Hacker News Reader

Comment by Gud | Hacker News Reader

You are making a lot of assertions. Meanwhile, I travel globally for work and my preferred mode of transportation is walking and public transport(ideally tram).

There are BIG DIFFERENCES between how well different cities handle this. There is no "equilibrium", only wise(or unwise) governance.

How do you explain Luxembourg? They've had free public transport for 5 years now.

View on HN

Luxembourg is an outlier and more of an edge case, then something that can be dissected and applied to other countries/cities.

Why?

Luxembourg has insane tax revenue per capita because of its status as an international tax haven. A program that might be hardly noticeable on Luxembourg's budget could put a big dent into the budget of an American city.

What about Estonia?

Actually, they said fare revenue was like 10% of public transport spending anyway.

It's very possible it's the same in Iowa City.

That’s true in NYC today

“The truth about Zohran’s free busses” by Breaking Points:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P275SobdE-s

clickbait headline (of course) but gives a lot of facts about the proposal and talks about other places they’ve tried it.

Because many people commute to Luxembourg from Germany/Belgium/France. AFAIK the cross-border commute complicates things.

Free transit: IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Free roads and highways: GOOD AND NATUAL

The political class are not typically utilizers of public transit: hence even the best attempts are structurally challenged from the outset.

If that isn’t factored into your analysis, you are missing a huge reason why it sometimes fails and sometimes succeeds.

Of course the rhetoric is such. One of those things helps poor folks more than the others.

>Free roads and highways: GOOD AND NATUAL

Every time you fuel up a vehicle you are paying a "fare" to use the road. The fare is subsidized (just like with the bus), but it is very much there and not zero.

Every time you earn money/spend money you are paying taxes.

I guess busses run on fairy dust too?

>Every time you earn money/spend money you are paying taxes.

>I guess busses run on fairy dust too?

Every vehicle on the roads is basically paying to be there via fuel tax (which in whole or large part is spent on the roads). Busses pass some of this cost on to their riders who's fare may be then subsidized in part or full.

I don't see why you're being so hysterical.

What if I drive an electric vehicle? Sure, my registration is possibly pricier, but I'm in no way paying a usage fee.

You're being subsidized because the .gov decides they want more of you so they make what you do artificially cheap compared to the baseline.

That's what we're suggesting be done for public transit

The funniest thing about Luxembourg is that it is a known tax haven for American corporations. So American corporations will lobby against social programs in the US, but will make Americans fund Luxembourg's free public transport.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/17/walmart-hid...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com