Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not a weasel word, it’s a word used to describe any program provided by the government that does not bring in enough revenue on its own to pay for itself. The same word applies to roads that do not pay for themselves through gas tax and/or tolls. If the government pays for something through a general fund from income/property/corporate taxes, it’s subsidized. It’s important to call these out whenever they are be…
> the program is not sustainable on its own So arrest, investigation prosecution and imprisonment of anyone who steals from Amazon is a massive subsidy, since Amazon pays no tax.
Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
631–640 of 910 posts
Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
#632Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe that this idiotic short-sighted minmaxing (mainly due to the conservative party) has led to many of Germany's current infrastructure issues. Laying fiber? VDSL is cheap and has been good enough so far. Renewable energies? Importing Russian gas halves CO2 emissions compared to coal and is way cheaper (surely Russia would never think of abusing the dependence). Maintaining the railway network? That would cost…
If Germany wants to be a militarized state again, the infrastructure will be fixed again. You have to transport things around. Tbh, i think, germany has too much not needed but costly infrastructure maintained only for a few people.
What infrastructure do you mean? Can you give an example?
Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
#633Earlier quoted context omitted.
A third can't be right. 15 billion from petrol and 18.2 billion from diesel alone make up almost half of that. 48.76 million vehicles times €100 (back of the envelope calculation) for vehicle tax puts that number above half. https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Government/Taxes/Excise-Du... https://www.statista.com/statistics/810662/passenger-cars-st... https://www.zoll.de/DE/Unternehmen/Kraftfahrzeugsteuer/Steue...
From the article (sorry for the bad link before; fixed below [1]): > The revenue from taxes and levies on road traffic amounts to around 50 billion euros annually. Around half of this is earmarked by law via the mineral oil tax, i.e. around 25 billion euros. This means that just over a third (36%) of the earmarked revenue from road traffic covers the costs of roads and other facilities such as parking lots and the li…
Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
#634Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main reason is because Americans are unbelievably wealthy and can afford large homes that require multiple cars for the family to get around. It’s a positive sign of American prosperity and the envy of the world hence the massive immigration demand and relative lack of expatriatism. If America gets to a point where that’s no longer possible and people have to live in smaller and more densely populated areas not b…
That’s a nice but false narrative. The Swiss are wealthier than the Americans and yet they use public transport extensively.
Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
#635Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article (sorry for the bad link before; fixed below [1]): > The revenue from taxes and levies on road traffic amounts to around 50 billion euros annually. Around half of this is earmarked by law via the mineral oil tax, i.e. around 25 billion euros. This means that just over a third (36%) of the earmarked revenue from road traffic covers the costs of roads and other facilities such as parking lots and the li…
I'm a bit baffled why Germany's numbers are so bad here. In the UK the government takes far more in revenue from drivers than it spends on the roads.
Maybe that is why.
Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
#636Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cities and councils should not be making decisions based on how to raise revenue. They should be making decisions based on how to improve quality of life for residents. Parking should exist where public transport is not a viable option. Ideally the work to make public transport an option should be prioritised over the work to making parking exist. Cities and councils can make money from public transport too, it'll wo…
> Cities and councils should not be making decisions based on how to raise revenue. Why not? > They should be making decisions based on how to improve quality of life for residents. Residents can use money to purchase goods and services to improve their quality of life. > Parking should exist where public transport is not a viable option. And the market can provide parking at market-prices. (And, cities and councils…
I believe that relying on individual purchasing power ("utility"), to improve the average quality of life is an experiment (often referred to as "Reganism" or "Thatcherism"), that after 40+ years of trialling has shown to be net negative to social mobility, overall net happiness and other factors important to me as a UK middle-class (this isn't the same as what middle-class means in the US), citizen with a significantly-above median income for my age, social background and other predictive factors, as compared to natural experiments in free market economies where such trials did not take place (most of Northern Europe), in the same time frame.
The core problem with free markets being used as a mechanism to settle all societies ills is that theory ignores natural monopolies. You can't have a car parking space and a children's park in the same place: you must make a choice. And if you choose based on economic utility, the outcome with the direct revenue will allow a realised "win" over that which has indirect or non-utility rewards such as "happy, well-adjusted, children who have learned to be nice to each other".
If you believe in the right wing view of economics without taking into account the lack of natural monopolies, you and I are unfortunately going to be so far apart from being able to find common ground we might just be wasting each others' time.
If you do understand the nature of a natural monopoly from a land use to utility company infrastructure, then you'll realise that when you follow the thread that car parking at market prices denies other monopoly uses of that land, that residents can't influence that through purchasing decisions, and that cities and councils would be failing in their duty to provide an equitable and comfortable city/town in which to exist by making decisions about monopoly situations purely based on revenue potential.
Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
#637Earlier 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.
Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
#638Earlier 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…
> That means you need to redesign everything that currently uses people to not need people Simplest redesign is running longer trains - they still need just 1 driver. Britain’s trains are sometimes comically small (3 carriages) and overcrowded. French trains are 2-3x longer, Russia/China even more so. Second is standardisation - all of Uks train companies run different stock and it’s ovsoleye
Weight savings can also translate into cheaper bridges and viaducts, though that’s only true for dedicated track. If you’re sharing with freight they are always going to be far heavier.
Much better is upgrading signalling, automating the train, and running far more service because frequency is king for public transit. Many short trains at high headways vs less frequent long trains has the same total capacity but the short, frequent trains provide far more value. When people don’t have to think about the schedule and can just show up and ride public transit is great.
There are also limits to the value of standardizing rolling stock. You don’t want every train set to be bespoke, but there is also danger in every train being exactly the same. If there is a parts shortage or identified design flaw your whole fleet can be grounded all at once. If you have some diversity you can limp along if one design has to be sidelined.
Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
#639Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Cities and councils should not be making decisions based on how to raise revenue. Why not? > They should be making decisions based on how to improve quality of life for residents. Residents can use money to purchase goods and services to improve their quality of life. > Parking should exist where public transport is not a viable option. And the market can provide parking at market-prices. (And, cities and councils…
You have a fundamentally different model of the social contract to me. We're unlikely to ever agree. However... I believe that relying on individual purchasing power ("utility"), to improve the average quality of life is an experiment (often referred to as "Reganism" or "Thatcherism"), that after 40+ years of trialling has shown to be net negative to social mobility, overall net happiness and other factors important…
They also provide utility. If you remove parking spaces near a children's park less children can/will visit. You need a balance.
Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
#640Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Cities and councils should not be making decisions based on how to raise revenue. Why not? > They should be making decisions based on how to improve quality of life for residents. Residents can use money to purchase goods and services to improve their quality of life. > Parking should exist where public transport is not a viable option. And the market can provide parking at market-prices. (And, cities and councils…
> Residents can use money to purchase goods and services to improve their quality of life. i live in a city with pollution problem. where can i buy this clean air to improve the quality of my life?