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Comment by bennysomething | Hacker News Reader

There are a reasons I can think of for making money and charging for tickets:

1. The investment can come from the private sector, it takes the risk instead of burdening the tax payer.

2. Free rail for all burdens all with the cost of rail, it removes freedom of not paying for it.

3. No ticket pricing means no market signals that would show if the operator is running it's business poorly.

4. No adjustable pricing mean that the user has no reason to adjust their usage in terms of avoiding peak times or utilising quieter times.

5. No competition means no alternative, if the monopoly provides a terrible service that fleeces the tax payer, well tough luck for the user.

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Taxpayers (and residents in general) of the USA pay out the nose for streets and roads, parking, car-centric planning requirements, massive subsidies to suburban sprawl, fossil fuel industry subsidies, lives lost and healthcare costs due to automobile pollution and traffic injuries/deaths, and the follow-on high cost of everything else in the society. (And let’s not even get started on global climate change.)

Paying for rail infrastructure is not fundamentally different, except insofar as it is generally cheaper, more efficient, and long-term much healthier for the society.

Probably the right solution is charging for all public roads, not making trains free.

And after that, make sure everyone pays for using public air

That's unironically a good idea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax

I was talking about individuals but thanks for pointing about one of the biggest scams regarding climate change.

It had to be said that I am not at all opposed to the idea of accepting one's responsibility. It's just that how would we implement something like that in a non-dystopian way?

If there's some externality in the way that someone is using public air, like burning garbage in their backyard, then they should be expected to pay for it

Not opposed to the idea. Implementation, on the other hand, would be tricky.

As American housing is mostly sprawling and low density, it isn’t terribly well suited to mass transport like rail in most places. Perhaps light rail or even (eventually) self driving cars might work better. Alternatively, change planning rules to encourage higher density although it is probably already too late for any meaningful change.

Might not be too late. Car culture has heavily influenced planning in the States. If the focus shifted to public transportation maybe the planning would follow, though it'd take a lot of time to change

There’s little point putting in transit if dense development isn’t also allowed to follow. I concur though that it’s not too late.

Especially if you consider, car-centric development is bankrupting many smaller US cities. There’s a strong economic case for promoting dense, mid-rise, mixed-use development: it brings in much more in property taxes relative to the cost of city services required.

Simply put, every foot of road or pipe or power cable serves far more people (and economic activity) with dense development.

1. The downside of private sector investments is that they will only invest in projects with the most lucrative returns, which comes at the cost of serving further and smaller communities, more decentralized communities, and other less-profitable sectors, which are in the broader long-term interests of the whole society to maintain (despite being unprofitable). See how privatizing bus routes leads to the shutdown of many smaller businesses and communities, because less profitable routes are not served. This makes life worse for everyone.

2. Good, it's a progressive tax, instead of being a regressive one. Transport costs disproportionately affect the lives of the working/labor class.

3. Market signals are only ONE factor to consider. And you don't need ticket sales to measure demand. Building infrastructure often creates demand where none existed before. Any long-term planning must also take into consideration unprofitable longer-term projects that provide immeasurable benefits.

4. Yes, the user has an incentive to avoid overcrowded trains. You don't need to fleece them for it.

5. There is no realistic alternative for large-scale infrastructure projects - these are natural monopolies. This is a rail network, not a software company. What is a user going to do if they don't like the service? Start a new rail company? An average citizen has more recourse with their local government than with privately-owned monopolies. They can vote at the ballot box every few years.

>1. The downside of private sector investments is that they will only invest in projects with the most lucrative returns, which comes at the cost of serving further and smaller communities, more decentralized communities, and other less-profitable sectors, which are in the broader long-term interests of the whole society to maintain (despite being unprofitable).

I dispute your assertion that those things are the broader long term interests of the whole society. Their unprofitability is factual undeniable evidence that they are in fact unwanted "services" who are having resources poured in to them not due to their own merits but due to political decisions unrelated to their merits.

I want to be very clear here, because there are many people who seem to be under the misconception that profitability is something bad.

It is not.

Profitability is literally a measure of how much value a given thing is providing to society. There is a 1 to 1 relationship between profitability and societal and individual benefit.

When you say "Public services don't need to be profitable" or express similar ideas, what you are actually saying is "Public services don't need to provide societal benefit".

I agree, and I think that's a really insightful way of framing things, though there is a caveat: Often government services are of the sort whose value would be rather difficult to capture commercially.

For example, while I doubt many would dispute that having an active police force provides a significant societal benefit, actually capturing that value via a market-based system would be exceedingly difficult. (E.g. You just caught and jailed a murderer. Now, who do you bill for that?)

Thankfully, trains don't suffer from that problem; their value is extremely easy to capture (and thus quantify) via a ticketing system. But I felt I should point out that it isn't always so easy in the general case.

Except externalities are a thing.[1] Externalities are positive or negative impacts on society that do not accrue to those who cause them. Typically, rail transport leads to an increase in land prices and rents, but these additional profits are not recovered through fares, but fall into the hands of landowners. For this reason, railroads have historically been funded through land grants. For the same reason, most infrastructure is government-funded, such as airports, roads, or schools.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Re (2): public roads burden all with the cost of roads (and inducing car travel). We don't expect roads to make money, as far as I'm aware.

For roads, it depends on the country. For example in France you have to pay toll money to use most interstates

Yeah, and that's after they had been publicly funded, amortised, and then sold on the cheap to private company. The perfect example of how not to do it.

It used to be done properly, for things like long bridges and such, where there would be a toll until the invested money was recovered.

Also, there is still the extensive network of nationales, départementales, and other streets and avenue that are still free.

But cars are not free

Cool, so you would like the Government to fund construction and maintenance of the rails as long as the operation of trains is ticketed? :)

Just don’t fund rail AND tickets over rail

Yes.

nor is their fuel - electric or oil.

shoes aren't free either

We also all benefit from decent public transport, even drivers because it helps with congestion. (Also, as several other mentioned, we don't seem to be very reluctant subsidising roads and car-related infrastructure despite the issue being very similar). Your arguments sound nice in a vacuum, but are not very convincing when considering the broader context of society.

To number 2, we all pay for it one way or another and if it exists or not. IE, without good public transit, subsidized or not, we sit in auto gridlock and/or “overspend” on auto infrastructure. People have to get around and we (USA) currently spend and build on some of the least efficient transport (individual auto for almost all transit needs).

All of the above is true for roads, yet governments mostly don’t charge for roads.

For road, government is providing the road and public pays for bus ticket, personal car, delivery services etc.

For rail, usually railway building is already covered by government. People only pay for the train. Upkeep is usually covered by all sorts of subsidies.

Where do you think your car registration fee, fuel tax and toll road fee go?

I don't believe it only gets paid from the revenue of taxes that are relevant to car usage. Probably a share of it is paid by what I pay in income taxes

Just like a part of taxes I pay get used for transit services I don't use :)

Keep in mind that we don't think this way about roads which are way more expensive and way more money-losing.

Are they? You have tolls, fuel taxes, car registrations, etc.

> The investment can come from the private sector, it takes the risk instead of burdening the tax payer.

Public-private "partnerships" are right-wing propaganda and disastrous to the public purse. Why? Because how they work in practice is the government absorbs all the risks while the private entity consumes all the profits. It's textbook rent-seeking behaviour.

> Free rail for all burdens all with the cost of rail, it removes freedom of not paying for it.

You mean like roads?

> No ticket pricing means no market signals that would show if the operator is running it's business poorly.

We don't need ticket sales to track total passenger movements.

> No adjustable pricing mean that the user has no reason to adjust their usage in terms of avoiding peak times or utilising quieter times.

Another way to put that is that people have more opportunity and mobility. I'm completely fine with that.

> No competition means no alternative, if the monopoly provides a terrible service that fleeces the tax payer, well tough luck for the user.

When is there ever competition in public transportation? Why is competition viewed as a good thing for what is an essential service? Do we need competition for the post office now to satisfy free-market cultists?

> Do we need competition for the post office now to satisfy free-market cultists?

Yeah, unfortunately that's exactly what they are trying to do today in Brazil.

It's exactly the same as the government not paying for cars.

The UK recently privatised it's post office, there's lots of competition in its postal market (thank goodness).

The UK railways where private before 1948, then nationalised, it didn't work out well. Then privatised 40 or so years later because the government couldn't afford the investment required.

Are you in favour of nationalised air travel? UK tried that too and it was terrible. Exactly the same for telecoms. I'm just glad we don't have a nationalised food supply.

Most rail investment in the UK is ultimately paid for by the government. E.g HS2, line upgrades etc. Train companies might make a contribution to the cost of buying new trains through the cost of leasing them from the government regulated monopoly companies that buy them with government money. We basically have a system where everything is paid for by government but in a really complicated way involving lots of complicated contracts written by very expensive lawyers. Our trains are now some of the slowest most expensive and most uncomfortable in Europe.

UK railways are terrible, so you are saying it was _even_ worse when it was nationalised? It's expensive, a lot of strikes, and trains barely arrive on time, and the trains are bad

It was underinvested-in, but relatively cheap to the traveler. Now it's underinvested-in and hideously expensive.

> Exactly the same for telecoms

The UK would have a nationwide fibre network if the government didn't step in to tear down public telecoms in favour of privatisation. Now it's 2022 and other major European cities have 25 Gbit fibre, yet there are parts of London still limited to ADSL2 and copper wires.

6. Annoying people on board. I simply don’t take the train anymore in France, there are 76 onboard thefts a day declared in Marseilles only, they are loud, they are not disrespectful but downright playing with the first one who complains, and most importantly, they have the controller siding with them.

All of this because the CAF gives them fares for almost-nothing, which is affordable when you have drug money.

No to free fares.

This is a separate problem imo. Why can't we have both free fares and better policing to keep the riffraff under control?

Because anything organized by the state tends to obey the incentives of each clerk and government, ie at the beginning, incentives are well set, but it all goes to hell as time passes?

Here’s a video of drug dealers taking the high-speed train in France, singing, not having a fare, not being arrested: https://youtu.be/VMJenDMIbqg

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