10 ms·

Although in this and other cases the free bus plan is chiefly motivated by the need to fight poverty (remember that the yellow vest movement started over a fuel

by rixed 7y ago

Although in this and other cases the free bus plan is chiefly motivated by the need to fight poverty (remember that the yellow vest movement started over a fuel price raise), its larger long term benefit might rather be to overthrow cars reign in cities. From this angle, there is an important detail that I haven't seen mentioned in the article or the comments: to be really useful in a post-car environment and allow residents to reach any A from any B without a personal 1-ton-of-steel individual vehicle, public transports must be designed to transport not only pedestrians but their bikes too. In Amsterdam for instance, most trains/trams/busses would have a dedicated place where to put bikes (coaches would have special bike holder at the front for instance, while most trains/trams would have a dedicated large lobby in some wagons). There, most large trips would naturally be completed by a combination of bike + public transport + bike, making it not only possible but normal to go anywhere without a car. There, it is not cost free though (and in some cases, such as trains, you'd have to pay a little extra for your bike); still, being able to bring your bike might help to reduce overall price (and time) as it may avoids to have to transfer to a non-free public transport for some leg of the trip.

batmansmk 7y ago
Prices of transportation are already bottom low. Saving $80 more a month is not enough of an incentive imo, especially when you already pay for an extra 200 or 300 for having the privilege to drive a car. Those decisions just raise pollution by induction: my transport is cheaper, so I take it more. It does not convert people over. A bit like giving free moviepass: it doesn't impact Netflix bottom line, but people who used to go to the movies go more often while paying less.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  Not enough of an incentive for who? 80$/month is like a quarter of what a lot of people get when they're unemployed over here in Western Europe. It makes a massive amount of difference. Those people don't have cars. But more infrastructure for the non-cars means gradually, cars make less and less sense to own. Again, Western Europe. These are countries where the cities are fine to live and work in without a vehicle.
  - batmansmk 7y ago
    I agree it's a lot of money for some! If you have a RSA (min revenue without working for our international friends), you already don't pay for transport anyway... Please check https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuit%C3%A9_des_transports_en_commun https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuit%C3%A9_des_transports_e... if you can read french.
    - southerntofu 7y ago
      Just nitpicking here. Around half of the people eligible for RSA in France do not get it. The administrative process is willingly complicated and requires an address, which is very hard to come by when you're out on the streets. Also, receiving RSA means you actively have to look for a job, ANY JOB. They will often force you to take a bullshit job outside of your field, that will make your life project (small business, or non-profit activities) unreachable. If you don't accept, they'll cut the money which is already not enough to just pay one-room rent in big cities. That's for the people who are eligible. Then, there's many others. RSA is only for documented people (contrary to CMU/AME for minimum medical services) and does not apply to people under age 25 unless they meet some very strict condition. That's why France has an epidemics of very young people living on the streets. So yes, saving 50-100€ on transports every month can make a big difference for millions of people. Especially considering the last governments passed laws to enforce harsh repression against those who can't pay their tickets: 5 unpaid tickets in a year now mandates prison time, how crazy is that?
- dzhiurgis 7y ago
  Getting rid of payment support is big saving tho.
  - southerntofu 7y ago
    That, and the surveillance apparatus which is aimed at catching free-riders. In most french cities, these systems (and their maintenance) actually cost more than the money brought by selling tickets.
- Broken_Hippo 7y ago
  My food budget has been around $80/month before. Saving that much on transportation would have been wonderful. And I don't see how free transport makes folks take transport more. People still need to have places to go to, after all, which generally cost money.
on_and_off 7y ago
I think that last mile vehicles also have a place to play in that regard. Things like a onewheel pint, a scooter or a boosted board. Truth be told, in places like Paris, the only case where I would need one of these is when my move is not helped by the subway : the lines tend to go from the center of the city to its outer limits, so if you are move on the city limits, you might have to first go back to its center. For most of the cases, the subway is good enough. In US cities though, last mile vehicles have been a must for me.
- Slimbo 7y ago
  Can't you just walk the last mile?
  - michaelt 7y ago
    If you can go twice as fast, there are four times as many homes within 10 minutes of the station
    - Slimbo 7y ago
      I get the last mile isn't literal but I think many use the lack of transport facilities as an excuse and forget about walking.
  - on_and_off 7y ago
    yeah that's what I have been doing in Paris. Subway stations are rarely more than 5 minutes from where you want to go (with the caveats cited above) But in cities like SF, the public transportation system is so underwhelming, I just use a last mile vehicle to do my 1.5 mile commute. This way I go from 25 minutes to 10 minutes of commute.
hnarn 7y ago
> public transports must be designed to transport not only pedestrians but their bikes too. If we are talking about metro transportation, and not intercity trains and such, I strongly disagree. A bike takes up the space of multiple standing people, is dirty and hard and is not easily moved during an emergency where a stampede is a very real risk. Bicycles belong in bike parking, which there should be plenty of, but you can take public transportation between parkings. Bringing everybody's bikes on a tram or metro train during rush hour in a city of any meaningful size is a bad idea.
- Svip 7y ago
  In Copenhagen's Metro, bikes are not permitted during rush hour. They are at other times of the day, but require an additional ticket. The S-Train, which spreads out into the suburban area, bikes are free to bring aboard, and allowed during all hours of the day. Except one train station (Nørreport) during rush hour. In my experience, that works out well.
  - samvher 7y ago
    In the Netherlands you can't take bikes on trains during rush hour either (officially - you're likely to get away with it).
- viraptor 7y ago
  Bike on a bus doesn't necessarily mean a bike in the bus. See https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/traffic-and-road-use/cycling/bikes-on-buses https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/traffic-and-road-use/cycling... for external bike racks.
- input_sh 7y ago
  > Bringing everybody's bikes on a tram or metro train during rush hour... Everybody's? You're awfully misrepresenting how it works in practice. As someone who lived in Amsterdam, I've never experienced more than like five people doing that. There's a special section in each cart that can fit like two or three bikes. If they're taken, you wait for the next metro on your line. Too many bikes want to go in? Increase the bike ticket to reduce that number. Scared about rush hours? Ban them during rush hours, not all the time. It exists as an option (as it should), but that option is far from being used by everyone.
Svip 7y ago
> In Amsterdam for instance, most trains/trams/busses would have a dedicated place where to put bikes Does that include city buses? In Denmark, it's about the same, except city buses have no room for bikes. Coaches - i.e. buses between cities - do.
- Ayesh 7y ago
  You can't take bikes on buses, and only a very small number of teams allow bikes too, and that's in off peak times. I don't see why someone would take a bike on bus/tram because, you could ride all all the same thanks to the flat roads. Those ferries north of central station are free for everyone and you can take bikes for free too.
paggle 7y ago
Large fleets of Bird-style rental vehicles like bikes, scooters, etc should mitigate this.
- em3rgent0rdr 7y ago
  yeah, and then the city buses aren't carrying around extra weight taking up volume for a bunch of bikes.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  Maybe of the fleet is actually large, but from what I've seen, there isn't enough during peak times. Peak times are the times you want to get somewhere on time. You can't rely on these options.
AndyMcConachie 7y ago
Most Dutch people who use a bike as part of their transit routine leave it at a station. It's common to have one bike at home and another bike at a station near your work. You ride your first bike to the station, get on the public transit, then ride your second bike to work. Then there's no need to take your bike on public transit.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  That's a great way to get your bike stolen. Not only that, it's also quite significant additional cost, because now you have to buy and maintain two bikes. At that point, why not just take a car?
  - majewsky 7y ago
    In a society where bike use is much more common, the risk to have a bike stolen is diminished by diffusing it among a higher number of bike users. Also, bike locks are a thing. Larger train stations also sometimes have dedicated bike storage facilities with CCTV and security personnel, which makes that threat even less likely. Also, bike insurances are a thing and they don't cost that much. Certainly much much less than the cost for a car insurance. (And that's before you take into account all the externalities of cars that are not correctly priced into their ownership.)
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      Bike locks are generally irrelevant. If people can't steal the entire bike (which they usually can despite the lock) they can take off most of the parts - the tires, saddle, handlebars etc (whatever you have not wrapped in a lock).
      - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
        Pretty much all locks are like that: Some determined folks will take a work-around or take what they can. But they also do what a lock is supposed to do: they deter crimes of opportunity. You bike is no longer as easy to steal as the unlocked bike. Bike insurance can cover the rest of the bike.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
> Although in this and other cases the free bus plan is chiefly motivated by the need to fight poverty (remember that the yellow vest movement started over a fuel price raise) There is no need to make it free for all if that's the goal. I think the main goal really is to encourage people to use public transport as much as possible. > public transports must be designed to transport not only pedestrians but their bikes too. Yes for folding bikes, but standard bikes are too big.
lm28469 7y ago
> remember that the yellow vest movement started over a fuel price raise Slightly off topic but: it runs much deeper than that, the gas price was just the last straw. The whole thing was a shit show because none of them were able to articulate a real political discourse, they were upset (and rightly so) but had no idea why. They even rejected to meet political leaders or have spokespersons for months and that's what eventually killed the movement. In the end it was a mix of low pension, low min wage, tax evasion (amazon, google, &c.), macron's politics of prioritising companies (tax--) over people (tax++), europe stance on immigration, &c. aka: no matter why you were upset you could fit in the yellow vest movement. That's a very french thing to do: notice something might be wrong/you're getting fucked over by the government, complain a lot, break/burn things, secure nice social advances most of the rest of the world take X0 years to get, it's been happening since 1789 so we're kind of used to it by now.
- eecc 7y ago
  In that last paragraph you forgot to mention Robespierre and the following Napoleonic restoration;)
- Angostura 7y ago
  The French got yellow vests, the UK got Brexit - for roughly similar reasons
  - swebs 7y ago
    I wouldn't say they're similar. Brexit was because people lost faith in the leadership of the EU, mostly due to the migrant crisis, which is still ongoing years later. The Yellow vests are more analogous to Occupy Wall Street.
    - Juliate 7y ago
      Lost faith AND were played upon by clever ads & propaganda that tipped the vote in favor of Brexit.
      - 7y ago
zoobab 7y ago
There is barely space for bikes in trains, even in NL.
dahfizz 7y ago
I don't know of a single person who _buys a car_ because the bus is too expensive. I think you're being a little unrealistic.
wasdfff 7y ago
A skateboard works even better if you are using transit imo. Twice as fast as walking and you can stick it in between your legs on a crowded bus.

by rixed 7y ago

batmansmk 7y ago

Prices of transportation are already bottom low. Saving $80 more a month is not enough of an incentive imo, especially when you already pay for an extra 200 or 300 for having the privilege to drive a car. Those decisions just raise pollution by induction: my transport is cheaper, so I take it more. It does not convert people over. A bit like giving free moviepass: it doesn't impact Netflix bottom line, but people who used to go to the movies go more often while paying less.

scrollaway 7y ago
Not enough of an incentive for who? 80$/month is like a quarter of what a lot of people get when they're unemployed over here in Western Europe. It makes a massive amount of difference. Those people don't have cars. But more infrastructure for the non-cars means gradually, cars make less and less sense to own. Again, Western Europe. These are countries where the cities are fine to live and work in without a vehicle.
- batmansmk 7y ago
  I agree it's a lot of money for some! If you have a RSA (min revenue without working for our international friends), you already don't pay for transport anyway... Please check https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuit%C3%A9_des_transports_en_commun https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratuit%C3%A9_des_transports_e... if you can read french.
  - southerntofu 7y ago
    Just nitpicking here. Around half of the people eligible for RSA in France do not get it. The administrative process is willingly complicated and requires an address, which is very hard to come by when you're out on the streets. Also, receiving RSA means you actively have to look for a job, ANY JOB. They will often force you to take a bullshit job outside of your field, that will make your life project (small business, or non-profit activities) unreachable. If you don't accept, they'll cut the money which is already not enough to just pay one-room rent in big cities. That's for the people who are eligible. Then, there's many others. RSA is only for documented people (contrary to CMU/AME for minimum medical services) and does not apply to people under age 25 unless they meet some very strict condition. That's why France has an epidemics of very young people living on the streets. So yes, saving 50-100€ on transports every month can make a big difference for millions of people. Especially considering the last governments passed laws to enforce harsh repression against those who can't pay their tickets: 5 unpaid tickets in a year now mandates prison time, how crazy is that?
dzhiurgis 7y ago
Getting rid of payment support is big saving tho.
- southerntofu 7y ago
  That, and the surveillance apparatus which is aimed at catching free-riders. In most french cities, these systems (and their maintenance) actually cost more than the money brought by selling tickets.
Broken_Hippo 7y ago
My food budget has been around $80/month before. Saving that much on transportation would have been wonderful. And I don't see how free transport makes folks take transport more. People still need to have places to go to, after all, which generally cost money.

on_and_off 7y ago

I think that last mile vehicles also have a place to play in that regard. Things like a onewheel pint, a scooter or a boosted board. Truth be told, in places like Paris, the only case where I would need one of these is when my move is not helped by the subway : the lines tend to go from the center of the city to its outer limits, so if you are move on the city limits, you might have to first go back to its center. For most of the cases, the subway is good enough. In US cities though, last mile vehicles have been a must for me.

Slimbo 7y ago
Can't you just walk the last mile?
- michaelt 7y ago
  If you can go twice as fast, there are four times as many homes within 10 minutes of the station
  - Slimbo 7y ago
    I get the last mile isn't literal but I think many use the lack of transport facilities as an excuse and forget about walking.
- on_and_off 7y ago
  yeah that's what I have been doing in Paris. Subway stations are rarely more than 5 minutes from where you want to go (with the caveats cited above) But in cities like SF, the public transportation system is so underwhelming, I just use a last mile vehicle to do my 1.5 mile commute. This way I go from 25 minutes to 10 minutes of commute.

hnarn 7y ago

> public transports must be designed to transport not only pedestrians but their bikes too. If we are talking about metro transportation, and not intercity trains and such, I strongly disagree. A bike takes up the space of multiple standing people, is dirty and hard and is not easily moved during an emergency where a stampede is a very real risk. Bicycles belong in bike parking, which there should be plenty of, but you can take public transportation between parkings. Bringing everybody's bikes on a tram or metro train during rush hour in a city of any meaningful size is a bad idea.

Svip 7y ago
In Copenhagen's Metro, bikes are not permitted during rush hour. They are at other times of the day, but require an additional ticket. The S-Train, which spreads out into the suburban area, bikes are free to bring aboard, and allowed during all hours of the day. Except one train station (Nørreport) during rush hour. In my experience, that works out well.
- samvher 7y ago
  In the Netherlands you can't take bikes on trains during rush hour either (officially - you're likely to get away with it).
viraptor 7y ago
Bike on a bus doesn't necessarily mean a bike in the bus. See https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/traffic-and-road-use/cycling/bikes-on-buses https://www.vicroads.vic.gov.au/traffic-and-road-use/cycling... for external bike racks.
input_sh 7y ago
> Bringing everybody's bikes on a tram or metro train during rush hour... Everybody's? You're awfully misrepresenting how it works in practice. As someone who lived in Amsterdam, I've never experienced more than like five people doing that. There's a special section in each cart that can fit like two or three bikes. If they're taken, you wait for the next metro on your line. Too many bikes want to go in? Increase the bike ticket to reduce that number. Scared about rush hours? Ban them during rush hours, not all the time. It exists as an option (as it should), but that option is far from being used by everyone.

Svip 7y ago

> In Amsterdam for instance, most trains/trams/busses would have a dedicated place where to put bikes Does that include city buses? In Denmark, it's about the same, except city buses have no room for bikes. Coaches - i.e. buses between cities - do.

Ayesh 7y ago
You can't take bikes on buses, and only a very small number of teams allow bikes too, and that's in off peak times. I don't see why someone would take a bike on bus/tram because, you could ride all all the same thanks to the flat roads. Those ferries north of central station are free for everyone and you can take bikes for free too.

paggle 7y ago

Large fleets of Bird-style rental vehicles like bikes, scooters, etc should mitigate this.

em3rgent0rdr 7y ago
yeah, and then the city buses aren't carrying around extra weight taking up volume for a bunch of bikes.
Mirioron 7y ago
Maybe of the fleet is actually large, but from what I've seen, there isn't enough during peak times. Peak times are the times you want to get somewhere on time. You can't rely on these options.

AndyMcConachie 7y ago

Most Dutch people who use a bike as part of their transit routine leave it at a station. It's common to have one bike at home and another bike at a station near your work. You ride your first bike to the station, get on the public transit, then ride your second bike to work. Then there's no need to take your bike on public transit.

Mirioron 7y ago
That's a great way to get your bike stolen. Not only that, it's also quite significant additional cost, because now you have to buy and maintain two bikes. At that point, why not just take a car?
- majewsky 7y ago
  In a society where bike use is much more common, the risk to have a bike stolen is diminished by diffusing it among a higher number of bike users. Also, bike locks are a thing. Larger train stations also sometimes have dedicated bike storage facilities with CCTV and security personnel, which makes that threat even less likely. Also, bike insurances are a thing and they don't cost that much. Certainly much much less than the cost for a car insurance. (And that's before you take into account all the externalities of cars that are not correctly priced into their ownership.)
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    Bike locks are generally irrelevant. If people can't steal the entire bike (which they usually can despite the lock) they can take off most of the parts - the tires, saddle, handlebars etc (whatever you have not wrapped in a lock).
    - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
      Pretty much all locks are like that: Some determined folks will take a work-around or take what they can. But they also do what a lock is supposed to do: they deter crimes of opportunity. You bike is no longer as easy to steal as the unlocked bike. Bike insurance can cover the rest of the bike.

mytailorisrich 7y ago

> Although in this and other cases the free bus plan is chiefly motivated by the need to fight poverty (remember that the yellow vest movement started over a fuel price raise) There is no need to make it free for all if that's the goal. I think the main goal really is to encourage people to use public transport as much as possible. > public transports must be designed to transport not only pedestrians but their bikes too. Yes for folding bikes, but standard bikes are too big.

lm28469 7y ago

> remember that the yellow vest movement started over a fuel price raise Slightly off topic but: it runs much deeper than that, the gas price was just the last straw. The whole thing was a shit show because none of them were able to articulate a real political discourse, they were upset (and rightly so) but had no idea why. They even rejected to meet political leaders or have spokespersons for months and that's what eventually killed the movement. In the end it was a mix of low pension, low min wage, tax evasion (amazon, google, &c.), macron's politics of prioritising companies (tax--) over people (tax++), europe stance on immigration, &c. aka: no matter why you were upset you could fit in the yellow vest movement. That's a very french thing to do: notice something might be wrong/you're getting fucked over by the government, complain a lot, break/burn things, secure nice social advances most of the rest of the world take X0 years to get, it's been happening since 1789 so we're kind of used to it by now.

eecc 7y ago
In that last paragraph you forgot to mention Robespierre and the following Napoleonic restoration;)
Angostura 7y ago
The French got yellow vests, the UK got Brexit - for roughly similar reasons
- swebs 7y ago
  I wouldn't say they're similar. Brexit was because people lost faith in the leadership of the EU, mostly due to the migrant crisis, which is still ongoing years later. The Yellow vests are more analogous to Occupy Wall Street.
  - Juliate 7y ago
    Lost faith AND were played upon by clever ads & propaganda that tipped the vote in favor of Brexit.
    - 7y ago

zoobab 7y ago

There is barely space for bikes in trains, even in NL.

dahfizz 7y ago

I don't know of a single person who _buys a car_ because the bus is too expensive. I think you're being a little unrealistic.

wasdfff 7y ago

A skateboard works even better if you are using transit imo. Twice as fast as walking and you can stick it in between your legs on a crowded bus.