First it started as 9€ ticket for 3 months.
People loved it, and the government talked about doing a permanent 29€ ticket.
But now we pay 49€ and it's already planned to become 59€.
Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.
A nationwide subscription for 60 euros is a steal, even when the long distance trains are excluded
Do you know how it works, actually, if you need to get to work but can't because of the cost? If you can't afford 60€ then you also won't be able to afford a car that costs probably >3x times as much for a barebones old model when you include the necessary insurance, road tax, and fuel. Bürgergeld pays your rent afaik but do they front e.g. costs when you get a job to actually get there until your first paycheck? Can one apply for a public transport subscription in low income situations?
Depends. In my city "poor" people pay less. Just 19 € per month. Pupils don't pay at all. Students pay 29.40 €.
That's not Germany
That's still less than an average car. A commonly quoted figure is 10'000 CHF per year. [2]
[1] https://www.sbb.ch/de/billette-angebote/abos/ga/ga-preise.ht...
[2] https://www.comparis.ch/carfinder/autofahren/auto-kosten
I am not saying anyone should by a car, quite the contrary, just stating the fact that 4000 Fr/yr is not competitive enough to car.
https://www.bahn.de/angebot/bahncard/bahncard100
Quite comparable. The ticket discussed in the article in contrast only includes local transportation but no high speed rail.
On the other hand, if price was set to zero, you would get weird over-usage patterns (like people using it for housing or other nonsense)
Who are these poor people that don't have 49€ for a month of transportation, and how are they possibly surviving without that much money - given the cost of everything else in Germany?
If that's enough depends a lot where you live, if you have family or not and your livestyle.
You have to pay your energy bills (40-70€/month) and internet / cell-phone (40-50€/month) for yourself.
If you are a healthy single it's perfectly fine if you life a simple life. But you can't really put aside any savings.
Yes, but people will still be greedy and complain about every little thing.
> Who are these poor people that don't have 49€ for a month of transportation, and how are they possibly surviving without that much money - given the cost of everything else in Germany?
Germany can actually be quite cheap on the basic goods. I mean, it's the country who invented the concept of discount-market and is now spreading Aldi&Lidl to the world. There are also many shops and programs for supporting poor people, selling stuff for lower prices or second hand, and such things. And of course this includes offering a lower price for the ticket.
Even so, cities subsidize this ticket for the “poor”, so practically their costs are even lower.
That was a different Ticket. A highly subsidized time-limited offer. It was never meant to be economical. The 49€ is the economical viable solution, after a long discussion, which still is subsidized. And the 59€ is just the rise to fine-tune the price to actual usage and inflation.
> Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.
Poor people, as also students, get a lower price. Usually around 19-29€. And many workers can get it through their company, or can get something back from taxes. The amount of people who are really paying the full price themselves is probably not that high.
Someone said in other comment that that 9 ticket was one time only
> That was a time limited earlier ticket. "The tickets were valid for June, July, or August 2022. The offer aimed at reducing energy use amid the 2021–2022 global energy crisis." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket