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Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

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Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#261

Post by herbst »

rob74 wrote: post #22
LittleNemoInS wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify : In Switzerland, one can buy a CA Travelcard (for CHF3860 a year, approximately $3850). With this card, one can travel on (nearly) all public transports in Switzerland (trains, coaches, subways, trams, etc.) free of charge. Since the public transportation system is very good, it's a good way to travel.

Ok, so the Austrian version costs less than a third of that for a considerably larger country. And the public transportation system is pretty good in Austria too...

As Austrian living in Switzerland there definitely is a x3 value given here. It's unfair to directly compare given the price difference, but Austrian public transport is simply not on the same level in terms of: quality, speed, timing, connections, reliability (dozens of backup tracks), ..

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#262

Post by herbst »

dheera wrote: post #66
rob74 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so the Austrian version costs less than a third of that for a considerably larger country. And the public transportation system is pretty good in Austria too...

I mean, when I was in the area in 2005-2007 pretzels cost USD 2.50 in Germany and USD 7 in Switzerland ... There were also steep discounts for students and youth for almost everything -- I got a public transit pass for 50% off because I was under 23 at the time.

I love the Brezel example. A freshly baked Brezel at the Trainstation Bern is like 3$. However if you need a human to cut it open and spread butter on it it costs $8.

Products ain't that much more expensive here, human time is.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#263

Post by denimnerd42 »

marcellus23 wrote: post #239
denimnerd42 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my area people will ride the commuter train (without paying) for hours and sleep on it. There isn't enough fair enforcement or will to remove them. Makes the train pretty unattractive for its actual purpose. I imagine that issue becoming even worse if it's just free.

People do that in my city too — they're homeless people who don't have anywhere else to go. The solution is to give them housing and jobs. Until that happens, I'm okay with them sleeping on the train if they need to.

and for that reason I'll keep my car. The solution to homelessness is not to degrade the living standard for everyone else.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#264

Post by marcellus23 »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #263
marcellus23 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do that in my city too — they're homeless people who don't have anywhere else to go. The solution is to give them housing and jobs. Until that happens, I'm okay with them sleeping on the train if they need to.

and for that reason I'll keep my car. The solution to homelessness is not to degrade the living standard for everyone else.

No one said it was. You asked how to prevent homeless people from sleeping on trains — the answer is to give them places to sleep.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#265

Post by sfifs »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #249
yarcob wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds cheap, and it's probably a good deal if you ride long distances or frequently. But when I recently planned a trip from Linz to Vienna for our family it would have cost around 120€ for the train (not including tickets for bus or subway to get to/from train station). Driving costs around 40€ for gas (not including parking fees).

I suspect you'd get a different picture if you include the additional depreciation/wear on the car. It's 184 km one way. German tax authorities assume 30 cents per km (~110 EUR for a round trip), Austrian tax authorities use 42 (~154 EUR for a round trip). Now, the actual marginal cost may be lower if you already have the car, but it's far from obvious once those hidden costs are considered. Especially as you have to…

Sure but cash in hand always trumps hidden costs for a majority of the people (if you're on HN, you're likely not working class majority - people who make below median income). If the European governments were actually serious about climate change vs mostly theatre, they'd figure out how to make public transportation cost less. The pricing of trains in Europe has always felt stupid to me

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#266

Post by denimnerd42 »

marcellus23 wrote: post #264
denimnerd42 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and for that reason I'll keep my car. The solution to homelessness is not to degrade the living standard for everyone else.

No one said it was. You asked how to prevent homeless people from sleeping on trains — the answer is to give them places to sleep.

no. it’s to enforce the rules on the train. there are some homeless that will refuse government provided housing no matter what.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#267

Post by RhysU »

pomian wrote: post #229
RhysU wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this idea better than most local government UBI proposals. E.g., instead of suggesting UBI in NYC just make the trains free. It's not straight currency but it's unlimited transportation on high capacity, environmentally nice(r) systems. Then people can argue over who can make the experience nicer vs who is going to raise the fares. Ridership-wise, many heavy users already have unlimited cards. (Still, however,…

That and free education and dare we mention the topic - free health care. Then we don't need UBI.

We have something like those already. Primary and secondary education are free (and compulsory) and one cannot refuse treatment to individuals in the emergency room.

The appeal of free public transportation, to me, is that it allows more people to take advantage of public spaces and works and, marginally, allows people to bring home more money for the same amount of time worked.

Free public transportation fare incentivizes participation not tuning out like I feel many UBI proposals do. No one is going to look at, effectively, a free metro card then think "Sweet! I don't need to work!"

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#268

Post by Jenda_ »

cletus wrote: post #140

Why should public transport cost anything at all? I mean, what's the point? You might say the service costs money. It does. The ticket prices never cover that so you're already running at a loss. You spend money on enforcement, payment and ticket machines and you reduce usage of the service. But here's the more important point: cars are already subsidized to a huge degree pretty much everywhere through roads, parking…

> Why should public transport cost anything at all? I mean, what's the point?

Because by subsidizing public transport, you are discouraging people from options that save the resources used by transportation even more: for example partial home-office, riding to work by bike, or moving closer to work || working closer to home.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#269

Post by Jenda_ »

bmicraft wrote: post #127
mongol wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every passenger wears on the system. It is fair that you pay a part of things you use.

Every road user also uses roads paid for by every tax payer so there's that.

In .cz, we have gasoline taxed heavily, with the rationale that it pays for roads. Additionally, highways have toll (for all cars) and major roads have tolls for heavy cars (as they damage more). And a tax is paid for every car used for business purposes (company car, contractors etc.).

All of this combined indeed almost covers the expenses of building and maintaining roads. Unfortunately, it does not cover any negative externalities, such as the environmental ones.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#270

Post by Jenda_ »

jermaustin1 wrote: post #142
fouric wrote: post #84

I see a detrimental incentive here. Let me explain, and then someone please show me what I'm not getting. We're trying to incentivize public over private transit because the former emits less carbon (in general). However, public transit still costs carbon, so taking less trips total seems to be better for the environment (the "reduce" part of "reduce, reuse, recycle" - kind of). If the marginal cost to a public trans…

But the public transit lines would already be running, you are just hopping on a bus that is already going to be spewing some climate change gasses. Adding a car for a small trip would be detrimental because that car isn't already on the road spewing. NOW you are correct though, better for all would be for people to walk to their local shops and stuff and only grab transit when they need to go beyond the 2-4 mile rad…

> But the public transit lines would already be running, you are just hopping on a bus that is already going to be spewing some climate change gasses.

At least in Prague, they put more buses on the line, use larger buses, use streetcars with two cars, and they even build new underground lines (very expensive) in directions where the capacity of buses is not enough. So no, by hopping on a bus "that is already going", you are contributing to this.

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