Germany will start one of the most affordable public transit offers in the world
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I think public transit has a marketing problem in the US. People don’t often realize how much more expensive the paradigm of “taxes pay for roads and individuals pay for vehicles, gas, and maintenance” can be than a paradigm of heavy public transit use. While this program for sure relies on taxpayer funding (just as road usage does, I might add), even if coupled with occasional car rentals or taxis, the all-in cost can be so much lower than having a car.
The train system is one of my favorite parts of Germany and I really wish we had something comparable in the denser parts of the US.
German rail travel was a great experience.
Considering how most trains are electric/hybrid diesel it's clear the petroleum industry never allowed new (and even dismantled existing) rail networks. Just more profits for them.
I also think selling public transit as an alternative to having a car at all is perhaps too ambitious a target. But having to use a car less still has a lot of benefits for individuals and society as a whole without having to get public transit to the point where it can replace nearly all journeys.
That's not true, car taxes and taxes on mineral oil paid by car owners are more than enough to pay for the infrastructure they use.
The highest amount (71%) seems to be in Hawaii:
https://taxfoundation.org/states-road-funding-2019/
Gas tax revenue will likely continue to drop due to improvements in fuel efficiency and increased adoption of hybrid and electric vehicles.
Per https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative... state and local fuel tax revenues are about $55b and per https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta... federal fuel tax revenues are about $40b. These figures are from different years and I don’t know how to get aggregate estimates of various other vehicle fees and taxes less government administrative costs, but assuming it’s about $100 per car you are right that the fuel revenues seem to be enough to fund roads.
Still, I see private vs public transit as a collective action problem leading to a local, non-global optimum: in aggregate we are still spending a lot on private transit, and when public transit is poorly funded in a particular area you have little choice but to choose private transit, which creates a negative feedback loop on multiple levels (incremental increases in public transit funding have little effect because they’re not enough to ditch a car, new development is dispersed and car-dependent). In my opinion, being all but forced to pay for private transit out of pocket is not much different from being forced to pay for public transit through taxes.
Heavy public transit vs heavy private transit is never going to be an apples-to-apples comparison because each has pros and cons (especially when considered systemically) and distinct cost structures. But personally even with a high tax rate that ends up paying for more public transit than I consume, I prefer the systemic outcomes of high public transit funding compared to private transit and deliberately choose to live in an area with that so I can forego car ownership.
I think there are a few additional problems. One is an education problem that I discovered while writing this post. I was taught that tolls and taxes paid for road construction and maintenance. Seems fair to me; those who use the roads more pay more toward their maintenance - they will incur more tolls, and spend more on gas taxes (a little outdated, but still mostly holds). Apparently, that's not true [1]. Driver-related fees cover less than half the cost of road creation and maintenance. The rest is covered by general taxes. So, one big barrier to public transit is stopping the misconception that roads pay for themselves, since people then hold public transit to that standard. Or, public transit proponents could insist that the road system is held to the same standard they are: it must be net-neutral.
I will say, though, roads cover much more of their own expenses than public transit do. At least in my own Massachusetts, the MBTA's fees cover only 10.6% of expense [2].
The other financial issue that public transit faces (and financials are what cause most people not to support public transit, IME) is, who pays for it? Again, using Massachusetts as an example, a lot of the general taxpayer revenue that supports the MBTA comes at the state level. The MBTA has lines that cover less than half the state. Why should someone who receives none of the benefit have to pay as much as someone who receives some benefit? If I lived in a rural area, I'd be very opposed to public transit, because I would get negligible benefit and pay the same as someone who gets substantial benefit. So, if urban areas want to have urban projects with taxpayer dollars, it should be their taxpayer dollars. It's unfair of folks to complain that others who would not benefit from their public transit plan don't want to pay for it.
1: https://pirg.org/massachusetts/resources/who-pays-for-roads/
2: https://cdn.mbta.com/sites/default/files/2022-06/FY23%20Item...
One thing I’d like to point out is that a true comparison is very hard because heavy public vs private transit result in qualitatively different systemic outcomes that are hard to fully account for monetarily (one results in denser development with its own pros and cons vs dispersed development). And you definitely need to account for the personal costs of car ownership (the car, financing, depreciation, insurance, parking, gas) rather than just the government spending on roads when comparing against public transit.
Private transit taxes in aggregate do pay for most private transit spending but to me that is not as big of a deal as some make out. For starters those taxes are disproportionately coming from things like freight. Considering private transit costs + government spending vs public transit fares + government spending I don’t think the proportion coming from taxes vs OOP changes much, it’s just a different cost structure where some people (freight, gas guzzler drivers vs heavy transit users and high income people) pay proportionately more.
The payment problem is indeed a challenge. I think a big problem with public transit is that it’s really expensive and wasteful to halfass it; you’re better off in a lot of cases accepting a local optimum of little/no public transit than a small or medium amount that ends up being cost-ineffective. In a lot of countries like Germany, granted they are denser than the US (but comparable to Mass) even small towns have good rail or bus connections to transit hubs. That’d help a lot more than forcing someone in the boonies to pay for something they won’t benefit from (though I take issue with that framing as rural areas typically consume more spending than they receive unless they are wealthy suburbs (with wealth coming from the cities) vs urban areas, so if the project truly benefits the urban area economically, it will still help the rural folks).
Here in Austria most people either live or they commute into urban areas for work. So even if public transport was only available in urban areas, it would still benefit most of the people.
I don't know if it's the same in the US, but where I'm from rural areas depend entirely on urban tax revenues. If state support was cut and local expenses would have to be covered with local taxes, all rural areas would die overnight as basic services couldn't be funded any more. But it's of course an unfair idea to start with.
Why ? Do you have to benefit personally to a policy to support them ?
I live in neighbouring Luxembourg now and here it's very simple: public transportation inside the country are free. No need to register or anything: you just hop in and it's free. For tourists, for expats/residents/natives: doesn't matter, it's all free.
Income tax goes as high as 40% in Luxembourg (for the high earners) but it sure seems like people here do get a lot in return for their taxes.
more like people there get a lot in return for other people taxes...
for private people it isn't
except it is because if you have a very high amount of money you can do all kind of tricks to reduce you personal income (on which you pay high tax) without actually losing out on much, e.g. by having a company have this income instead of you, and you just happen to have 100% control of the company ;=)
for money you spend on private exp-endures of luxury there is often a limit on how much you can trick around so you still have to pay yourself out a not so small amount of money as income and in turn Luxembourg still get a nice amount of tax.
(Edit: Legal tax avoidance of very wealthy people, works roughly like this pretty much everywhere, not just Luxembourg.)
The further trains go, generally the more expensive tickets are, because you get fewer economies of scale compared to local trips within a metro area, and infrastructure upkeep is probably more expensive for such long trips through more remote areas.
* not the fast ones, but still
Luxembourg is effectively only offering local/metro level free transit, since the country is tiny. Germany, on the other hand, has regional trains criss-crossing the country that are also free. Yes, the faster IC trains aren't included, but slower trains that go quite far are included.
So, while Germany is indeed charging rather than making them free, they're also offering more than Luxembourg is.
It's really not hard for it to provide free public transportation. (Berlin considered doing it and it's a comparatively poor city). Generally in such small countries a lot of thing are just way easier to implement, through other things are way harder.
Or in other words for many metrics comparing very small countries with non very small countries makes often no sense as the dynamics involved are just too different.
The tax thing I do get. Especially if you are not a migrant it can be a tough ask to give away 40-50% of your money, a lot of which goes directly or indirectly to pensioners who probably hate your guts. Though again, while this is particularly bad in Germany, it's hardly unique in that regard.
The weird low-tech bureaucracy (which culturally extends well into the business world and is related to things like high physical currency usage) is to me one of the worst parts of Germany. IMO the taxes are not bad because you get a lot of benefits from government spending living there, it’s the low wages that are the real problem.
During the pandemic, paying by debit card was encouraged, and this has stuck around.
I have used cash in a single instance in the last month (at a restaurant where the card reader was out of order).
However, it turns out that most people still prefer cash, so I might be living in a bubble, see https://www.bundesbank.de/en/press/press-releases/payment-be...
https://www.orszagberlet.hu/ (hungarian only)
I'm quite often on business trips, and regularly visit the major cities here - I also love taking the public transit - so right now I have 6 different apps on my phone. Would be nice with only one, as well as tickets that can be used wherever.
As an aside, the Green Party in Norway wants to do the same as Germany: introduce a nation-wide monthly "travel as much as you want"-subscription for 499 NOK. It will probably only include the local and cross regional trains, and not the fastest and longest routes.
theoretically yes
but outside of going to close by cities it's very unpractical
the moment you travel a longer distance it's not just "usually slower", it's most times way slower and you don't have the comfort of e.g. seat reservations and you tend to have to switch trains way more often meaning the chance of unexpected delays increases exponentially.
E.g. Berlin => Munich with ICE 4 hours but with RE+RB 12 hours. (RE,RB are included in the Germany wide ticket but IC,ICE are not)
Basically the ticket includes all metro transportation train networks across Germany as well as the trains which connect "regional" places (e.g. small cities, villages) with each other and the bigger hubs.
This still can be a major money saving, especially for people which live slightly outside the transportation network of a metro area (which helps because housing prices have been kinda high in many metro areas in recent years).
Or saves money e.g. in summer when taking a day trip to a lake or nice hiking place outside of the reach of the metro area (which also can be a big help for day trips for people earning just a bit about the limit under which you get social support).
I.e. it will help the most people which are currently affect the most by the current inflation and other post-covid effects, while it still is a really convenient thing for everyone else.
I need a constitutional amendement (US) that guarantees cash payments will alwayd be an option for any means of transportation, shopping for basic needs and communication methods. And that the 4th amendment's protections for search and seizure extend to public transportation and that the government must take an all or nothing approach to weapons on public transport, that is either allow all legal weapons or screen every single person using a public transport (like airports) for weapons.
I would also like to add that the federal government should be granted powers that allow it to override local governments' push back against public transport infrastructure (e.g. california!). Allow it to purchase any land for fair market prices and use eminent domain to remove people and endsure things like the cali rail project where rich localities get a stop but poor ones have little say doesn't happen.
It generally is cheaper than most (virtually all) monthly tickets. Additionally this one is valid for all of Germany instead of just for a state or specific region. "Job Tickets" used to commute to and from work, subsidized by cities and/or companies, often cost ~90 € per month in my experience.
Ultimately these schemes are based on the belief of the current people in charge to public transport should be free. Hence they pushing to get there. But trying to argue that 9 vs 49 is a huge difference feels rather immature.
1. For unemployed people and people in low wage jobs, 40€/month is a lot of money, and many will not be able to afford this ticket. Meaning they have to stick to single tickets, whenever it is unavoidable or use other means of transportation.
2. During the 3 month of the 9€ ticket, we saw a huge increase in travels to surrounding areas of cities. Anecdotally, there are stories of bakeries, cafes, bars at the edge of the city who saw an significant increase in customers because the barrier to visit them was lower to virtually zero. People just visited different parts of their city, or other cities because it was now affordable for them.
3. 9€ is a price where you don't think about buying anything else. The first trip you take, you buy this ticket (even on the last day of the month). This massively simplifies traveling by bus and train. 49€ is something you only spend if you know that there will be multiple trips in the month. This combined with the subscription based model, makes the current ticket far less attractive than the previous 9€ ticket.
9€ would have been a revolution of public transportation. A major step to achieve the emission goals of ministry of transportation, which it utterly fails at and can't even come up with a strategy how to achieve any reductions.
49€ is nice for everyone already using public transportation on a regular basis, but will not induce a significant change in transportation method used, which is desperately needed.
> 13.8 million Germans either live in poverty or are at risk of slipping below the poverty line.
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-what-poverty-looks-like-in-a-r...
So 50 Euros would be 5%. Additionally there are discounts for the poor, often bringing the price down to 20 or 30 Euros in most states.
Even at only 1000€/month this ticket is only 5%.
Frankly, I find it very odd the inhabitants of one of the richest countries on Earth argue over 9 vs 49 euros a month... that feels like next level spoiled.
At 10 (or less) it's a safe assumption for everyone. You can start building things with zero provisions for cars, no excuses. It's a massive social shift.
But the general point is that 49 euros a month to use public transport is dirt cheap and is definitely not a barrier, quite the opposite.
NB if a ticket is 3 euros it means 60/120 euros a month to commute daily without any discounted pass. Obviously, if you use only now and then the 3 euro ticket will be the cheapest option anyway...
It's not that the local pass is cheaper for them, it's that they use the transportation network so little that buying single tickets on demand is cheaper.
Which makes this whole argument kinda pointless.
I think they believe the 49€ ticket is an attempt to try to make driver stop using the car and use the public transport instead. But this isn't exactly the goal here.
even as someone working from home, i go out at least 3-4 times a week, shopping, other errands, events, meet friends. two rides each time adds up to at least 30 rides a month.
3€ per ride only gets you 16 rides before you reach 49€. any semi regular user of public transport will reach that easily.
I.e. 10 rides are just 5 trips
if you have a ride home from work and take some side route to stop at a shopping mall or Kino or so that counts as an additional trip
but someone using it for work daily tends to have more then 42 rides a month not just 10 and that is just for work transit in a 5 work day week
and then this is assuming you only travel in the AB area and not the outer area of Berlin
and there are many (in summer) nice places close by Berlin, some still in the C area some beyond
lastly, it's very convenient, I mean since I don't have a semester ticket anymore I forgot to buy a ticket way to often and just was lucky to never got cought
I mainly get around by bike. I basically use my car for: bad weather, large shopping trips, outings with kids and going to the area around Berlin. I'd consider doing some of the latter two with a public transit pass if I had one.
I actually used to have a monthly ticket -- when I needed it for work. But a lot of people work from home, or bike to work, and for those folks a €49 ticket still really can't be justified. You'd need to make 20 trips a month for it to work out, and if you're not taking public transit to work, that's a larger number than one's likely to need.
In fact, in central Berlin people that cycle as a primary means of transportation is extremely common. (I honestly can't think of a single of my friends who uses public transit daily.) €9 vs. €49 makes a difference for people who use public transit as auxiliary transit, not primary transit.
If you would get rid of it for 9€/month you should also do it for 49€/month.
This ticket is basically a big (!) raise for anyone using public transport. My wife will save 150€/month and can travel everywhere instead of a 50km single route
which means you don't really use the public transite net at all
because a 4-(one direction) trip bundle ticket cost already 10€, and that is AB only, i.e. excluding the outer areas of Berlin
or in other words if you use the public transportation so little and drive so little that it also doesn't cost you much you really are not the audience this ticket is meant to help
Not having a regular commute, I do not usually use 49€ worth of transit in a month. I'd rather ride my bike than be in a crowded train any time that's a viable option. Still, I'd buy the ticket just to always have the option at 9€. At 49€, I'll only buy one if I know I'm going to use it.
It's possible the 49 Euro is cheaper than a single train ticket, let's say 100km, between cities. It's very much cheaper for anybody communiting daily, a no-brainer to switch to the new ticket.
Some cities and states offer additional discounts, e.g. for seniors or the disabled.
The 2022 test mentioned in the video was 9 Euro per month. At that price it was cheaper than taking a bus a couple of times. It existed as paper version, too. States, federal government, local public transport agencies (there are many) fought all winter what the new price should be. Anything from 29 to 99 Euro was discussed. It's an expensive program.
Germany also has a ticket that covers all trains including high speed trains. It's 4339 Euro/year (or 7356 Euro for first class seats). I know several people who bought the ticket for their commute or where the employer gave such tickets to employees (instead of company car).
There are a few confusing exceptions where long distance trains run under a regional code.
In Berlin I used to pay between 91€ and 114€ per month, depending on which how much of the metropolitan area I wanted the ticket to cover. Now I'll be paying a flat 49€ per month.
In Munich prices for monthly tickets currently range between 63€ and a whopping 243€. There, too, you will soon only need to pay 49€ per month, no matter how far you travel.
But the foundation does seem to be pretty clear and universal - if you have this ticket for 49€ a month, you will be allowed on all RE/RB/S trains, plus buses and trams. This alone is a fantastic deal for a lot of people. On top of that, some states will have some extra offers or additional forms of public transport with extra rules, but if you need to worry about that, then you needed to worry about that before the ticket anyway.
Apart from that the ticket is valid in essentially every regional train. There are some weird cases that might not be valid, but those are as far as I understand some unusual edge cases and some of them are being negotiated. But this doesn't affect the vast majority of users.
it's not, which is one of the complains
there is a small number of RE trains which have contracts as if they are long distant trains and are operated by "DB Fernverkehr" (which normally operates IC,ICE trains) but are labeled as RE not IC/ICE..
but this will be fixed over time as the contracts a renewed, either by including the ticket or renaming the train as appropriate (the cases I'm aware of might be fixed in just a few month)
current exceptions I'm aware of are RE17, RE28, RE56 all stations on their line are also included in other lines and their where added as during rush hour parts of the exiting lines where just too over crowded
the problem is there is currently no sane way to check for what RE lines are special cases, but then AFIK this problems will likely be fixed very soon one way or another
Sure it's not perfect, by far.
But it's a major improvement.
And you don't build a city in a day, you build it bit by bit incrementally.
For example yes, the 49€ ticket doesn't to allow you to take a dog or bicycle with you (consistently never; some metro trains just happen to not require tickets for dogs at all).
But would you prefer to have a 49€ ticket today, or wait another 3 years until they perfectly discussed out all the nitty bitty details of transporting things which are not humans but consume human sized space?
Instead you get the ticket today _while they work on a extension ticket for bicycle and dog transport_.
Similar yes there is a very small number of regional (non metro) lines which are labeled in a way where it seems to be valid (they are RE lines) but is not. But this is mainly the reason due to how exactly the contracts for this lines have been made. Contracts which get renewed every few years at which point you can either fix this or give them different names. Why should the ticket wait halve a year or more until all of the contracts are renewed just to fix this? (Also non of this lines are major line, they always have similar alternatives alternatives AFIK.)
It's like getting a good car for free and then complaining for days that the backseats are quite bit worn down, just ridiculous. Through they need to put a bit more work into providing easy to find informational materials IMHO.
1 https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/bahn-deutsc...
As German we love to complain about the trains and while it is way worse then e.g. Japan and in turn can improve by a lot it could be far far worse.
I live in Hamburg, an the public transport system is extensive and generally quite good.
Would make sense for cities to accept each other's monthly transit cards in theory - little loss for the home city, and a nice perk for the pass holder that could increase appeal of that product.
Technology hurdles would probably insurmountable though with the different card formats and such.
Similar thing happened in Austria with the Klimaticket. There are dozens of local transport authorities, and the government just decided that there should be a yearly ticket (Klimaticket) and everyone has to accept it.
This is exactly the power of higher level government.
Everyone loves to talk about making decisions more locally, but the truth is that fundamentally, local decisionmaking is no better or worse than national decisionmaking; it's just different, at least overall. In some cases it's better, but you can see that in a case like this, just having coordination forced upon local agencies that otherwise have little incentive to cooperate is actually fantastic.
this is a very different approach and culture to for example japan where lots of independent companies providing transport exist, but as far as i can tell no collective ticket, but pay as you go everywhere.
Like stamps!
Boston likely has much smaller public transit population density, meaning they need to spend more per commuter on infra.
But this is also some deep begging of the question - if you charge more less people use it, no shit. It's not like this price is profitable anywhere in Germany.
original comment covered Boston area, since it includes extra city transit. My expectation is that Boston area population still drive cars much more than Germans.
> It's not like this price is profitable anywhere in Germany.
the question how much unprofitable it will be in US. Say government invested billions in building top notch public transit in Boston area, but population will still prefer to drive cars, it will be huge waste of money.
I think one of the reason why cars are preferred in US is higher wages and lower gasoline and car prices so population can afford driving cars more, and car is more convenient transportation in most of the time.
(service direct in French, direkter Verkher in German)
Prices are much higher than Germany though.
So, London, your turn? I jest, I jest