Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail • Hacker News Board

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

#421

Post by Arn_Thor » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 5:48 AM UTC

_cenw wrote: post #129

jdietrich wrote: post #76

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…

Everybody say it with me: “privatization of natural monopolies is dumb and wasteful!”

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

#422

Post by akoboldfrying » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 5:49 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #376

akoboldfrying wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could make a park for 5 million dollars, or the same park for 3 million, you would do the latter, would you not? Then you'd have 2 million left to do something else with. Because that is the comparison being drawn here. A valid objection would be that there are other axes that are material but are not being considered when we reduce the question to dollars per ton of CO2 -- but arguing that we ought not even t…

The park to park comparison is the opposite of what's being discussed. That's comparing the value of apple to another from the same tree - there are many subjective elements to compare but given that they're both nearly identical it's quite easy. Still doesn't fit on a spreadsheet e.g. bitterness, likelihood of having a worm inside, prettiness, whatever. What is being suggested is comparing a train subsidy to... Unkn…

>Less parking lots need to be constructed. Less concrete, less carbon. Less roads need re paving every 10 years or whatever - let's compare the carbon of rail maintenance to an asphalt road.

Yes, these are all valid other axes to consider. I nevertheless think it's necessary to estimate each of their values as so many "points", which, yes, may be subjective. Those points might as well be dollars, because dollars are what we (as the local government) finally wind up spending on whatever projects we decide on.

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

#423

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 5:52 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #369

nsokolsky wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#424

Post by bluejekyll » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 5:53 AM UTC

resonious wrote: post #314

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.

Gp said they know about these other factors but doesn't know how to price them. Do you know a way?

Ok, the GP is only using carbon offsets, but the economic one are just as good. Forgoing car ownership allows for that money to then go other economic uses. Forgoing fuel costs, $20 for electric, $100 for gas, again allows that to go into the other areas of the economy. These are easy to calculate, why not use them?

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

#425

Post by waveBidder » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 5:54 AM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #33

waveBidder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the same reason omnivores are sometimes highly critical of veg*ns: there's a moral claim going on, so their identity/ moral standing is threatened.

It's not a question of moral standing or identity but rather that public transport (and vegan) advocates would like to force you to live like they do. Those things gaining too much popularity threatens the way you do things. We have examples of this happening, eg smoking. It has become unpopular enough that governments pass nonsensical bans like banning flavored cigarettes or just making it entirely illegal for only…

yes, another successful example is slavery. another unresolved one is abortion. in all of these cases the freedom in question is arguably immoral. laws are downstream of moral convictions.

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

#426

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 5:57 AM UTC

itronitron wrote: post #416

danaris wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a low probability, high impact event in a country with limited public access to affordable health care and very limited access to therapists.

[deleted]

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

#427

Post by gmerc » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 5:58 AM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #76

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…

- Air Pollution and related deaths / morbidities - Road tear and wear - Congestion related loss of business and time - Can actually work on train or rest

Many of these can be calculated and measured.

Rail doesn’t significantly pollute more or deprecate faster on the infrastructure side empty or full.

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

#428

Post by SECProto » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 5:58 AM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #76

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…

Funding road repairs, construction, and expansion from general tax revenues is similarly subsidizing a different mode of transit, and it's likely a much higher value than the 3b€ you mention (and likely more than overall railway sector subsidizing, tho I'm not familiar with Germany's budget). Also recognizing that other positive externalities exist, but pricing them at $0, seems silly.

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

#429

Post by CuriousCosmic » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 5:59 AM UTC

kyleee wrote: post #321

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. This is something Texas is having to come to terms with right now. Cars and roads only scale so much before you physically can't move more people fast enough even with more roads and more lanes. Rail scales way better. So Texas is pushing a high speed rail line that will allow people to commute 30-90min into a city from locations that currently are 1.5-3 hours away. And at that allow those people to commute to ci…

Good comment except for the first word. Obviously cars enable all sorts of movement and economic activity, so why not just admit it? The rest of your comment is just talking about how rail may do all those things to a greater extent than cars. You don’t need to deny benefits of cars, it doesn’t bolster your arguments. Better to just be honest and then extol the virtues of rail and other transportation methods.

I actually do stand by my assertion in this case. The reason is because unfortunately, after a certain scale, cars are actually actively harmful to growth.

That's why I brought up Texas in particular. Interstate 45 as an example is effectively at saturation. Even if you add new lanes to it, you only get marginal throughput benefits when you actually try to get between Dallas and Houston or commute to either city from the region between them. The same goes for I-10 out of Houston.

Texas has reached the point where car ownership is actually costing the state and local governments astronomical amounts of money for marginal amounts of congestion relief (that is then immediately saturated).

I don't deny that cars have a place in low density regions and I think they are great for specific uses or areas but generally I believe that cars hinder growth in any metro environment in the long term. Doubly so because car centric infrastructure is extremely hostile to anyone who doesn't use a car which makes transition at that density threshold extremely painful for everyone involved.

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

#430

Post by eesmith » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 6:00 AM UTC

chgs wrote: post #161

eesmith wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just about all of which used to have train service, right? I mean, in the US I've been to a lot of small towns where there is no train service, but the old station is still there, with the rails all torn out and replaced with houses, or roads, or bike paths. And in the UK, the infamous Beeching cuts in the 1960s removed lines based on a profitability model which wasn't applied to roads, causing many communities to lo…

Most beeching stations were of no use- the service wasn’t there. The village my son’s school is at had a station, a mile out the middle, with 5 trains a day. You would have to change to another train to get to a station with a regular service to London, and increasing services wouldn’t be possible without significantly increasing terminal capacity. Menawhile the far larger village I live in has never had a station. S…

That's really not my point.

Okay, now the village has no train service, so they are required to use cars or buses to get around.

Then the UK introduces a "UK ticket", £50/month for local train service anywhere in the UK.

If those villagers protest against the ticket, because it's funded by their taxes while they can't use it, how should we understand that complaint?

One way is to use their anger to justify shutting down the new ticket scheme. This is typical us-vs-them politics.

A second is to say "suck it you car-addicted freaks", as if they had a choice in the matter and were not stuck with the results of decisions made during their grandparents' time.

A third is to re-connect train services, an option made much more expensive by the decision to not bank the rail lines for possible future expansion; a hidden debt which must now be paid.

But then who will pay those costs?

Simply saying 'only helped the folks living close to big train station hubs, across the country there are plenty of places where the car is the only viable option' is entirely too simplistic to be meaningful.