181–190 of 910 posts
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The politics at the national level are likely to be that states not helped by this vote against it.
Maybe we should work on making one vote to be equal in the nation.
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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.)
What's the method of subsidy there? Contributing to Airbus shares?
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> 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.wikip…
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).
Providing these €49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of around €3bn, 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 €447 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 externa…
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…
Sadly in the US Midwest we just don’t have there population density to do this sort of thing.
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> already substantial subsidies for the rail industry Though to be fair, there are also substantial subsidies for the whole road network.
Road vehicles are heavily taxed in European countries. I don't have the figures for Germany, but the UK spends £12bn per year on roads, while it collects £25bn in road fuel duty and £7bn 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/...
Providing these €49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of around €3bn, 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 €447 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 externa…
> requires an annual subsidy of around €3bn 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 c…
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.
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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 e…
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.
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.
Providing these €49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of around €3bn, 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 €447 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 externa…
Cars also have a huge subsidy in the form of roads
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.
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).