Luxembourg makes all public transport free | Hacker News Reader

Luxembourg makes all public transport free

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27 pointstomerbd17 comments

I remeber reading an anecdote that once upon a time, in the 70s, I believe, the same was done in the Soviet Union. After a rather short time, the decision was reverted, and not because of the economical costs: the public transport never was profitable or even self-sustaining to begin with, and dropping the 4 copecks price of a ticket didn't really changed much.

No, the reason was that the amount of pickpocketing in the public transport skyrocketed: apparently, having to pay 4 copecks on every boarding really did inconvenience the pickpocketers a lot. A useful reminder that every public policy change can have completely unforeseen consequences.

Or anotherway to put it: Now everyone pays for transport through their taxes, even those who do not use it.

Well, drivers will benefit if traffic starts moving.

Build more roads, make them wider roads, but traffic is still horrible. What to do?

It’s funny how bad things need to get before some people will fund mass transit.

Public transportation is a public good you receive benefits from even if you don't directly use it; cleaner air, less congestion reducing transit times, and a happier populace.

  cleaner air

Only if it displaces more pollution than it contributes itself. Running mostly empty trains and buses worsens both congestion and pollution.

The current ticket sale only covers 8% of total cost.

"Luxembourg's public transport system covers the whole country and costs $562 million (€508 million) per year to run. Each year, it generates around $46 million in ticket sales, according to the ministry."

$46 mil is still a lot given the gov't tax revenue is only $25 billion / year, but I'm sure they also calculated plenty of upsides when they made the decision.

Let's be realistic, everyone uses transport.

In Europe, you might use a car if you're out in the country, but you still use transport. Historically car transport was subsidised anyway - because it makes sense to do so.

The number of people who walk everywhere is minuscule (and even then you're using maintained footpaths).

Or anotherway to put it: now public transport receive the same subsidies as private cars. With cars hogging free public roads, polluting the air with their inefficiency, and filling cities with subsidies parking

Just like for schools, healthcare, roadwork and every other _public_ systems/infrastructures in most European countries.

Everyone is better off that way, I pay for roads and public transport I very seldom use, but other people paid for my education and my medications. At least I won't die because I can't afford insulin or go bankrupt if I have any semi serious disease/accident.

At the end of the day that's exactly how any insurance work, everyone give in all the time and a very small portion of the population gain from it at any point in time.

Most transit systems are taxpayer subsidized as it is. SV's VTA has never gotten more than 15% of operating costs from fares, with zero going to fixed cost or interest.

One pays for transport in both time and money.

Sometimes there are options of different transport methods trading off time Vs money.

Luxembourg has subsidized the money component to zero, but transport still has a significant time cost.

Luxembourg saves on the barriers/checkpoints/controls that people actually paid for their tickets.

That said, it's a very small country and so the infrastructure cost are very contained. Also it's balance/budget is probably in the positive as well.

yes it is more like a city. it will be interesting for other cities to see if this works on this scale

It's more like a village.

As I recall Estonia has free public transportation for its residents. They started with the capital several years ago and expanded to whole country. I guess it worked out well for them.

But you could say the same for building roads, if you’re comparing to cars.

Unless you’re implying they reduced the number of buses/trains to compensate, this is surely a very positive thing for the citizen.

> One pays for transport in both time and money.

Have you visited any big european cities ? I live in berlin and to reach anything in a 5km radius (and I very rarely need to go further than 2) the fastest way to travel is bicycle, the next is public transportation, the last is car. Ranking these by cost gives you the same order.

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