81–90 of 151 posts
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having a nominal charge would probably lead to less abuse of the system, and any contribution to the upkeep/maintenance would be welcome, I'd imagine
What kind of abuse are you thinking of?
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For sure. I currently live in the US (fairly rural) and I would kill to have my transportation-related costs reduced to about $150/mo. But where I live, I simply need to have a car to do any basic thing since the moment I step off my driveway, there aren’t even footpaths.
I live in the Netherlands and have absolutely no need for this ticket. When I need to go somewhere, I just walk or bike there, never takes more than 20 minutes. I cannot even imagine living in American suburbia
I mostly use a car since it's so much cheaper and faster than public transport, but I bought this ticket in order to do some longer distance journeys as well. I don't really like driving.
That’s the introductory price. It’ll be €127,95 after that period is over. Kids travel for free, though, so that’s pretty nice. In hindsight, I think I underestimated the value of my OV card while I was a student: travel whenever, using all types of public transport, for free.
Even at that price, the British mind cannot comprehend such good a deal. An equivalent pass in the UK would be easily 10x that to even cover just a much smaller region than The Netherlands.
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For sure. I currently live in the US (fairly rural) and I would kill to have my transportation-related costs reduced to about $150/mo. But where I live, I simply need to have a car to do any basic thing since the moment I step off my driveway, there aren’t even footpaths.
> I would kill to have my transportation-related costs reduced to about $150/mo Lots of people have had their transportation-related costs reduced to $0 by killing! Just be sure to get caught or it won’t work.
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I live in the Netherlands and have absolutely no need for this ticket. When I need to go somewhere, I just walk or bike there, never takes more than 20 minutes. I cannot even imagine living in American suburbia
I moved here from The Netherlands in 2004, and have now lived in Florida, California, and Mississippi and stayed for prolonged periods in many US cities for my job. I wouldn’t feel safe riding a bicycle anywhere here considering the speed of traffic, the size of the vehicles, and lack of dedicated biking infrastructure. It’s a completely different world when you share the road with angry F150 drivers blasting past yo…
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I live in American suburbia and that's how I live. I can walk or bike whenever I feel like it, drive if it suits me. I sometimes wonder what the average European assumes American suburbia to be. Endless tract homes? Such places do exist, true. But that is far from universal.
I'd be curious what metropolitan area you live in for this to be true! If you're not comfortable sharing for privacy reasons, that's all right. But it seems like this is the case in inner-ring suburbs in the Northeast megalopolis.
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Public transport is not sustainable from ticket prices alone anywhere in Europe.
That's a bold assertion. Never mind that you know what's also not "sustainable", if the definition means "costs > revenues"? Automobile roads :)
Worrying about train fares seems a little petty in comparison.
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My understanding of that ruling is that, the intent of the constitutional clause is not only to prevent ticket prices from being raised unfairly, but also to prevent ticket prices from being so low that they no longer cover the cost of running the network, which would shift that cost to the general taxpayer. Still frustrating (if the taxpayers want it, might as well let them have it), but not purely a semantic techni…
Public transport is not sustainable from ticket prices alone anywhere in Europe.
It's the same case for basically everywhere around the world, driving ends up being quite heavily subsidised too.
That’s the introductory price. It’ll be €127,95 after that period is over. Kids travel for free, though, so that’s pretty nice. In hindsight, I think I underestimated the value of my OV card while I was a student: travel whenever, using all types of public transport, for free.
Note that 128€ is the monthly price for 100% discount, but 6€ is the monthly price for 40% discount. It brings the prices of rail travel in the Netherlands from "fucking ludicrous" to just "reasonably expensive".
Actual 100% discount is €399,95/month.
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No, it's not even close. Those fares don't cover the whole operation of the train system, but they actually go a long way to covering a very large chunk of it. The cost of operating the fare system is a rounding error relative to the sums of money talked about here.
ok, but hear me out let's say the fare system costs $1 million to operate and maintain and let's say the fare system collects $10 million in fares couldn't you just collect $10 million in additional taxes, just add a "railway fare" line item, and save everyone the $1 million?
Neoliberal governments don't do this, but they lie about why.
Other than that - of course you could.
Governments also lie about who gets subsidised, and why.
Generally subsidies go to the oligarchy, which makes constant attempts to "cut wasteful and inefficient public spending", because the oligarchy believes poor people don't deserve nice things.
(Not just rhetoric, btw.)
It's a political issue, not a practical one.
There are sociological reasons why you might want some kind of fare income, but they're more to do with adding some token resistance to accessing the system than making money from it.