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Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

reuters.com

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Re: Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

#171

Post by amanaplanacanal »

qcnguy wrote: post #152
birn559 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rails can and are used to transport freight. Trucks contribute a lot to bad traffic and therefore the same kind of blockage you mentioned.

Rail freight is dying everywhere outside the USA, where passenger rail died instead. Mixing the two on the same lines is very difficult and causes tremendous problems, you can't even do it once passenger rail speeds get high enough. Rail freight has been uncompetitive with trucking for a long time as a result even though rail has huge subsidies and road traffic is a revenue generator for governments.

Is road traffic really a revenue generator for governments outside the US? In the US, it's a huge cost sink and has to be subsidized with general taxes.

Re: Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

#172

Post by birn559 »

qcnguy wrote: post #153
birn559 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Budget for German train system has been cut and was too low for two decades. It was well known that would result in what we have today. You have to invest in infrastructure to keep it at a high quality level. It's crowded because it has been lacking proper funding for years. It's a result of politics, nothing stops public transport from being popular and providing reasonable high quality service.

Inability to competently manage finances within the framework of populist democratic politics is one of the top reasons governments suck at running things and "public *" often ends in failure.

"private *" also ends in failure quite often. The German train system started to fail when it was partially privatized.

In general, governments tend to not be able to run a system efficiently, but reliably and robust while for companies it's the opposite.

Re: Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

#173

Post by sofixa »

Avicebron wrote: post #69
dkiebd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely reject the notion that direct democracy is bad because Politicians Know Better. It’s borderline if not completely authoritarian and frankly disgusting. Maybe consider that Switzerland is one of the best if not the best country in the world because people can choose what they want it to be.

This issue with direct democracies is that the they can get out of hand pretty fast unless your population is somewhat homogenous and reasonable. Aka Switzerland. If you're too young to remember twitch plays Pokémon, that's direct democracy and it was wild. A direct democracy could decide tomorrow that we wanted to fuck China sideways with nukes because it's funny and based all because a tiktok went viral.

> This issue with direct democracies is that the they can get out of hand pretty fast unless your population is somewhat homogenous and reasonable. Aka Switzerland

Sorry, but that's just a racist dogwhistle. Switzerland has four main ethnic groups, and has had multiple rounds of migration (e.g. after the Yugoslav wars). Look at their various national sporting teams. Just because you can't look past people's skin colour that doesn't make them "homogeneous".

You need an educated and engaged populace that understands their civic duties.

Re: Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

#174

Post by sofixa »

dkiebd wrote: post #51
sofixa wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, that's not how Switzerland operates, because it's a very direct democracy where the status quo and the will of the majority takes priority over common sense and long term thinking. Full franchise (women being allowed to vote) didn't happen in all cantons until the 1990s (after it being made possible in the 1970s), because the existing voters (men) just voted against it.

I completely reject the notion that direct democracy is bad because Politicians Know Better. It’s borderline if not completely authoritarian and frankly disgusting. Maybe consider that Switzerland is one of the best if not the best country in the world because people can choose what they want it to be.

> I completely reject the notion that direct democracy is bad because Politicians Know Better

Not politicians, experts and administrators.

And yes, most people are limited in knowledge and vision. Look no further than Brexit, where the average UK citizen couldn't comprehend the complexity of the situation or the question, yet voted. The most asked question on Google the day after the vote was what is the EU... And it took years to begin to untangle the mess.

And again, look at Switzerland and their human rights travesty of not allowing half their population to vote because the existing voters said no.

Re: Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

#175

Post by baggy_trough »

abeppu wrote: post #147
baggy_trough wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is a more likely explanation for why banks did not make loans in redlined neighborhoods? A) Every bank is run by racists who are sufficiently racist to ignore a profit opportunity B) The neighborhoods are bad credit risks

To be very clear, redlining didn't happen just because a bunch of individual bankers happened to be racist. It was a consequence of federal policy -- the FHA would insure loans in white neighborhoods but not in minority neighborhoods, so even for a rational banker uninterested in race, it made sense to issue the loans for white home buyers, and not minority home buyers, even if they were financially qualified. The "r…

Thank you for pointing out that history. I will look into it further.

Re: Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

#176

Post by Avicebron »

sofixa wrote: post #173
Avicebron wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This issue with direct democracies is that the they can get out of hand pretty fast unless your population is somewhat homogenous and reasonable. Aka Switzerland. If you're too young to remember twitch plays Pokémon, that's direct democracy and it was wild. A direct democracy could decide tomorrow that we wanted to fuck China sideways with nukes because it's funny and based all because a tiktok went viral.

> This issue with direct democracies is that the they can get out of hand pretty fast unless your population is somewhat homogenous and reasonable. Aka Switzerland Sorry, but that's just a racist dogwhistle. Switzerland has four main ethnic groups, and has had multiple rounds of migration (e.g. after the Yugoslav wars). Look at their various national sporting teams. Just because you can't look past people's skin colo…

I left out race specifically to plumb for people whose mind jumps and fixates on that

> educated and engaged populace that understands their civic duties.

This describes a homogeneous group. An environment that cultivates this unilaterally (relative to an arbitrary standard), is by definition more homogeneous than one that does not. It's a politics, standard of living, and equality economics dogwhistle that has nothing to do with race.

Re: Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

#177

Post by sofixa »

Avicebron wrote: post #176
sofixa wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This issue with direct democracies is that the they can get out of hand pretty fast unless your population is somewhat homogenous and reasonable. Aka Switzerland Sorry, but that's just a racist dogwhistle. Switzerland has four main ethnic groups, and has had multiple rounds of migration (e.g. after the Yugoslav wars). Look at their various national sporting teams. Just because you can't look past people's skin colo…

I left out race specifically to plumb for people whose mind jumps and fixates on that > educated and engaged populace that understands their civic duties. This describes a homogeneous group. An environment that cultivates this unilaterally (relative to an arbitrary standard), is by definition more homogeneous than one that does not. It's a politics, standard of living, and equality economics dogwhistle that has nothi…

> This describes a homogeneous group

No, it doesn't. People being educated doesn't make them homogeneous.

Re: Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

#178

Post by qcnguy »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #171
qcnguy wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rail freight is dying everywhere outside the USA, where passenger rail died instead. Mixing the two on the same lines is very difficult and causes tremendous problems, you can't even do it once passenger rail speeds get high enough. Rail freight has been uncompetitive with trucking for a long time as a result even though rail has huge subsidies and road traffic is a revenue generator for governments.

Is road traffic really a revenue generator for governments outside the US? In the US, it's a huge cost sink and has to be subsidized with general taxes.

Sure. Road and fuel taxes have historically generated a surplus after the costs of maintaining the roads are subtracted.

EVs are changing that because they don't pay fuel tax. So, governments are now proposing to change how vehicles are taxed to make the roads pay for themselves again.

The USA is different to Europe because gas taxes are a political live wire there in a way they just aren't in Europe. Presidents win campaigns by promising to reduce the price of gas! So of course the road network is in deficit there, it's a populist move. The equivalent populism in Europe is to make public transport free instead, as the governments are more collectivist minded there, whereas in the US personal freedom is a major concern.

Re: Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

#179

Post by qcnguy »

birn559 wrote: post #172
qcnguy wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inability to competently manage finances within the framework of populist democratic politics is one of the top reasons governments suck at running things and "public *" often ends in failure.

"private *" also ends in failure quite often. The German train system started to fail when it was partially privatized. In general, governments tend to not be able to run a system efficiently, but reliably and robust while for companies it's the opposite.

The German train system isn't privatized in any meaningful way, I don't think any European rail system is. They all have harsh price controls imposed by the government and are unionized, which are classically problems affecting government run services to a much greater extent than normal private sector companies.

Re: Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike

#180

Post by n4r9 »

qcnguy wrote: post #109
sofixa wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, that's not how Switzerland operates, because it's a very direct democracy where the status quo and the will of the majority takes priority over common sense and long term thinking. Full franchise (women being allowed to vote) didn't happen in all cantons until the 1990s (after it being made possible in the 1970s), because the existing voters (men) just voted against it.

That's because women themselves voted against it. Which is actually the history of the female franchise everywhere. The suffragettes were reduced to bombing campaigns because fellow women did not agree that women should be allowed to vote. In the UK it was only WW1 that changed things. Maybe in the UK female franchise would also have been much delayed if not for the huge social upheavals caused by the world wars.

> women themselves voted against it

Do you have a source for this? According to Wikipedia,

> An earlier referendum on women's suffrage was held on 1 February 1959 and was rejected by the majority (67%) of Switzerland's men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerl...

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