Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket • Hacker News Board

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#211

Post by this_user » Mon, May 01, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #50

qwytw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tax burden is already so high It will only get higher if we try to intentionally decrease worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a year of their life for public services'.

>It will only get higher if we try to intentionally decrease worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a year of their life for public services'. That's blatantly false. It works in Austria quite well. The healthcare and social service systems would not be able to function without the mandatory and voluntary unpaid 9 months work of the 17 - 19 year olds before they hit off for university. What worker productivity…

> We're talking about 17-19 year olds, not experienced workers who need to be pulled away from their well paying jobs.

But these people are starting university one year later, which means they graduate a year later, which means these badly needed, highly qualified workers become available to the job market a year later, because they have to spend their time doing some menial job that most of them have no interest in doing. We used to have this nonsense in Germany. Most of the people I know were just goofing off, were drunk or high on the job, or were deliberately destroying equipment, because nobody wanted to be there.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#212

Post by narcindin » Mon, May 01, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

willio58 wrote: post #192

As an American I am increasingly jealous of European countries and their public transport (among other things cough health care cough gun control). It feels like the only way we will ever get there as a country is one state at a time, and even then you see projects like California's high-speed rail that's massively over-budget and overdue. At least the blue states seem to _get_ it, meanwhile those who live in red or…

When blue states show me a viable public transportation network for a reasonable cost I will support them in my red state.

Consider the CA high speed rail a PoC for the nation. Would you endorse copying that model? Is Chicago increasing its ridership/coverage (honest question).

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#213

Post by willio58 » Mon, May 01, 2023, 9:57 PM UTC

Xeoncross wrote: post #207

willio58 wrote: post #192

As an American I am increasingly jealous of European countries and their public transport (among other things cough health care cough gun control). It feels like the only way we will ever get there as a country is one state at a time, and even then you see projects like California's high-speed rail that's massively over-budget and overdue. At least the blue states seem to _get_ it, meanwhile those who live in red or…

As soon as we give up our over-sized personal income and pay more taxes we'll be able to have more public infrastructure. The issue seems to be people don't like the idea of only keeping 50% (or less) of their income + making 50% less to begin with. Most people that work at big tech get their big salaries because the companies profit in data-mining ways that would be more regulated in Europe.

I totally agree, I say TAX ME MORE.

The thing is though, it's not even most higher-salaried tech workers that we need to tax heavier. We need to tax the rich. When I say the rich I don't mean people making 300k/yr. I mean people making a million or more per year. We need to massively increase the marginal tax rate at around $3 million to around 90%. This was how it was as recently as the 80's, and repealing those taxes has led to an increase in wealth inequality this country has never seen.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#214

Post by panick21_ » Mon, May 01, 2023, 9:57 PM UTC

bleep_bloop wrote: post #2

Controversial opinion: Public transport should be publicly owned.

That's one of those grand standing issues that many people like to focus on. The reality is the is a wild mix of private, public and everything in between out there in the world. And some system that are increasingly good have combinations of everything.

Generally speaking making great announcements about how things will be and how an idealized version should look like often distracts from making the incremental improvements necessary to ever get to this point.

To many time is wasted in politics arguing about fundamental principles and almost non about actually improving the situation of transit riders. If you have a shitty semi private system, just taking public ownership often doesn't improve service at all.

Usually there are 10 things that would be easier to do and help people more. Once you actually have larger part of the public using it, then you have a better argument to make it public.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#215

Post by ghaff » Mon, May 01, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC

brd529 wrote: post #206

calaphos wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For regular commuters the price is a big deal. Not only where tickets crossing multiple zones complicated to get but also unreasonably expensive (~200Eur/Month). In contrast the 49 Euros is less expensive than (almost?) any single zone monthly ticket out there.

Monthly train pass on New Jersey Transit, LIRR and Metro North can get to above $300 once you are 20 miles from NYC.

About 40 miles outside of Boston I'd be around $500/month to have commuter rail plus subway per month.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#216

Post by panick21_ » Mon, May 01, 2023, 10:03 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #50

qwytw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tax burden is already so high It will only get higher if we try to intentionally decrease worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a year of their life for public services'.

>It will only get higher if we try to intentionally decrease worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a year of their life for public services'. That's blatantly false. It works in Austria quite well. The healthcare and social service systems would not be able to function without the mandatory and voluntary unpaid 9 months work of the 17 - 19 year olds before they hit off for university. What worker productivity…

I have done social service instead of military in Switzerland where we have the same system. In fact we have to do 1.5 years of before we are 30. I worked in at least 5 (old people homes and hospitals) different positions. In not a single one of them is it true to say the system couldn't function if not for the civil service workers.

Simply paying normal people to do that work would be perfectly reasonable.

> is far more valuable to society than the taxes they would pay doing some minimum wage part time job waiting tables

Yeah but most people don't actually work minimum wage jobs. Me as a Software Developer spend 6 month cleaning windows. While this was reasonable fun and low stress not sure my window cleaning experience has this great benefit for society.

> not experienced workers who need to be pulled away from their well paying jobs

You start your job one year later and therefore spend 1 year less doing it before retirement, not sure how this is difficult to figure out.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#217

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 01, 2023, 10:04 PM UTC

nforgerit wrote: post #56

helge9210 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why can I not do that online with my ID? > Why is she even typing it at all Social function of work. If you do it yourself, what will she do? If you come up with a solution freeing hundreds of people doing some monkey jobs some in Germany will consider this evil, since people are losing their means of earning salary. This is more difficult with the officials, since they have guaranteed employment. [Edit: typo]

German speaking here. Keeping people busy with bullsh*t jobs just for the sake of keeping them busy is not a good investment, not financially nor for the sanity of the people themselves. In fact, in Germany you can see that it leads to government paralysis everywhere. In contrast, they should free "Staatsbeamte" from those stupid jobs and encourage them to start thinking themselves instead of blindly executing top-do…

[deleted]

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#218

Post by danhor » Mon, May 01, 2023, 10:04 PM UTC

fweimer wrote: post #118

eliaspro wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're out of luck, if none of the route segments is served by Deutsche Bahn (which is often the case for regional routes), because then you'll be unable to buy your ticket using the most common nation-wide app DB Navigator.

Or worse, you can still buy the ticket, but it's not valid for any trains actually in service. This stuff is really non-obvious. For example, train operators can license certain Deutsche Bahn trademarks without accepting Deutsche Bahn tickets.

Where? As far as I know, all the Deutsche Bahn Tickets for regional traffic use the Deutschlandtarif, which is accepted in all "normal" (excluding heritage trains and the likes) regional trains in all of Germany.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#219

Post by ThunderSizzle » Mon, May 01, 2023, 10:05 PM UTC

willio58 wrote: post #192

As an American I am increasingly jealous of European countries and their public transport (among other things cough health care cough gun control). It feels like the only way we will ever get there as a country is one state at a time, and even then you see projects like California's high-speed rail that's massively over-budget and overdue. At least the blue states seem to _get_ it, meanwhile those who live in red or…

And here I am wondering how I-5 in CA or I-75 in Atlanta having more lanes in one direction than most states have going in both directions even in their busiest of areas is blue states getting it or red states not getting it.

Also, tying in gun control or enforced Medicare-for-all is a good way of convincing people who are on the edge of public transit to not support you politically if they are a package deal, which right now it appears to be.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#220

Post by atourgates » Mon, May 01, 2023, 10:06 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #111

bahnkenner wrote: post #43

The biggest advantage of the new Germany-wide ticket is not the price, but rather that it simplifies things. This is a map of German public transit companies: [0]. I've heard the current fractured system be compared to the Holy Roman Empire. Every little region has its own ticketing system. If you arrive in a new city, you have to figure out how to buy local transit tickets, often with quite complicated rules (e.g.,…

And for visitors who may not even speak the primary language, public transit is awful in most places in terms of onboarding jet lagged visitors. Apparently no one does UX trials of people who have zero familiarity with the system and don't speak the language--though at least they maybe accommodate major Western languages. But, in general, it's pretty awful and you at least should do some research in advance.

Can confirm.

I usually do a decent amount of research about public transport in our travel destinations, so I more or less know what type of tickets or passes I'll be buying ahead of time.

But, last fall a flight cancellation left us with an unexpected day in Amsterdam.

I guided our family through immigration and customs after an overnight flight from Canada, and then purchased what I thought were the correct tickets for our train ride from the airport to downtown.

When we went past a card reader, it didn't seem to work, but there were no turnstiles and we were able to board our train.

There were however turnstiles when we got off at the station downtown, and they wouldn't let us through.

I walked over to an attendant at a podium, who looked at our (incorrect) tickets, our obviously sleep deprived selves and children and just laughed, told us we'd bought the wrong tickets, and let us through.

I always imagined the world of high-stakes metro-related international criminality would come with more consequences than being good-naturedly laughed at by a Nederlandse Spoorwegen employee.