Free or extremely cheap transportation is a fascinating development. I always found it odd that the rhetoric around transportation was that it should make money. We don't expect other parts of the government to turn a profit. Why transportation?
If Amtrak went that direction and made its transportation close to free, I wonder if we'd see more people try it out. Maybe it'd gain some popularity and we could finally see a shift away from cars. Public transportation is a difficult process because until the money is spent and the line is there, people are not sold. Whereas with cars, even if a highway is not built, people still have a car by default. Therefore the government needs to float money, either in infrastructure or in subsidized fares. At least subsidized fares is a little less binary than infrastructure.
As someone who has chosen to get rid of my car and rely on public transport I would say the biggest problem public transport faces is quality and not cost. For people to trade in their cars connections need to be fast, frequent and a comfortable ride. This requires large investments and having high enough fares helps offset those investments. Making it free makes it harder to achieve that level of quality, so while it will sway the most price-conscious group, it would never convince the masses to take a train instead of their car.
> If Amtrak went that direction and made its transportation close to free, I wonder if we'd see more people try it out
My understanding is that in north America the big problem with passenger rail is less cost and more the fact that there's a bias towards freight in track right of ways. Even if you're willing and happy to pay a lot to travel by train, scheduling is still likely to be screwed up somewhere by a big ass freight train in the way and there's nothing you can do about it.
Edit to add after a double check: I guess in the US it's technically the law that passengers be given priority but it's poorly (or just not) enforced[1].
While I don’t think this stuff needs to make money, I think the goal should be at least be to break even, as people’s willingness to pay seems to be the best proxy of its actual utility to society. (E.g. trying to avoid bridges to nowhere [1])
The question then becomes how much if at all do want to subsidize transportation.
In germany (currently month 2 of 3) there is an ticket for 9€ per month for using local public transport. Millions of tickets are sold and people are using the so much that the trains are litterally full. And the users are still enduring it.
For those who don't know it: german trains have an lowsy reputation at best, no cooling in the summer, no heating in the winter and every user has to plan for the case the train is 15 minutes or more late or broke on the way down.
The issue is usually capacity management. Pre-covid most places with decent transit had crowding issues during rush hour. In 2010 Guangzhou made fares on its subway free to ease congestion during the Asian Games, and the result was a more than doubling of ridership. Users reported queue times of more than 20 minutes to enter stations, and eight busy stations had to be turned exit only as an emergency measure. https://humantransit.org/2010/11/guangzhou-abandons-free-far...
A fair amount of places have tried free transit. Usually the result found is that most trips were diverted from walking and cycling.
>If Amtrak went that direction and made its transportation close to free, I wonder if we'd see more people try it out.
On the Northeast Corridor it could change the driving equation for couples and families. BUT Amtrak on the Northeast Corridor already runs at pretty high utilization. In fact, I believe there are expansion projects underway.
> I always found it odd that the rhetoric around transportation was that it should make money. We don't expect other parts of the government to turn a profit.
While it shows a deep misunderstanding of the concept of a public service, there are lots of other parts of government we do expect to be self-sustaining on user fees. Like the Postal Service.
'Free PT' is an idea that sounds good but hasn't actually been shown to solve the real problems of PT such as service quality or safety or the ability to actually get where you need to go. I'd characterise it more as a distraction than anything else. Compounding this it means that the more people using it actually means less revenue per person which is problematic when you need to scale based on the number of people using it (basically you become entirely dependent on public revenue allocation which can really suck if your city/country has political issues with funding PT). My experience has been that when 'free PT' gets floated it's usually instead of actual infrastructural improvements since it's trivial to implement.
And yeah, all these issues exist with 'free' roads and car infrastructure too. Again, toll roads are unpopular, and free car infrastructure is a vote winner. Doesn't mean it's actually a good idea at a systems level.
In the UK you get on a west coast train in the evening and it's rammed, with people paying 50p per mile.
That service costs money to run. We could increase public spending to run the service, but you won't get more people on the train because it's already full.
Now how are you going to increase that spending? Raise taxes? Cut other public services? Borrow more? Miraculous "efficiencies" no doubt.
We could make it more cost effective, by building a new line instead, which would carry more people per operational cost. HS2 is this (1000 seats doing the journey in 1 hour for 2 members of staff is 500 seats per person hour, vs 500 seats doing it in 2 hours for 3 members of staff which is 83 seats per personhour, thus staffing costs drop 84%). And that's what we're doing.
> I always found it odd that the rhetoric around transportation was that it should make money. We don't expect other parts of the government to turn a profit. Why transportation?
Because it’s competing with private industry. It should be revenue neutral at least if you don’t just want to use tax money to destroy public businesses and operate something economically inefficient.
Why not have the government make an electric car that is free? Why not a government airline that offers free flights?
Most countries don't expect publicly funded transportation to turn a profit, or even break even. The reason Spain has to find new avenues to waste money is due to the unnecessarily large EU recovery fund, of which Spain was the biggest recipient.
This is not even Spanish tax payers money, but I'm sure they'll have no problem finding ways to spend it, like all the other hand outs.
The problem is train transportation is not making a profit here. Specially since we have the second best high speed network which doesn't see much use and cost us an incredible amount of money.
This is going to be a disaster, the only way they'll sustain this is with (even) higher taxes.
> I always found it odd that the rhetoric around transportation was that it should make money. We don't expect other parts of the government to turn a profit. Why transportation?
That sounds like a straw man. This probably varies, but where I'm from public transport is about half funded by ticket sales and half subsidized by tax payers (some of whom don't use public transport).
The reasons I'm aware of againt free public transport are (1) the economist view that a free service (that in reality costs money to operate) leads to inefficient and wasteful use and (2) the city-planner view that over long term free public transport leads to thinly spread out residential land use development which in turn leads to high infrastructure costs for roads, pipes, electricity, schools, etc. and also emissions as not everyone will use public transport for all their trips.
I think free public transport is an interesting thought especially give various modern challenges, but seems prone to shallow argumentation that doesn't quite match the complex dynamics of the matter itself.
I would! I want to do the california zephyr. But hard to poney up just for a scenic ride when the cars aren't even very nice and cost more than a flight in some cases.
Seems like the problem though is Mr Buffet's rail monopoly? Maybe if the Govt got a right of way...
Services have to (at least in some part) listen to those who pay for it. As long as tickets are priced to cover costs, there is an incentive to ensure enough people travel and that it hits a comfort/safety/trade of that most people are happy with. When people are not paying, there is no incentive to do anything but what is required to get the government subsidy.
In addition because it is so cheap there is a lot less competition from people taking the car instead, which means that there is even less pressure to make the train ride nicer. This hurts everybody, including those who do not have a car as an alternative.
Basically: by paying the fee you get a vote. If it is free you don't.
As a counterpoint, the us post office is expected to make money as well. There's a number of onerous rules around that in fact..
During the Trump administration the head of education was a big fan of charter schools, which is a way of turning public schools into subsidized private schools.
The concept of government providing services that are taxpayer funded and do not turn a profit is something that the Republican party became opposed to around, I guess, the Regan administration.
The problem with "free or extremely cheap transportation" is that it's neither free nor cheap. It's expensive and paid for by tax payers through constant budget deficits and debt issuance that will indebt future generations.
>We don't expect other parts of the government to turn a profit. Why transportation?
Because it's on demand, and a significant part of it is recreational, if every means of transportation was free, even just in a state or country, people would move a lot more and the cost would be astronomical
I live in Tokyo now, but I'm from Valencia, Spain. I knew the train there was bad when the local subway network, called "metrovalencia", was known locally as "metrovalenshit" (there's even a twitter @metrovalenshit), but compared to other cities or specially Tokyo it's like a toy. In here (Tokyo) they make major station changes without even disrupting traffic[1], the only time traffic is disrupted meaningfully is when there's a major earthquake/typhoon.
Back in Valencia, the gvmt started building a new line, but then they abandoned it for over a decade. In some weekends with strong rains it floods. At least we got to see really beautiful pictures when someone entered and navigated with a boat! Multiple times across the years[2][3].
If you go a bit more local (smaller towns) and want to take a bus that is scheduled every 20 min, you go to the bus stop and hope that one will come within the next hour. We had to help a foreigner once that was gonna miss her flight since she was waiting for over an hour with no sight of a bus.
> I live in Tokyo now, but I'm from Valencia, Spain. I knew the train there was bad when the local subway network, called "metrovalencia", was known locally as "metrovalenshit
I’m sure your experience of your own hometown is accurate, but as a person who’s visited Valencia a few times I’ve found the transport to be excellent: my whole family used the metro to get around without any hitches, and we were always surprised by how clean, quiet and efficient it was.
The train between Valencia and Alicante was like boarding a luxurious airplane: an attendant ushered us on and came around with a food trolley. The ride was smooth and almost silent, and the ticket price included small extras like a free pair of headphones for listening to the onboard radio. This was all just regular economy.
I think it may be a national characteristic to rundown your own country, as my family background is also Spanish and all my relatives always say Spain is a ‘mierda’ (shit) and speak lyrically about how wonderful everything must be in my current country (Sweden), but in fact the last few weeks the train service here in Sweden has been sporadic and continuously interrupted by various problems, as it often is both summer and winter. A Swede will rarely admit this to outsiders though.
So I’m willing to give this initiative a very enthusiastic welcome, instead of instantly dismissing it as a gimmick, or gloomily bound to fail.
One thing that I have noticed about Spanish natives in my five years of living in Spain, is this frequent comparison with every other richer country.
By almost every measure, life in Spain is great. Public transport is great, but you compare it with Japan which is the best in the world. Security is great, but you compare it with Luxembourg. Unemployment and salaries are... OK, above average at least, but you compare it with Germany.
Spain has issues, but every other country does too. There's a reason "eramos felices y no lo sabiamos" is a Spanish expression... I really wish people here would appreciate how good they have it.
I recently rode the metros in Barcelona, NY, Paris, and London and the ones in Barcelona, Spain were the best and highest quality subways I have ever ridden. No comment on the ones in Valencia but it seems odd that there would be such a difference within the same country.
Apples to oranges, I am sorry to put it so bluntly. I agree we should strive for better transportation and services overall, but comparing Tokyo with Valencia?
City public transportation, at a very minimum, should be free. The NYC Subway should be free. The Tube in London should be free.
The standard American response is to object on the grounds that we're subsidizing something and it's a wasteful government expenditure. You know what else that applies to? Roads. We subsidize roads and everyone is OK with that.
Charging for public transport is just a regressive tax on what are typically the lowest paid workers.
Regional transportation is more interesting. I'm not sure how that'll work in practice but I'm open to it.
I visited Berlin this summer and Germany has a 9 euro ticket that gives you unlimited travel on local/regional transport services during until the end of the calendar month. The ticket can be bought only throughout the summer months.
For a tourist that was in town only for a few days, it was just amazing, no worries when taking any public transport for ticket zones, right tickets or time of availability. I imagine it was great for commuters too, price-wise at the very least. To me it seems like a great idea, honestly, I'm just not sure what the _real_ costs were and how financially viable such a measure would be over the long term.
The difference between pennies and free is substantial. For tourists, navigating each system’s ticketing system is a pain. Even as a New Yorker, the antiquated paper mechanisms of the AirTrain are often enough to nudge me into a car.
I think the sweet spot is to charge a nominal fee as opposed to making it outright free. We tried free in Seattle and it resulted in buses full of nuisance activity such as drug use, harassment, violence, toilet use, and other unpleasantries that resulted in a lot of people avoiding transit altogether.
> The new plan has some limitations. While Germany’s 9-euro ($9) passes cover all public transit except faster train services, Spain will restrict itself to regional and suburban rail services, which are not as extensive as they are in Germany. While it might be technically possible to travel across Spain using only regional trains, it would not necessarily be easy because the slower network is quite patchy.
To be honest the German situation is not so different from the Spanish one.
Going from Munich to Berlin with the 9-euro ticket requires from 3 to 6 changes, and from 10 to 15 hours.
Living in England, I don't even dream about having free travel. But having very affordable local trains and buses would be good enough. And it's quite feasible too.
I really wish these kinds of things would be properly framed as "subsidized", rather than "free". There are plenty of arguments for (and against) many kinds of government-provided goods/services, but the mentality that this elicits is one where the public seems to think that the government has a magical wishing well out of which anything can be summoned at no cost.
For what it's worth: I think subsidized public transportation is a great use of tax dollars, and it's cool that Spain is extending this to train travel.
The traditional train pricing system seems to result in underutilization of a valuable service. Train transit system cost is dominated by fixed costs of the rail network and adding extra cars to trains is relatively cheap, so free or heavily subsidized prices that raise utilization just under congestion level are good policy.
It's good that it focuses on regional rail. I have never understood why drivers don't favor free public transport paid by road taxes: it would take cars off the road and make drivers' lives easier!
Normally, I worry about things be free, but beyond transit turning into mobile homeless shelters (see the "Hotel 22"), I'm not all that worried about regional transit being free. There isn't much marginal cost, it takes cars off roads, you can save by not having to do ticket sales and fare enforcement, and traveling is enough of a hassle, I don't see it inducing that much demand for transit for shorter distances.
Pretty cool. Imagine if it was free to get around. Right now in the US we have a shit tier system. You can get to a lot of places on a mega bus for cheap. But you will hate every second of it.
I wish all public transit was free as well as Amtrak's.
[+] [-] hardwaregeek|3 years ago|reply
If Amtrak went that direction and made its transportation close to free, I wonder if we'd see more people try it out. Maybe it'd gain some popularity and we could finally see a shift away from cars. Public transportation is a difficult process because until the money is spent and the line is there, people are not sold. Whereas with cars, even if a highway is not built, people still have a car by default. Therefore the government needs to float money, either in infrastructure or in subsidized fares. At least subsidized fares is a little less binary than infrastructure.
[+] [-] Joeri|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stormbrew|3 years ago|reply
My understanding is that in north America the big problem with passenger rail is less cost and more the fact that there's a bias towards freight in track right of ways. Even if you're willing and happy to pay a lot to travel by train, scheduling is still likely to be screwed up somewhere by a big ass freight train in the way and there's nothing you can do about it.
Edit to add after a double check: I guess in the US it's technically the law that passengers be given priority but it's poorly (or just not) enforced[1].
[1] https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
[+] [-] balderdash|3 years ago|reply
The question then becomes how much if at all do want to subsidize transportation.
[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge
[+] [-] stop50|3 years ago|reply
For those who don't know it: german trains have an lowsy reputation at best, no cooling in the summer, no heating in the winter and every user has to plan for the case the train is 15 minutes or more late or broke on the way down.
[+] [-] bennysomething|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] bobthepanda|3 years ago|reply
A fair amount of places have tried free transit. Usually the result found is that most trips were diverted from walking and cycling.
[+] [-] ghaff|3 years ago|reply
On the Northeast Corridor it could change the driving equation for couples and families. BUT Amtrak on the Northeast Corridor already runs at pretty high utilization. In fact, I believe there are expansion projects underway.
[+] [-] UIUC_06|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|3 years ago|reply
While it shows a deep misunderstanding of the concept of a public service, there are lots of other parts of government we do expect to be self-sustaining on user fees. Like the Postal Service.
[+] [-] bigDinosaur|3 years ago|reply
And yeah, all these issues exist with 'free' roads and car infrastructure too. Again, toll roads are unpopular, and free car infrastructure is a vote winner. Doesn't mean it's actually a good idea at a systems level.
[+] [-] iso1631|3 years ago|reply
That service costs money to run. We could increase public spending to run the service, but you won't get more people on the train because it's already full.
Now how are you going to increase that spending? Raise taxes? Cut other public services? Borrow more? Miraculous "efficiencies" no doubt.
We could make it more cost effective, by building a new line instead, which would carry more people per operational cost. HS2 is this (1000 seats doing the journey in 1 hour for 2 members of staff is 500 seats per person hour, vs 500 seats doing it in 2 hours for 3 members of staff which is 83 seats per personhour, thus staffing costs drop 84%). And that's what we're doing.
[+] [-] kortilla|3 years ago|reply
Because it’s competing with private industry. It should be revenue neutral at least if you don’t just want to use tax money to destroy public businesses and operate something economically inefficient.
Why not have the government make an electric car that is free? Why not a government airline that offers free flights?
[+] [-] eMSF|3 years ago|reply
This is not even Spanish tax payers money, but I'm sure they'll have no problem finding ways to spend it, like all the other hand outs.
[+] [-] LtdJorge|3 years ago|reply
This is going to be a disaster, the only way they'll sustain this is with (even) higher taxes.
[+] [-] otsaloma|3 years ago|reply
That sounds like a straw man. This probably varies, but where I'm from public transport is about half funded by ticket sales and half subsidized by tax payers (some of whom don't use public transport).
The reasons I'm aware of againt free public transport are (1) the economist view that a free service (that in reality costs money to operate) leads to inefficient and wasteful use and (2) the city-planner view that over long term free public transport leads to thinly spread out residential land use development which in turn leads to high infrastructure costs for roads, pipes, electricity, schools, etc. and also emissions as not everyone will use public transport for all their trips.
I think free public transport is an interesting thought especially give various modern challenges, but seems prone to shallow argumentation that doesn't quite match the complex dynamics of the matter itself.
[+] [-] dillondoyle|3 years ago|reply
Seems like the problem though is Mr Buffet's rail monopoly? Maybe if the Govt got a right of way...
[+] [-] tylergetsay|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|3 years ago|reply
In addition because it is so cheap there is a lot less competition from people taking the car instead, which means that there is even less pressure to make the train ride nicer. This hurts everybody, including those who do not have a car as an alternative.
Basically: by paying the fee you get a vote. If it is free you don't.
[+] [-] acchow|3 years ago|reply
Most public transit isn't profitable, but they take fares to partially fund their operating costs. This aligns incentives
[+] [-] er4hn|3 years ago|reply
During the Trump administration the head of education was a big fan of charter schools, which is a way of turning public schools into subsidized private schools.
The concept of government providing services that are taxpayer funded and do not turn a profit is something that the Republican party became opposed to around, I guess, the Regan administration.
[+] [-] oort-cloud9|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] antr|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FrenchDevRemote|3 years ago|reply
Because it's on demand, and a significant part of it is recreational, if every means of transportation was free, even just in a state or country, people would move a lot more and the cost would be astronomical
[+] [-] franciscop|3 years ago|reply
Back in Valencia, the gvmt started building a new line, but then they abandoned it for over a decade. In some weekends with strong rains it floods. At least we got to see really beautiful pictures when someone entered and navigated with a boat! Multiple times across the years[2][3].
If you go a bit more local (smaller towns) and want to take a bus that is scheduled every 20 min, you go to the bus stop and hope that one will come within the next hour. We had to help a foreigner once that was gonna miss her flight since she was waiting for over an hour with no sight of a bus.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BYW4YYqG5A
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20130111154819/http://www.goodfe...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=022pgffEy6A
[+] [-] null_object|3 years ago|reply
I’m sure your experience of your own hometown is accurate, but as a person who’s visited Valencia a few times I’ve found the transport to be excellent: my whole family used the metro to get around without any hitches, and we were always surprised by how clean, quiet and efficient it was.
The train between Valencia and Alicante was like boarding a luxurious airplane: an attendant ushered us on and came around with a food trolley. The ride was smooth and almost silent, and the ticket price included small extras like a free pair of headphones for listening to the onboard radio. This was all just regular economy.
I think it may be a national characteristic to rundown your own country, as my family background is also Spanish and all my relatives always say Spain is a ‘mierda’ (shit) and speak lyrically about how wonderful everything must be in my current country (Sweden), but in fact the last few weeks the train service here in Sweden has been sporadic and continuously interrupted by various problems, as it often is both summer and winter. A Swede will rarely admit this to outsiders though.
So I’m willing to give this initiative a very enthusiastic welcome, instead of instantly dismissing it as a gimmick, or gloomily bound to fail.
[+] [-] Fargren|3 years ago|reply
By almost every measure, life in Spain is great. Public transport is great, but you compare it with Japan which is the best in the world. Security is great, but you compare it with Luxembourg. Unemployment and salaries are... OK, above average at least, but you compare it with Germany.
Spain has issues, but every other country does too. There's a reason "eramos felices y no lo sabiamos" is a Spanish expression... I really wish people here would appreciate how good they have it.
[+] [-] superchroma|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scarbutt|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wumpus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] webinvest|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kh_hk|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmyeet|3 years ago|reply
The standard American response is to object on the grounds that we're subsidizing something and it's a wasteful government expenditure. You know what else that applies to? Roads. We subsidize roads and everyone is OK with that.
Charging for public transport is just a regressive tax on what are typically the lowest paid workers.
Regional transportation is more interesting. I'm not sure how that'll work in practice but I'm open to it.
[+] [-] dplesca|3 years ago|reply
For a tourist that was in town only for a few days, it was just amazing, no worries when taking any public transport for ticket zones, right tickets or time of availability. I imagine it was great for commuters too, price-wise at the very least. To me it seems like a great idea, honestly, I'm just not sure what the _real_ costs were and how financially viable such a measure would be over the long term.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] victor9000|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Daveenjay|3 years ago|reply
https://youtu.be/muPcHs-E4qc
[+] [-] dzonga|3 years ago|reply
Public transportation costs in the UK are totally criminal.
yeah the trains are better than in the states.
but it's totally criminal for trains to cost 30 quid from places that are like 30 mins from london.
a single journey bus ticket in a small town 2.5 quid
[+] [-] fulvioterzapi|3 years ago|reply
To be honest the German situation is not so different from the Spanish one.
Going from Munich to Berlin with the 9-euro ticket requires from 3 to 6 changes, and from 10 to 15 hours.
[+] [-] odiroot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JadoJodo|3 years ago|reply
For what it's worth: I think subsidized public transportation is a great use of tax dollars, and it's cool that Spain is extending this to train travel.
[+] [-] fulafel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dehrmann|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wuschel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skeeter2020|3 years ago|reply
Train travel may be "better" than auto, but reducing consumption by making the product free doesn't mesh with any economics I've ever studied.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] AlwaysRock|3 years ago|reply
I wish all public transit was free as well as Amtrak's.
[+] [-] pagutierrezn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ErneX|3 years ago|reply