Mass transit should be free.
If it was free, conservatives would put more effort into killing it off like they did in the 60s and 70s when they killed off trains and subways in a bunch of cities, killed off the trolley systems in several cities, etc. Otherwise their donors would lose too much money on people switching from driving. But yeah, it’s almost entirely funded by taxes anyway. Would be logical to make it 100% funded, but keeping a small fare keeps it a smaller target of conservatives.
Yes bad actors are always a problem. So I guess we should never do anything substantial to reform the system because rightwing shitheads will try to sabotage it.
I didn’t say that. It’s just that first we need to fix the election system that is totally broken through gerrymandering, funding cuts, re-expanding mail in voting and early voting, making election day a mandatory holiday for all but emergency services, get the big money out of politics by removing personhood from corporations and thus removing their “right to free speech” as well as their ability to donate unlimited funds through various means and possibly even making all election ads paid for by public funds that are equally distributed if requested, etc. Then once everyone can vote without losing their job for having to take off almost an entire day and they can vote for local politicians rather than ones that will mostly be responsible for conservative areas connected to their sliver of the city, we need to organize progressive people to actually do it. But I think once it becomes apparent that their votes actually have some chance of making a difference, it won’t be as hard as it is now.
Oh sure yeah lol none of this is realistic as our election system, and our representation system are massively defective, and of course a lot of people have lost their fucking minds.
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Maybe they should start electing people to charge property taxes correctly to those ultra luxury condos.
America won’t achieve that with such low tax rates
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In the UK, it’s a tad different. The Tube and buses are nationalised but the National Rail is privatised which explains why it’s shit and yet so expensive.
Similarily in Germany the DB (Deutsche Bahn) was also privatized in the 90s (100% owned by the government tho). Since then half of all points/switches were removed since they’re expensive to maintain. This leads to many trains being late, which propagates through the entire railroad network. And half of the revenue of DB comes from businesses other than transporting people because the latter isn’t really profitable. Infrastructure isn’t profitable, that’s why mass transport should be nationalised (again). Just like roads.
Luxemburg doesn’t anymore
Luxembourg is extremely wealthy and really small, which makes not charging for mass transit easier. But I agree that mass transit (at least regional, not bullet trains) should be free to use.
There’s now a 50€ ticket in Germany which allows for use of all regional trains, but it’ll get more expensive over the coming years too.
Mass transit barely exists in most of America.
Yes. Interestingly US taxes aren’t even low if you factor in what you have to pay for directly, compared to what other countries pay though taxes.
Lol have you seen the taxes in the US
It’s like 5% federal only in some states
Most states aren’t and income tax isn’t the only tax ther’s capital gains sales etc
Local mass transit should be free. It is already really heavily subsidized, often almost entirely subsidized, so it wouldn’t cost as much as you think.
this
It’s a service that costs money to maintain
Damn, if only we paid taxes that could be used for maintenance.
Yeah but for it to be free they’d have to raise taxes so it’s better to just privatise them which would lower taxes and provide a better service
They did it where I live. The result is it on average a bit more expensive. Long trips (6-7 hours-ish) is controlled by the state. Prices are about the same as when the railway was owned by the people. But the shorter trips are under the rules of capitalism, and therefore the prices have gone up.
If you only travel from Trondheim to Oslo, you pay the same as before. If you travel only 1-3 stops, or under two hours in total, the prices have increased alot. If you live outside of Oslo, but work in Oslo, your daily expenses have gone up.
Before I could catch a train at a very, very low price and take my bike with me to explore. Now it is almost impossible because it is expensive, and the private companies that runs the different routes do not want you to take anything large with you.
And don’t get me started on trying to navigate between all the companies that run the different routes. It is a cluster fuck compared to when it was all one company owned by us, the citizens of Norway
“by the people” you mean the government they’re not on your side. Also you were paying for it inderectly through the ridiculous taxes without even realising it. And the situation would be better if it wasn’t an overegulated industry
We’re not the same culture. The taxes I pay are OK for the services I, and others, get for them
If it was voluntary and a flat amount it would be fair, you might like it because it benefits you but it’s completely ridiculous for a billionaire who doesn’t event want to use these insufficient services
Yes it is. Luckily we have a system of taxation. By ‘free’ I mean of course ‘at the point of use’. We could provide 100% subsidies for mass transportation for probably around 100 years before we would approach equity with the subsidies we have given to fossil fuels and private transportation.
The reason people don’t use public transport is because right now it absolutely sucks in most places if you want more people to use them then they need to be privatised so a business that actually has an insentive to provide a good service can take over and make them great ( for example look at Japan). This way you can also lower taxes a bit which is great for the economy
Oh I agree. Use cost is one major problem, quality and non-existence is the other. However privatization is neoliberal bullshit. It doesn’t guarantee quality. It guarantees that profits will be extracted and therefore use cost will increase and/or quality will decrease.
Companies actually have to make their customers happy, if there is adequate competition it will definitely work out, if you look at almost any industry (that isn’t overegulated) the customers are satisfied, companies have real insentives governments don’t.
There is no competition for train lines. That is just stupid. Also multiple competing local bus services is equally stupid. Some services just don’t fit in the neoliberal model.
Ther’s no competition if you have a bureaucrats approving only specific train lines if you just live it to the free market it’ll be alright
roads and car infrastructure costs money to maintain, but anyone wealthy enough to buy a car can use it for free
anyone wealthy enough to buy a car can use it for free
Anyone with a car is paying additional taxes for fuel and car registration.
Those typically don’t cover all of transportation dept budgets, and fuel taxes are on the permanent decline.
Ticket prices don’t cover the full costs of train infrastructure and maintenance either. The point is the statement “anyone wealthy enough to buy a car can use it for free” is demonstrably false and using a demonstrably false statement as a counterpoint is…inadvisable.
Felt there was an implicit understanding that cars need gas, but yeah that’s fair.
I should have specified “… can use the infrastructure for free”. The car will cost money, but you can only use it because everyone subsidises roads, bridges, parking and much more.
Car drivers are demonstrably paying taxes for the ability to drive on public roads, they are demonstrably not “using the infrastructure for free”. They pay taxes for every mile they drive on a public road. Gas is taxed and cars have regular registration taxes.
fuel tax in the US is a joke, in Europe it’s higher but still doesn’t cover anywhere near the infrastructure cost.
This video illustrates it nicely.
Ther’s ussually tolls there too
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Nobody detected you and went to find you. That…just isn’t a thing. Fare evasion here in the UK is handled by checking tickets. I don’t know what you saw, but it wasn’t what you thought it was
Wow guess we need the lemmy equivalent of /r/thathappened now.
The title should be “NYC wastes money on software that doesn’t work rather than reducing fares or eliminating them entirely”.
Lmfao, I’m pretty sure the idea is that it will return them more money than it costs. You just want free subway rides or something? It’s fucking $2.75 to go ANYWHERE.
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what a great use of resources 😒
I haven’t paid for the NYC subway or bus for probably 15 years… XD
I hope that’s cause you moved out of NYC 15 uears ago. Otherwise fuck you, this is why we can’t have nice things. Why do some people only accept paying for things if we force it out of their paycheck instead of just when they use it?
2.75x4 per day, 5 days a week, 15 years, I’ve saved over $40,000 XD thanks nyc
😂😂😂😂😂
