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

Post by lolc » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 8:35 AM UTC

VancouverMan wrote: post #300

immibis wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The far-right Berlin government is currently doing its darnedest to build the most expensive highway in all of Germany, that nobody actually wants, through a cultural area. Probably because their friend owns the highway construction company.

I don't see how any government, regardless of location, that spends large sums of taxpayer money on a construction project could ever be considered to be "right wing" in any way, let alone "far-right". Such behaviour fundamentally contradicts even the mildest of right-of-centre ideologies. An actual right-of-centre government would never even consider starting such a project. If a right-of-centre government happened…

Post by xienze » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 8:41 AM UTC

SECProto wrote: post #428

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.

Post by chipdart » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 8:43 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…

Post by Glawen » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 8:44 AM UTC

heftig wrote: post #432

panick21_ wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 49 Euro ticket is about local transportation, when you are talking about 3h you are talking about intercity transportation not covered by this ticket. Intercity travel has lots of punctuality problems but many of the local train operations and S-Bahn are often much superior. At least in places where I have been, like Karlsruhe, Berlin, Hamburg the local transport has been very good. Not everything in live is abou…

No, they're talking about the local connections that are covered by the ticket. They're that bad. I've had similar experiences commuting into Cologne where it's 40 minutes by car or 2 hours by train, and that's without delays. In the rush hours it's 60 minutes by car. A missed train connection adds another half hour.

Post by david-gpu » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 8:46 AM UTC

ckdarby wrote: post #236

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The reason nobody uses public transit in America is it's always packed with transients or dangerous people. That's a lie told by people who sell fear as a product to people who always want new reasons to live in fear.

I used to live in Toronto in 2019 to 2020 and used the transit exclusively. I return as a visitor of Toronto every quarter for work and there are many times where I Uber instead of TTC because of these comments. Even slightly busy at 4-5 PM there's always folks who have hit the gym and skipped showering and most days there's "something" happening on the TTC.