUR experiment and now ~60EUR
| subscription. It's already a lot better than it used to be,
| even if it's not perfect
|
| Do you know how it works, actually, if you need to get to
| work but can't because of the cost? If you can't afford
| 60EUR then you also won't be able to afford a car that
| costs probably >3x times as much for a barebones old model
| when you include the necessary insurance, road tax, and
| fuel. Burgergeld pays your rent afaik but do they front
| e.g. costs when you get a job to actually get there until
| your first paycheck? Can one apply for a public transport
| subscription in low income situations?
| m463 wrote:
| It seems the problem might be that pricing is judged
| independent from externalities. Same with cars and roads.
|
| On the other hand, if price was set to zero, you would get
| weird over-usage patterns (like people using it for housing or
| other nonsense)
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| Doesn't Germany have an extremely large social safety net?
|
| Who are these poor people that don't have 49EUR for a month of
| transportation, and how are they possibly surviving without
| that much money - given the cost of everything else in Germany?
| nisa wrote:
| Well you'll usally have 563EUR/month as a single or
| 506EUR/month if living with a partner. State pays health
| insurance and rent (up to a certain limit in size of the
| flat). In most cities it's further subsidized (25-29EUR for
| the 49EUR ticket).
|
| If that's enough depends a lot where you live, if you have
| family or not and your livestyle.
|
| You have to pay your energy bills (40-70EUR/month) and
| internet / cell-phone (40-50EUR/month) for yourself.
|
| If you are a healthy single it's perfectly fine if you life a
| simple life. But you can't really put aside any savings.
| lispm wrote:
| The safety net also provides people with cheaper tickets. At
| least in my city, the ticket costs much less for people who
| depend on the social safety net.
| slightwinder wrote:
| > Doesn't Germany have an extremely large social safety net?
|
| Yes, but people will still be greedy and complain about every
| little thing.
|
| > Who are these poor people that don't have 49EUR for a month
| of transportation, and how are they possibly surviving
| without that much money - given the cost of everything else
| in Germany?
|
| Germany can actually be quite cheap on the basic goods. I
| mean, it's the country who invented the concept of discount-
| market and is now spreading Aldi&Lidl to the world. There are
| also many shops and programs for supporting poor people,
| selling stuff for lower prices or second hand, and such
| things. And of course this includes offering a lower price
| for the ticket.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| For a developed country, 59 EUR is not all that expensive if it
| helps you get to a job. Having it be too cheap would probably
| degrade the quality of service for busier routes and make it
| harder for future projects to pay themselves off.
| dunefox wrote:
| In a highly developed and wealthy country it should be free.
| braiamp wrote:
| > First it started as 9EUR ticket for 3 months
|
| Someone said in other comment that that 9 ticket was one time
| only
|
| > That was a time limited earlier ticket. "The tickets were
| valid for June, July, or August 2022. The offer aimed at
| reducing energy use amid the 2021-2022 global energy crisis."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket
| unglaublich wrote:
| EUR59 is a steal. The goal is to move people to public
| transport and strengthen economy, not to be a charity to folks
| that want unlimited (!) transportation but don't have EUR
| 60/month to show for it.
|
| Even so, cities subsidize this ticket for the "poor", so
| practically their costs are even lower.
| RealStickman_ wrote:
| The Swiss ride anywhere ticket is 4000 CHF annually [1]. (330
| CHF/month -> 350 EUR/month)
|
| That's still less than an average car. A commonly quoted figure
| is 10'000 CHF per year. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.sbb.ch/de/billette-angebote/abos/ga/ga-
| preise.ht...
|
| [2] https://www.comparis.ch/carfinder/autofahren/auto-kosten
| graphenus wrote:
| I find the comparis estimate an overestimate. Take their VW
| Polo example. You would definitely not insure it for 1207 Fr
| a year and an annual service is not 3000 Fr a year. You take
| their estimate for VW Polo, put numbers a layman folk pays
| for, and you will get a number around 5000 a year. If you buy
| a second hand car, then you get a very competitive price to
| the GA, but also get more flexibility.
|
| I am not saying anyone should by a car, quite the contrary,
| just stating the fact that 4000 Fr/yr is not competitive
| enough to car.
| dunefox wrote:
| They earn A LOT more money in Switzerland than in Germany.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| The German one is 4550EUR
|
| https://www.bahn.de/angebot/bahncard/bahncard100
|
| Quite comparable. The ticket discussed in the article in
| contrast only includes local transportation but no high speed
| rail.
| slightwinder wrote:
| > First it started as 9EUR ticket for 3 months.
|
| That was a different Ticket. A highly subsidized time-limited
| offer. It was never meant to be economical. The 49EUR is the
| economical viable solution, after a long discussion, which
| still is subsidized. And the 59EUR is just the rise to fine-
| tune the price to actual usage and inflation.
|
| > Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.
|
| Poor people, as also students, get a lower price. Usually
| around 19-29EUR. And many workers can get it through their
| company, or can get something back from taxes. The amount of
| people who are really paying the full price themselves is
| probably not that high.
| internetter wrote:
| I made an argument for making my local public transportation
| free: https://boehs.org/node/free-the-t
|
| Some of the arguments is based on similar German research, which
| is cited.
| theendisney4 wrote:
| The real puzzle imho is to get people to use public transport for
| the mostly empty route and time combinations. There are many of
| those for different reasons.
|
| Trains are so heavy it doesnt really cost or save anything if
| there are people inside or not.
|
| Its like restaurants throwing away food.
| owisd wrote:
| The UK offers aggressive discounts for advance purchasing
| tickets on long distance routes at quiet times, which works
| well.
| switch007 wrote:
| Which are used to justify expensive non-Advance tickets.
|
| PS80 if I have the audacity to go to greater London today
| without having planned ahead (3 hour journey + tube). And the
| same cost coming back - off peak of course. PS160! Vs PS55 in
| petrol
|
| Travel at quieter times to benefit from cheaper off peak
| tickets they used to say. Hah.
| timeinput wrote:
| And with strikes, weather related closures, maintenance
| closures, etc I end up having to rebook my ticket at the
| last minute.
|
| I'd say half of the advanced purchased journeys end up
| costing me more than just booking the train the day of.
| switch007 wrote:
| Yes! Now we are getting on to the true cost of advanced
| tickets.
|
| Fines for making mistakes, rebooking fees, rebooking and
| having to pay a higher fare, lost tickets because
| sometimes it's just easier to book a new ticket, losing
| out when unwell etc...
|
| I bet they make a tidy sum from unused advance tickets
|
| (Great Britain specific):
|
| Although worth noting when it's out of your control the
| railway does have to offer you options. You don't have
| 100% of the liability.
|
| And if your train is cancelled you're entitled to take
| the one before/after for example or get a refund
|
| Though they do make this difficult these days
| fire_lake wrote:
| Does it though? Trains are almost empty most of the time.
| overflyer wrote:
| Which I as a German simply fail to fathom. The quality of our
| Deutsche Bahn is so bad I would never drive by train. The worst
| thing is that they are incapable to have their trains be on time.
| Whenever you travel there is an extremely high chance you will
| not arrive at your destination in time.
| Aachen wrote:
| Not every trip is time sensitive, most trains do run on time,
| and not all trains are operated by your nemesis. If you still
| refuse to "ever" take a train anywhere, that's on you rather
| than the system
| patall wrote:
| Because it is a regional problem and some areas work mostly
| fine. I also fail to fanthom why people drive in rush hour,
| queuing every day for hours. Yet people do that. And people
| love to complain, especially those that only take trains on
| public holidays. But hey, here in Sweden the trains are worse
| than in Germany, but people complain far less and trains are
| full anyways.
| locallost wrote:
| It's still more punctual than going by car. I can't remember
| any long distance car trip where I wasn't stuck in traffic and
| my trip was much longer than predicted by the navigation
| system.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The regional trains (which the ticket applies to) are much
| better than the long-distance trains:
| https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen...
| hankchinaski wrote:
| Would be interesting to see if the subsidy is covered by
| additional economic activity to cover the shortfall. If not it
| won't last long, money doesn't grow on trees
| moffkalast wrote:
| On the other hand the Bundeswehr burns through 50 billion a
| year to do fuck all, so apparently it does indeed grow on
| trees.
| contravariant wrote:
| Military spending is a bit of an odd one. It's basically
| expensive by design and ideally doesn't have any real effect.
|
| It's not far off from a proof-of-work system. Especially
| given how there are many _cheaper_ options to get rid of an
| enemy, but those have been outlawed such that the only
| options remaining are costly in people, money and goods.
| jenadine wrote:
| > there are many cheaper options to get rid of an enemy,
| but those have been outlawe
|
| I'm curious. What are these options?
| moffkalast wrote:
| Nukes, I think they mean nukes. Though "cheaper" is kind
| of debatable there, a fleet of SSBNs isn't cheap by any
| measure.
| saagarjha wrote:
| It does when maintaining roads, apparently.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Someone in the comments mentioned this costs 3B per year when
| in comparison Germany spends 20B per year on Oil/Gas
| subsidies/tax benefits.
|
| Arguably if more people are using rail it can become palatable
| to shift that money away from the tax benefits and subsidies
| for Oil which (equally) artificially lower fuel prices from
| real market prices (and which people seem to have no problem
| with).
| exabrial wrote:
| I have to admit the 'all access' ticket system was pretty awesome
| when I visited. Note that this did not include trains going into
| Austria (even if you road them only in Germany). Nearly every
| city is joined by rail and it's incredible.
|
| Sadly in the US Midwest we just don't have there population
| density to do this sort of thing.
| ggernov wrote:
| The reason nobody uses public transit in America is it's always
| packed with transients or dangerous people.
|
| I took public transit all the time living in Melbourne since it
| was clean and silent nearly 98% of the time. Same in the
| Netherlands.
| tantivy wrote:
| Hundreds of thousands of people use public transit daily in
| America. Long headways, poor coverage, and lackluster
| maintenance budgets are a much more important problem than what
| you're describing.
| jahnu wrote:
| I take your point but the reality is millions use it daily.
| Also where it is better more use it. Which is the important
| point lost to many.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I think this is one reason why it is rarely expanded, people
| associate the stops as a way for criminals to get around; but I
| think usage is not great largely because it hasn't
| expanded...it's a self-feeding cycle.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| > The reason nobody uses public transit in America is it's
| always packed with transients or dangerous people.
|
| That's a lie told by people who sell fear as a product to
| people who always want new reasons to live in fear.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Remember folks, if someone says they don't want to ride
| transit with a hobo smoking meth, they're lying and they're a
| bad person. Even if they've previously experienced it
| firsthand.
| itqwertz wrote:
| I spent years riding public transit in Portland, NYC,
| Seattle, SF, San Diego, Chicago, and other US cities. I can
| tell you anecdotally that public transit in the US is
| dangerous and meant for the poors who don't have their shit
| together to level up and commute via car.
|
| Ride 8AM and 5PM every workday for a year and tell me that
| it's safe when you roll through the bad parts of Long Island/
| brooklyn/Queens or the south side of Chicago. Tell me that
| you don't have to take the inconvenient early train because
| of nTh handicap ramp pickup or last-mile cyclist that slows
| down your commute. Security on transit only cares about fare
| collection. The US is not like Europe where there is some
| latent pride in your ancestors accomplishments.
| jahnu wrote:
| European here. Spent a week in NYC with a 9 month old.
| Traveled all over 4 of the 5 boroughs and never felt in the
| slightest threatened. The only major issue was the lack of
| elevators. Fortunately NYC people are really friendly and
| helped us with the stroller every time.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Maybe you came at the right time?
|
| https://www.reuters.com/world/us/new-york-
| deploy-750-nationa...
|
| https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2024/05/02/new-
| tea...
| jahnu wrote:
| It was back in 2013. Oh god... feels like only yesterday
| but it's been 11 years :(
| ckdarby wrote:
| I used to live in Toronto in 2019 to 2020 and used the
| transit exclusively.
|
| I return as a visitor of Toronto every quarter for work and
| there are many times where I Uber instead of TTC because of
| these comments. Even slightly busy at 4-5 PM there's always
| folks who have hit the gym and skipped showering and most
| days there's "something" happening on the TTC.
| david-gpu wrote:
| Motorists in Toronto have killed 34 people so far this year
| and seriously injured an additional 146 [0].
|
| Meanwhile the TTC, with daily ridership in the million
| people range [0] has seen one homicide [2].
|
| Which one is safer?
|
| [0] https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-
| parking-tra...
|
| [1] https://www.ttc.ca/transparency-and-
| accountability/Operating...
|
| [2] https://www.blogto.com/city/2024/06/outrage-person-
| murdered-...
| JimTheMan wrote:
| This platitude doesn't make the back seats of a greyhound bus
| any more palatable.
|
| God they were cheap tickets though..
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >That's a lie told by people who sell fear as a product to
| people who always want new reasons to live in fear.
|
| They don't just sell fear. They sell confirmation bias too.
|
| The man who lives in an ivory tower in the suburbs is happy
| to read the news about a stabbing on the subway as it makes
| him feel less bad for not putting his money where his mouth
| is and riding it himself.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| And he pays no attention to the reports about car crashes
| on the road because those aren't even reported.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I wish public transit served homeless people as well as a lot
| of folks like to imagine it does.
|
| A lot of homeless aren't "transients." They aren't _just
| passing through._
|
| If we had excellent public transit to make it easier for
| homeless people to travel at will, maybe they would be. And
| maybe their lives would be overall better and they would get
| less open hatred for being poor and unhoused in a world making
| it increasingly challenging to get housing for far too many
| people.
| mplewis wrote:
| 80% of homelessness in the USA is transitional, i.e. someone
| lost a job or had an injury and needs time to get back on
| their feet.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Transient: _a person who is staying or working in a place
| for only a short time._
|
| I don't think most people mean someone is only temporarily
| homeless when they call them transients.
| createaccount99 wrote:
| In the same spirit, I never really associate the meaning
| of "transient" as "someone passing through," rather it's
| just a word for "homeless person" for me.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I was in San Francisco recently, and, okay, maybe San Francisco
| is special or something, but the public transport seemed
| basically fine? Insofar as it existed; coverage wasn't great,
| but it didn't seem particularly threatening where it existed.
| EasyMark wrote:
| BART is different than most systems. Generally people are
| talking about buses in my experience. Most trains/subways are
| relatively tame compared to buses. I was carless for a couple
| of years in college and had to live off campus to afford rent
| and riding the bus I encountered more than a few times that
| made me nervous.
| panick21_ wrote:
| This is just false. In the US, when public transport is good by
| the same measures as other countries use, such as frequency,
| coverage and so on, Americans use public transport just fine.
|
| The real reason, rather then looking at the most basic surface
| level is actually the horrible land use planning and the
| horrible transportation and city engineering. This includes
| things like zoning, building regulation, environmental
| regulation and many other things.
| nemo44x wrote:
| The main reason is because Americans are unbelievably wealthy
| and can afford large homes that require multiple cars for the
| family to get around. It's a positive sign of American
| prosperity and the envy of the world hence the massive
| immigration demand and relative lack of expatriatism.
|
| If America gets to a point where that's no longer possible and
| people have to live in smaller and more densely populated areas
| not by choice but by necessity then the country is truly in
| decline.
|
| Let the Germans cram themselves into smaller homes and trains.
| I truly hope Americans can continue to prosper and acquire
| comfortable homes with more utility and private transport
| powered by cheap energy for all.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| That's a nice but false narrative. The Swiss are wealthier
| than the Americans and yet they use public transport
| extensively.
| lolc wrote:
| Good public infra is wealth with much higher utility than
| private infra.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Roads are public infra. I agree they should be kept in
| good order.
| occz wrote:
| This reads like satire, but I'm not sure that it is and it's
| frightening me a bit.
| nemo44x wrote:
| What's satirical about it? Why would people want a world
| where they are forced to live on top of each other in small
| places if they don't have to due to plentiful energy and
| vast material wealth?
|
| If some new age Protestant needs to live worse to fulfill
| some spiritual hole then they can do it. But everyone else
| wants a large yard, comfortable home with many rooms, nice
| cars, and well maintained infrastructure to drive and park.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| That is pure BS. At least as some general sweeping statement.
| mayneack wrote:
| This is a vast oversimplification. Lots Angles Metro keeps
| posting month over month increases in ridership despite the
| perceive danger and unsavory experience.
|
| I'm sure cleaner cars would help at the margins. Speed,
| convenience, comfortable, and cost all matter.
| softveda wrote:
| The current government in Queensland Australia announced 50c
| fares for 6 months trial. There is an election this month, the
| gov declared it will be made permanent, the opposition which is
| tipped to win has so far maintained they will also keep it. It
| has boosted PT travel significantly.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/oct/11/the-b...
| jmyeet wrote:
| This last week we would've probably all seen the photos of the
| gridlock on I-75 as Tampa Bay residents fled Hurricane Milton. If
| you followed the story you know it eventually became almost
| impossible to evacuate.
|
| We should also know how much more efficient buses are on roads at
| moving people than individual cars are. You can fit ~60 people on
| a bus that takes up the space of ~2 cars.
|
| What should happen in these emergencies is there should be
| dedicated bus lanes and dedicates buses to evacuate people.
|
| But beyond that, what we should learn from this is that lack of
| public transit (intracity and intercity) is a public safety
| issue. Cars simply aren't an efficient use of resources.
|
| You can see from the comments here people will talk about
| "subsidies" for rail. Why does rail need to turn a profit? Roads
| don't. The Post Office doesn't. The Fire Department doesn't. Yet
| for some reason we hold public transport infrastructure to a
| higher standard.
|
| Americans, in particular, love their cars. And there has been a
| powerful lobbying operation to associate rail with tax increases.
| This is so short-sighted because nobody is confiscating your car.
| Fewer people on the roads will improve your driving experience
| and travel times.
|
| We see in the UK that it's cheaper to fly to Spain than to take
| intercity train journeys. As far as I'm concerned, citywide rail
| (eg the Tube in London, the NYC Subway) should be free and
| intercity rail should have a nominal cost that is cheaper than
| driving.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| In some ways, it's all kind of moot, since the current usage of
| cars, trucks, planes is all unsustainable on short timescales
| (decades).
|
| Bus and rail is likely to be unsustainable for much longer
| (centuries ?).
| lagrange77 wrote:
| Am i a communist when i prefer a government to operate and
| provide basic services like the public transport system, the
| postal system, the telecommunication/internet service or prisons
| either paid by taxes or by fees, that don't generate profit
| beyond paying the costs, instead of using taxes to rescue
| bankrupt banks and companies?
|
| EDIT: Oh and hospitals!
| layer8 wrote:
| No. That's not even socialist.
| manquer wrote:
| > Am i a communist
|
| Even if you were, is that really a bad thing? Why do we
| demonize communism (and socialism ) so much ?
|
| Poor implementation in Soviet Union or in PRC that is only seen
| through the color of propaganda with the inherent cultural and
| ideological biases is hardly a good basis for judging a
| movement that was a response to centuries of extreme worker
| exploitation in direct result industrialization and raise of
| machines.
|
| Are there really bad ideas in socialism ? yes of course, there
| are bad ideas in late stage capitalism or in any free market
| system or any system.
|
| We learn and try to take to best from all economic systems not
| demonize any of them.
| lagrange77 wrote:
| > Even if you were, is that really a bad thing?
|
| I noticed, that it sounded like that after i submitted the
| comment. Was not intended.
|
| > Are there really bad ideas in socialism ? yes of course,
| there are bad ideas in late stage capitalism or in any free
| market system or any system.
|
| I totally agree.
| lispm wrote:
| Otto von Bismarck introduced much of the social safety net in
| Germany, incl. health insurance (in 1883). He definitely was
| not a communist. He once called it "practical christianity"
| ("praktisches Christentum").
| ossobuco wrote:
| After all Jesus was a proto-socialist, wasn't he?
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Ah, socialism. Well, that's what we call it.
| WuxiFingerHold wrote:
| How many people used the tracking app for how long? How were they
| chosen?
|
| The study would be flawed if the group is not chosen to represent
| correctly the entire population. E.g., if they called for
| volunteers using the app, mostly people will apply that are
| engaged in climate change mitigation anyway and / or are in the
| target market for the 49 Euro ticket.
| pentacent_hq wrote:
| The data are based on cellphone tower data and app tracking
| data which, according to them [1] "is based on millions of app
| tracking movement patterns [...] [and was shown by] Koch et al
| (2023) to be representative for the population of car-owners"
|
| [1] https://mcc-berlin-ariadne.shinyapps.io/dticket-tracker/
| guelermus wrote:
| It was one of the most intelligent ( and rare) decision the
| government took. Off course, there are parties loosing money like
| car manufacturers and oil producers.
| isodev wrote:
| That's a double win in my book.
| Fanmade wrote:
| I agree. I still have to rely on my car for basically
| everything because the same government also fucked up the rail
| system so severely that it barely works in my region. When I
| moved from a small village to the city, I sold my car and
| wanted to use public transportation for everything. I'm not
| fond of driving, especially in cities, so this looked like a
| no-brainer. I had my first bad experiences quickly when I
| learned that public transportation wasn't anywhere as reliable
| as I previously thought.
|
| I had to choose between going to work 45 minutes earlier (of
| course, unpaid and without the possibility of leaving earlier)
| or risking being too late half the time. I had to travel
| further for my next job, but I thought it would be better
| because it was another connection. I was wrong. It was usually
| better in the mornings, but my way home usually took between
| 1,5 and 3 hours instead of the planned 45 minutes.
|
| The next job I chose only because there, at least, I could take
| the S-Bahn instead of the Deutsche Bahn Trains, and it was a
| direct connection, which was way more reliable. But it was very
| loud, very smelly, cold in winter, and very hot in summer (I
| remember having a working AC twice in the four years that I
| traveled that line), and there were (not always empty) beer
| bottles rolling around the floor almost all the time. I always
| paid for the entire year in advance, so the 90-minute daily
| drive did cost a little more than 220 Euros monthly. Otherwise,
| it would have been even more expensive. So, the current ticket
| would have improved that, at least financially. Now, I barely
| take the train anymore.
|
| I broke my ankle so badly in my youth that the doctors told me
| that they had to completely cut it open from both sides to see
| if they could improve it in any way. They also said that there
| was a strong possibility that I would wake up with a fused
| ankle after the operation. They recommended I only do that when
| the pain becomes unbearable, which I am now waiting for. So, I
| am permanently in pain, and walking is terrible for me. Still,
| when I have to go to the nearby city center, I prefer walking
| for 45 minutes instead of taking the 10-minute trip by train.
| That is what relying on German public transportation for more
| than ten years did to me. I tried that train connection
| multiple times before and stopped after it took me over an hour
| twice (after about five trips total).
|
| Disclaimer: It is not that bad everywhere in Germany. That's
| why I wrote "in my region" in the beginning. Within Berlin, for
| example, I had good experiences with public transportation.
| Well, at least regarding its availability. There were still
| junkies in there. And homeless people who smelled like they
| were living on that train for at least a few weeks. But well,
| that's another topic.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| It's also a decision where the federal government tries to take
| the credit, but in case of any financial shortfalls, for now
| municipalities and counties (and as far as regional railways
| services are concerned, the states, too, to some extent) will
| be left holding the short end of the stick, because the federal
| and state revenue support for the reduced fare comes with a
| hard cap.
|
| While currently even the federal government is subject to the
| so-called Schuldenbremse ("debt brake"), municipalities and
| counties are under much stronger legal obligations to balance
| their budgets, and in a lot of states, public transport is an
| entirely voluntary matter for municipalities to provide (and
| even where it isn't, the mandated minimum obligation probably
| won't entice anybody to take public transport if you don't have
| to), which starts mattering in a budget crunch.
|
| Already the first major cities have threatened future service
| cuts. For now that may just be political posturing, but it's
| still not what you would want to hear in that context, and
| certainly doesn't serve to encourage people getting rid of
| their cars, either.
| nnurmanov wrote:
| Is it a good practice when you give out blanket subsidies? Does
| targeted subsidies work better and are cost effective? I am
| researching this topic applied to taxation field.
| mondaymusings wrote:
| Targeted subsidies entail explicit extra administrative costs
| and implicit costs (or benefit omissions) when some eligibles
| do not receive the subsidy due to e.g. paperwork friction. The
| alternative is universal benefits + taxes. See
| https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2022/11/11/universal-be...
| kombine wrote:
| I just returned from a trip in Germany back to the UK and I find
| it frustrating that we don't have such a ticket in this country.
| alfanick wrote:
| I moved some years ago from Dresden, Saxony, Germany to
| Rheintal, Switzerland - looking for some bigger mountains. In
| Dresden-area there was a nice 4-people day ticket for the whole
| area - <20EUR for 4 people total. Switzerland? Every guest
| spends at least 50CHF per person per day, wild.
| luplex wrote:
| Even at 58EUR/month, it's great value for me, as my employer pays
| half the price and I live in a big city.
|
| If you live in a smaller town or in the countryside, then your
| problem really isn't the price of public transport, but the
| quality.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > It statistically evaluated mobile phone and car movement data
| for Germany
|
| How do you obtain car movement data if not by tracking cell
| phones?
| tastroder wrote:
| Their accompanying website [0] says mobile phone data comes
| from teralytix while car movement data is sourced through inrix
| [1], which appears to gather data through navigation apps of
| some sort (vague as can be expected but the linked paper [2]
| claims that).
|
| [0] https://mcc-berlin-ariadne.shinyapps.io/dticket-tracker/
|
| [1] https://inrix.com/
|
| [2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4526796
| cdrini wrote:
| The 49 euro ticket is a phenomenally good deal. Normal transit
| tickets vary per city, but for example in Berlin it's 3.50 per
| trip. So if you take transit twice a day for 7 days, you already
| recoup the cost of the Deutschland ticket, which lasts the entire
| month! This makes it good even for tourists who stay for ~a week.
|
| At 59, it's 9 days of two trips to recoup the cost -- still very
| worth it for someone living in Germany, but a bit more borderline
| for a tourist.
|
| Compare with eg Toronto's monthly pass, which is $156. A single
| trip is $3.35, which comes out to 24 two-trip days to recoup the
| cost of the card. That's almost exactly the number of business
| days in a month. And that card's only for Toronto!
| dunefox wrote:
| After the next elections, I fully expect it (and cannabis) to
| be reversed by the CDU, who will win without a doubt.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| It is somewhat popular, so I doubt they will kill it
| outright. Rather I would guess they "reform" it: lots of
| variants, much higher price, beaurocratic hoops... and then
| when people stop using it, say "see, it wasn't so great after
| all".
|
| Same playbook in the UK, where people like the NHS but
| certain parties don't.
|
| Same playbook in the US, where "big government" has to be
| bad, so anything that does currently work well gets
| sabotaged.
| grues-dinner wrote:
| A London monthly travel card is PS235 from zone 4 and PS300
| from zone 6. That's 420 to 540 CAD, and you get the pleasure of
| sweating in the tunnels, freezing on the overground platforms
| waiting for the next train 30 minutes and cancellations left
| right and centre.
|
| At least they've finally got their shit together with mobile
| coverage.
|
| Of course you get to use the buses too for that, and some of
| those were run by DB until this year, so it's nice to have been
| subsiding the the nice German tickets! They sold up to private
| equity, because of course they did, it's Britain and everything
| has to be private equity.
| pimeys wrote:
| My favorite part of this deal is how you can use the same ticket
| in every city in Germany. Before you had to learn which app to
| install and then go through the (usually) broken registration
| setup. And you needed to learn the zones too.
|
| Now I just arrive to a city and hop into the transport method of
| my choice.
| sureglymop wrote:
| This is my favorite thing about transport in Switzerland. If
| you have a general subscription you can use trains, buses, even
| ships. There are exceptions such as privately ran gondolas
| going up to mountains but mostly you can just go anywhere
| without worrying about it.
| your_drunk_dad wrote:
| No amount of subsidy will make me give up my car. Obviously I
| also use trains but having a car is just too convenient in some
| situations and in some places not having a car is just
| disability.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The ticket achieves most of its goal even if you keep your car
| for the more annoying edge cases but move a significant
| fraction of your trips from car to rail.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I don't understand why, given that Germans are generally quite
| precise - German engineering and manufacturing is world-famous
| for a reason, why DBahn can't get the trains to run on time. This
| isn't Italy after all. The Swiss and Japanese manage to do it.
| Can someone explain?
| pahn wrote:
| It's money. If you look at investement into the railway system
| per capita, Italy actually spends more on their railway system
| than Germany: https://www.allianz-pro-
| schiene.de/presse/pressemitteilungen...
| dingensundso wrote:
| Mismanagement. Years of cutting maintenance and personell to
| make profits.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| DBahn was privatized in a way that combines the worst of both
| worlds: private but 100% owned by the state. Opaque labyrinth
| of 600 subcompanies.
|
| Also, some textbook examples of bad incentives. For example,
| repairing bridges is paid by DB. If a bridge is beyond repair,
| then the tax payer pays. Predictable result: doing hardly any
| maintenance until the bridge fails. (That example is by now
| fixed, but shows the clear lack of planning)
|
| Finally, the system is just over capacity. Many more trains but
| same infrastructure as decades ago. If you got rid of half the
| schedule and used a swiss-like system of stopping several
| minutes at every station, the trains could be on time. But the
| trains already are overcrowded, so then what do you do with all
| the passengers?
| slightwinder wrote:
| It's the classical combo of poor budget and conflicting
| budgeting with aging infrastructure and bad management. DB was
| privatized 20, 30 years ago, but parts of the infrastructure is
| public property and managed by the state. So DB willingly let
| rot them until the state will start renewing, which does take
| ages of course. At the same time, DB also started saving
| significant money, because that's what private companies are
| doing, so they removed parts of the infrastructure, which later
| started harming the planing on a nationwide level. And on top
| of this, there are parts of the infrastructure which are
| literally up to 150 years old, but still in use for whatever
| reason.
|
| Or in other words: classical underfunded, overused legacy
| system showing its age.
| iggldiggl wrote:
| > At the same time, DB also started saving significant money,
| because that's what private companies are doing, so they
| removed parts of the infrastructure
|
| As strongly encouraged by their regulators (the
| Bundesnetzagentur and the Eisenbahnbundesamt), though, too,
| because for a long time the main political mandate regarding
| the railways was mainly to save money.
| sunaookami wrote:
| Because it's a cliche that's untrue since at least the 90s.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Germans are generally quite precise, which can be both good and
| bad. It can mean that things are done correctly, but it can
| also mean that people waste endless time obsessing over how to
| exactly implement every minute detail of a rule.
|
| Just to give you an example of the latter: a Vietnamese-German
| woman (a German citizen who speaks German natively) was
| recently in the news because the local authorities have refused
| to issue her baby a birth certificate for over 6 months.[0]
| When she went to get a birth certificate, the authorities told
| her that her last name, Le Nguyen - which already appears on
| all of her German documents - does not meet their standards.
| They refuse to issue a birth certificate for her baby until she
| changes her last name to something the German regulations
| allow.
|
| To make the situation even more absurd, the problem is that the
| German regulations state that double family names do not exist
| in Vietnamese (surprise: they do).[1] If the mother had a
| French double name, it would be no problem.
|
| The problem is not even the baby's last name - it has the
| father's last name. The problem is that the birth certificate
| has to list the mother and father, and the authorities refuse
| to write the _mother 's_ name.
|
| Instead of just giving the mother a bit of leeway and issuing a
| birth certificate, the authorities insist on inflexibly
| following some completely incomprehensible interpretation of
| the regulations. Suddenly, after thirty-something years of
| living in Germany, this lady has to suddenly change her last
| name, and until she does that, her baby - a German citizen -
| has no official documentation and cannot receive any government
| benefits.
|
| Repeat this daily across many aspects of daily life, and you
| can see how it would become a problem.
|
| 0. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/regional/berlin/rbb-
| keine-g...
|
| 1. https://www.rbb24.de/panorama/beitrag/2024/10/interview-
| berl...
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