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Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

mcc-berlin.net

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Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#361

Post by bastawhiz »

nsokolsky wrote: post #325
postpawl wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#362

Post by intellix »

okanat wrote: post #187
londons_explore wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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 t…

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 €0.03-0.06 in China vs €0.15-0.26 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.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#363

Post by Schiendelman »

SoftTalker wrote: post #288
throwaway48476 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't think of it as a subsidy because they are not charged per use a la toll road.

People also pay fuel tax, registration tax, and other taxes that fund the roads

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.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#364

Post by Schiendelman »

gruez wrote: post #360
ericmay wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

>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 "

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.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#365

Post by jenadine »

contravariant wrote: post #304
moffkalast wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand the Bundeswehr burns through 50 billion a year to do fuck all, so apparently it does indeed grow on trees.

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.

> there are many cheaper options to get rid of an enemy, but those have been outlawe

I'm curious. What are these options?

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#366

Post by jordanb »

kurthr wrote: post #353
jordanb wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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".

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.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#367

Post by danaris »

Detrytus wrote: post #355
xyzzy123 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#368

Post by JackMorgan »

Aeolun wrote: post #345
ben_w wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The UK is so expensive though. I thought I was looking at airplane fares.

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?!

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#369

Post by lotsofpulp »

nsokolsky wrote: post #326
lotsofpulp wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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).

>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.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#370

Post by sedansesame »

kurthr wrote: post #353
jordanb wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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".

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.

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[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2021/5/12/6-principles-f...

[1] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-much-does-...

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