16 ms·

France is testing free public transport

213 points by astatine 5y ago

cjbenedikt 5y ago
Look no further than Baltimore. We have a free bus system called Circulator. It's not perfect, of course, but a good start.
- c-fe 5y ago
  Or Luxembourg, neighbouring country of France, with completely free public transport (bus + tram + train)
  - qaq 5y ago
    Luxembourg per capita GDP 114,704.59 USD US per capita GDP 65,297.52 USD
    - hu3 5y ago
      This could be interpreted as: Luxembourg policies work. We should copy them.
      - xyzzyz 5y ago
        I also believe the US should become tax haven, like Luxembourg.
        JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > the US should become tax haven I’ve got good news for you [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_as_a_tax_haven https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_as_a_tax_haven
        Barrin92 5y ago
        unlike Luxembourg the American government has bills to pay and an army to maintain and being a glorified storage deposit box doesn't work for a country of 300 million people
      - dannyw 5y ago
        Luxembourg is a tax haven. That's why their gdp numbers are artificially inflated.
        qaq 5y ago
        It's also has way higher median household income vs US
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - fogihujy 5y ago
        Luxembourg is also a tax haven, AND extremely small compared to France. The costs of free public transport in Luxembourg is tiny both in actual numbers, and as a fraction of their GDP.
  - mjul 5y ago
    For more information in English, see their public transport website: https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/living/mobility/public-transport.html https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/living/mobility/public-trans...
- eesmith 5y ago
  For other US examples, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport#United_S... . (That page, and the original BBC article, also describe a number of no-fare areas in Europe, but I assume by "Look no further" you are speaking from a US perspective.)
dukeofdoom 5y ago
I've taken public transport in Paris. Legit feared for my life one time. No thanks. Will gladly pay to take the taxi next time.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  In France for work for a week, I paid for an unlimited tourist public transport pass and had a wonderful time after work traveling into Paris from an suburb, then around in the city.
  - dukeofdoom 5y ago
    Did you take a bus at night?
    - dv_dt 5y ago
      Some mix of buses trains and subway
    - watwut 5y ago
      I did and it was prefectly ok. I think you still got unlucky to be at place where young men fought. But it is not something that happens every time one uses public transport.
- QuesnayJr 5y ago
  The one time I fear for my life in Paris was in the back of a cab driven be a particularly aggressive driver.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    30cm is a perfectly acceptable distance to keep from the car ahead of you. Anything more is wasted space.
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  I've spent a good deal of time on Parisian public transport and have no idea what you are talking about. This includes many trips to less desirable neighbourhoods. The worst I saw was constant pickpockets. Do you care to elaborate?
pharmakom 5y ago
Hopefully this gets more people to switch from their cars! This is “the carrot”. When France tried “the stick” with a fuel duty hike, it triggered mass protests.
- makapuf 5y ago
  Don't forget that in France, gas is taxed maybe 80% (to pay for roads, the more you drive the more you use roads, as a good first approximation)
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    In France taxes on car fuels go to the general budget, they are not earmarked for roads.
- ponyous 5y ago
  I think it would help. My hometown made free public transport and since then my mom does all the trips she can with a bus (she doesn't like driving a car too much, has to do it every day for almost 2hrs due to work).
- iggldiggl 5y ago
  In Germany they recently did some experiments – while it has to be said that the comparison was only with a fare reduction and not a full-scale abolishment of fares, they found that service increases were more likely to attract additional users than fare reductions. So unless service levels are already maxed out and really cannot be increased further without disproportionally large investment, I'd personally rather prefer that that money was spent on funding more frequent services instead.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    I think it probably depends on the level of service and the price. Especially on whether or not public transport is cheaper than driving. I'd love to take the train more in the UK but it's both way less convenient and far more expensive than driving. E-scooters might help make it a bit more convenient at least because they make it easier to get too/from the station. But that doesn't help with the price.
cycomanic 5y ago
The additional bit of information is that often the ticketing systems make up a non trivial fraction of the overall cost of running the transportation network. Often these systems are implemented by large international consortia who funnel money from the public. Take Melbourne for example implementation of their chip card system ran much over budget and was 1.5 billion AUD in the end [1]. That doesn't mean making public transport free always makes sense, but it would eliminate some of the large rentseekers from the system. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myki
- Joakal 5y ago
  Also less injuries/settlements and criminal records from hiring private security with powers of police who have no police training.
  - vkou 5y ago
    'No police training' for ticket checkers might actually be a feature.
- stephencoyner 5y ago
  Drivers also face violence for enforcing fares (however many agencies now ask them not to because of this). Handling cash adds a huge cost as well in addition to the electronic systems. Lots of friction across the board
  - Raed667 5y ago
    In the town I live (Nice, FR) the drivers don't enforce fares. You can completely bypass them and they won't look twice at you. However, there are "control" squads, basically a large group of +6 feet guys in uniform that will randomly hop on tramways, trains, buses and do ticket checks.
    - Mordisquitos 5y ago
      > +6 feet guys in uniform that will randomly hop on tramways I know I'm adding nothing to the discussion, but I couldn't stop myself from giggling at alternative interpretations of this fragment.
peteretep 5y ago
I’d worry that “free” creates some weird incentives that don’t exist at €0.50, but it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out
- wilg 5y ago
  Like what?
  - peteretep 5y ago
    People sleeping on public transport, reduced walking/cycling for short distances, kids using buses to hang out on
    - closeparen 5y ago
      A lot of public transit riders have unmetered usage due to monthly passes. It doesn’t seem to be a problem. Although that is still a class of people who can cough up $75 or whatever for the pass.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - martimarkov 5y ago
    When I was a student and literally only had 5 pounds I got on the London Tube and slept there for a few hours as it was super cold outside. It only happened once and it was my fault for being in that situation but that is an example. On the other hand now I give homeless ppl money for hostels. It was an interesting experience in hindsight.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      OK, so making it free rather than 50 cents raises the barrier to people with 50 cents?
- Raed667 5y ago
  The only weird incentive I can think of is that I'd hop on a tramway for one station if i see it coming instead of walking 5 minutes like i probably should.
Raed667 5y ago
Some more context: In France, public transport fees are 50% subsidized by your employer. The employer's contribution to public transport costs is compulsory. The employer (under private or public law) must pay 50% of the price of season tickets subscribed by his employees for the entire journey between their usual residence and their place of work accomplished by means of public transport services. even if several subscriptions are necessary for this trip (train + bus for example). Public bicycle rental services are also concerned. https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/employeur/calculer-les-cotisations/les-elements-a-prendre-en-compte/les-frais-professionnels/les-frais-de-transport/trajet-domicilelieu-de-travail/prise-en-charge-obligatoire-des.html https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/employeur/calculer-les-co... Also if you're a student, low-income, elderly, it becomes extremely cheap to get a monthly/yearly subscription.
- ajmadesc 5y ago
  It was ~300€ per annum for students when I was there. Great deal
jjcm 5y ago
Good. I'm excited to see the results from this. Public transport should be considered infrastructure in the same way roads are, with taxes on private vehicles to offset it. It leads to less cars on the road, less polution, less traffic, and a city designed around the public transportation once usage reaches critical mass.
- Closi 5y ago
  I think one flip-side argument is that this will predominantly benefit people in cities, which have much better transport infrastructure than suburban areas. Hopefully the money this costs is matched on a per-capita basis by region across the country to ensure that regions with less-developed public transport can also benefit.
  - ComputerGuru 5y ago
    In France (like SV, I guess), the equivalent of America’s “inner city” is the French suburb and vice-versa, so if we take what you said as true then this is unfortunately not empowering those that need it the most.
    - vladvasiliu 5y ago
      That's true, but in the particular case of Paris, the worst thing related to transit is there are next to no "across" lines. Say you're in some suburb and need to get 20 km away in another suburb, you're likely SoL. You'll have to get all the way to Paris center and then back again. Or maybe change 5 buses for an even longer journey time. I had this exact issue when I was in college, 30 km away from my parents'. 25-30 minutes car ride or 1.5 h train ride. I'm really hopeful for the creation and extension of some metro lines, some of which will circle around Paris, helping with this suburb-to-suburb situation.
      - sofixa 5y ago
        Your information is a tad outdated. There are a bunch of trams ( Lines 1-12 are in operation and only 3 is in Paris, and runs along its border, the rest are across different suburbs) which are being built/expanded to cover just that, and then there's the biggest infrastructure project in Europe, the Grand Paris Express, a 200km+ ( iirc) system of 4 metro lines, linking suburbs to suburbs ( like the line 15, which will be a circle line in the suburbs). Fascinating stuff, and the first stage is expected for 2024-2025, while the latest around 2030.
LordDragonfang 5y ago
Something that isn't emphasized enough in these discussions is that public transit is one of those things that wealthy business owners actually benefit from a proportionately greater amount compared to the individuals who use it; transit brings in cheaper workers and more customers to high CoL areas where they otherwise could not get to. With that in mind, it's never made much sense for it to be funded by individual fares rather than a progressive tax. The fact that this particular implementation is funded by business taxes actually makes a ton of sense.
- hnick 5y ago
  They had a moratorium on parking tickets in Sydney during 2020 for a similar reason. They didn't want to discourage people from visiting businesses in the city if they had to, since it was already a ghost town.
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  While I agree with your point, in the particlar case of Paris, France, this kind of argument might not be particularly persuasive. There are already laws in place for the employers to pay at least half of the monthly / yearly card of their employees (of course, this is considered income and taxed as such) [0]. As these cars allow unlimited journeys over the whole network (with two exceptions, one is a local train at Orly airport and the second I can't remember), it could be argued that transit is already fairly cheap for most "cheaper workers". Of course, this also applies to "expensive workers" (a software engineer friend of mine has his transit paid to 100%). There's also reductions for the elderly and a bunch of other categories. In the end, aside from tourists and occasional users, I think a good chunk of the population already has some kind of subscription, so the cost of maintenance argument might make more sense. I can't find the source, but I remember reading in a local paper that ticket sales were around 1/3 of the Paris' transit authority income. I don't remember whether the cost of the ticket systems was discussed. This was in the context of the regional elections (which more or less control the TA) that are happening right now, with one candidate wanting to push for free transit. --- [0] https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/employeur/calculer-les-cotisations/les-elements-a-prendre-en-compte/les-frais-professionnels/les-frais-de-transport/trajet-domicilelieu-de-travail/prise-en-charge-obligatoire-des.html https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/employeur/calculer-les-co...
unixhero 5y ago
To me this makes absolute total sense.
wilg 5y ago
I think this is great! Let's encourage people to take more efficient transport alternatives in every way we can. Nickel-and-diming discourages use, complicates UX (a severely underrated issue in government services), and makes people wonder why they are paying taxes for something they still have to pay to use.
chmod600 5y ago
I'm a fan of paying for stuff. I understand that some people can't, and they need to be accommodated. But I think things are better when people who can pay, pay. Subsidies can be fine, but free is often a bad idea. When you pay money, it's a vote to invest more in and maintain what you are using. It also gives you some stake in it to use it appropriately, and not do absurd things just because there's no cost. Community college (in the US) is a great example. It works well, and it's cheap and subsidized (generally the cost doesn't stop lower-middle class people from attending). People go there to learn, teachers are there to teach. If we make it free, it will ruin it.
- Guthur 5y ago
  People will pay, just indirectly. Pricing is a great signal for economic optimisation but if there is really nothing to be optimised as these services essentially run as monopolies then maybe this approach on balance comes out better for all.
  - tjansen 5y ago
    "People will pay, just indirectly." Exactly, but indirect payment doesn't add friction. It depends on what you want to achieve, but limitless use of public transport isn't all good. For example, in many cities public transport operates at full capacity, at least in some hours. If free unlimited use results in even more passengers, it depends on where these additional passengers are coming from. If most of them were previously driving a car, you are reducing the number of cars. But if most didn't travel at all before, you may actually increase the number of cars, because some people won't like the crowds and switch to using cars.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    Right. There might be saturation at peak times, but the rest of the time; just make the system free. It might even improve the peak time situations, reducing the need for more expensive investments to improve them.
- martimarkov 5y ago
  But we have also seen countries with free higher education and that has not be ruined, has it?
admissionsguy 5y ago
I really like free entry to public things. Like the museums in the UK. Not so much for the savings, but the reduced friction is nice, makes one feel more welcome. I remember Los Alamos in the US having free buses, that was also quite nice. I would like there to be a funding scheme for most public services similar to the UK student loan system. Where you pay out of your own pocket, ultimately, but only as a fraction of your income and above a certain very livable minimum, and only for the services that you personally use.
- martpie 5y ago
  In terms of reduced friction, I'm a big fan of the swiss transport system: you can hop in any bus or train without validating your ticket anywhere, and you get controlled from time to time. And the fine are big. So you get: - not much friction (+ the app is great) - you use transports more -> you pay more (and not everyone) - fraud is low because the fines are big enough to dissuade people, and increase every time you get caught
  - patates 5y ago
    Germany has the same. I once had to pay a 80 euro fine because the driver opened just the middle door at the bus stop as he had nearly skipped the stop, and I hopped in without thinking, and the ticket controlled who stopped me (as I was going to the front to get a ticket) argued that I had to enter from the front door if I didn't already have a ticket. Still infuriates me when I think about it. This is just an anecdote, of course. I don't actually disagree with you.
    - Entalpi 5y ago
      In Sweden the fine is 120€..
      - patates 5y ago
        This was 8 years ago, not sure how much it is these days. It could as well be 1 euro, I'd still be very angry, as it's not about the money.
NicoJuicy 5y ago
Dunkirk ( France) has been testing it since 2018. So i guess they liked the results ( https://www.eltis.org/in-brief/news/free-public-transport-dunkirk-one-year-later https://www.eltis.org/in-brief/news/free-public-transport-du... )
hyperman1 5y ago
Belgium implemented partial free public transport for the elder. It mostly works, but there were some perverse incentives. Specifically, some elder people are so bored they climb on the coastal tramway early in the morning, then go up and down and up and down the line for the whole day. There were problems with some elder people starting fights because someone else took 'their' seat, even in an almost empty tram. One thing they did as mitigation was force everybody off the tram at the end of the line, which causes much moaning up to this day.
- magpi3 5y ago
  In Philadelphia, people do this on the subway. They pay a token to get on (or they ask someone for a token if they can't afford it) and then once they are on no one will ask them to leave. They can just keep riding all day. I think this points to another problem that needs to be addressed. It is a helluva thing if the best thing you can do with your day is ride the subway all day long, and some homeless people just feel safer on the subway (and I can't blame them).
  - subpixel 5y ago
    Different problems, as in Philadelphia these are not retirees but people trying to escape the street. How bad is the street in Philadelphia? So bad that drive-through videos of Kensington are their own _genre_ on YouTube.
- SilverRed 5y ago
  >Specifically, some elder people are so bored This sounds like a problem on its own. We should avoid having people bored with nothing to do. Letting them sit on a train all day might actually be a very cheap way to entertain them and improve their lives.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    In large cities, there are many many things that elders can do, and many elder groups/clubs doing many different things. Sitting on train and taking space away from people who actually need to get somewhere is a bad solution.
JI00912 5y ago
It's not free. There's a reason why France has such high taxes. They changed from a model where people pay per fare to everyone has to pay and it's done via taxation. This model may make a lot of sense, but I'd hope we could skip the kinder garden level headlines.
- dgellow 5y ago
  I don't know why you're being downvoted. Anyone who followed the various public debates in France or is slightly familiar with the country knows that will be paid via a high tax.
  - mytherin 5y ago
    The parent is downvoted because they are making an obvious statement that is not productive to the discussion and doing so in a condescending tone. Free public transport in the title clearly means that using public transport will incur no cost, not that the entirety of the public transport network would require zero funding.
    - JI00912 5y ago
      It's condescending because I look down on these types of articles. Journalists should stick to the truth. I realize you are able to interpret what is says so that "free" means "using public transport will incur no [additional] cost, but people shouldn't have to do that.
    - dgellow 5y ago
      Funding a system by introducing new taxes is a choice, not necessarily the obvious one. There are other solutions. But it's very likely to be a high tax in this specific case, because that's how France work, generally speaking, and what involved politicians suggested in public interviews.
    - dgellow 5y ago
      Funding a system by introducing new taxes is a choice, not necessarily the obvious one. There are other solutions. But it's very likely to be a high tax on local citizens in this specific case, because that's how France work, generally speaking, and what involved politicians suggested in public interviews.
asdff 5y ago
LA county is looking to implementing this. Fares only cover like 5% of the operating budget. Piles of money comes in through the half cent sales tax, metro is building new rail non stop since the measure was passed and coming out of the pandemic with a huge budget.
11235813213455 5y ago
That's great, another idea we'd need is more priority to bicycles on the roads, meaning this order: 1. priority vehicles (firemen, police, ambulances, ...) 2. bicycles 3. bus public transports 4. all the rest: cars, motos, .. Bicyles would be allowed to pass at traffic lights, and have priority in intersections on cars. This will help to promote bikes, and also because if there were only bicycles, traffic lights wouldn't be that much necessary (extreme case with dense traffic aside), with bikes the traffic is naturally fluid, health beneficial and non-polluting
- frenchy 5y ago
  I agree with your general sentiment, but not about the traffic lights. The whole reason traffic lights work is because 99.9% of the time, those hulking monstrosities we call cars, can just barrel right through on a green light, and when they can't, it's because something with a big loud siren is making noise. Bikes can't do that. I think the way forward ultimately involves re-thinking the way we architect transport networks: - Replacing large non-trunk roads and traffic lights with narrower roads and roundabouts - Increasing the number, size, and separation of bike lanes - Having bike lanes that cut through otherwise meandering road sections. This is significant, because roads are often designed to go in a very inefficient path for all sorts of reasons that don't apply to bikes. - Having mixed bike/car roads where the speed limit is 30 kph.
  - nomorewords 5y ago
    > - Having mixed bike/car roads where the speed limit is 30 kph. Yeah, 30kph seems to low (hell, even I feel the 50kph limit in cities here is too low) to be a road limit for a mixed bike/car road. I think isolation is a better strategy and will lead to less accidents due to nervous drivers having their own lane instead of limiting themselves to 30kph behind some biker.
    - jeroenhd 5y ago
      Here, 30kph is the default for dense city streets, with 50 for the larger roads where bikes get their separate lanes and 70 or higher for large roads carrying large amounts of car traffic where bikes cannot go. The best solution is a mix of efficient road design, isolation, and speed limits where they make sense (which is pretty much everywhere except the through-roads). A large amount of 30kph bike/car roads are fine if the road network and city zoning is well-optimized.
giuliomagnifico 5y ago
Very good thing, also because in Paris a lot of people are already using private companies for moving around the city like Lime or F2M, etc... so the public authorities must keep the public services available for all. The real trouble is with the tax and if and how the public transports are sustainable in the long term.
fmajid 5y ago
The link is broken for me. Here is the Internet Archive version: http://web.archive.org/web/20210525045931/https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210519-how-france-is-testing-free-public-transport http://web.archive.org/web/20210525045931/https://www.bbc.co...
fmajid 5y ago
The title is misleading. It's not a national policy, it's something the Mayor of Paris was considering, and the regional council before that.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
Since Covid, it seems like everyone bought a car. Our busses have always been partially full, but since Covid; it seemed like every bus I saw has 1, or 0 people riding. Traffic in my county (Marin County) is more congested than pre-Covid. If anyone from Marin Transit reads this, how about free fares on busses, and the ferry? You might gain some customers? Your agency has always had problems convincing commuters your service makes sence on any level. Why not offer free service for a year? (The high tolls from the Golden Gate Bridge, and state/federal funds have supported our busses for decades now.) This is the time to offer free rides. Oh ya, put that Marin-Sonoma train to rest. We all passed the proposition. We had no idea there would be no where reasonable to park, and those salaries for management would be so high. Take the fences, and tracks down. It was good idea, but it didn't work out. Nix it. Or, try free rides for a year? I'm tired of seeing two coupled trains with 0 people riding.
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Counter-example: Netherlands has had crammed trains again, despite there being a pandemic. Trains here operate more like trams / subways though, they're very frequent and the railways are occupied to capacity.
ekianjo 5y ago
They were already testing it for years since they almost never enforced fining people who never purchased anything.
kogepathic 5y ago
In the mean time, perhaps France would consider adopting the approach used in many German cities whereby monthly pass holders are permitted to take another adult and 3 children for free during evenings, weekends, and holidays. [1] Many German cities also offer cheaper subscriptions if you only use public transit after 09:00. This is great if you have a visiting friend, or a partner/family who do not have monthly passes but want to go somewhere outside of business hours. The RATP still considers weekly passes valid from Monday to Sunday and monthly passes valid from the 1st to the end of the month. They do not sell passes pro rata (e.g. if you buy a monthly pass on the 10th, you pay the same as someone who bought on the 1st), nor do they offer 7d/10d passes. They recently introduced Navigo Easy to replace tickets, but this is limited to trips in zones 1-2. [2] The fact that RATP are still this inflexible in 2021 does not give me confidence they can become more progressive. [1] https://www.bvg.de/de/abo-online https://www.bvg.de/de/abo-online [2] https://parisbytrain.com/navigo-easy/ https://parisbytrain.com/navigo-easy/
- amai 5y ago
  German cities public transport ticket systems are so complicated and burocratic that even locals often don’t understand it. You have dozens of zones, extra-bike and dog tickets, time restricted and number of station restricted tickets, tickets for groups and/or families, weekend tickets for groups of families and what not. Ticket machines in Germany have more buttons than you find in an aircraft cockpit. If the public transportation would be free, all this nonsense would not be necessary anymore. That alone is a good reason to introduce free public transport in Germany.
  - immibis 5y ago
    Not sure what you're talking about. Here in Berlin I can buy a monthly ticket to go anywhere in the city limits. If I want to also travel in the small part of the network which is outside the official city limits, that costs a bit extra.
redleader55 5y ago
"Free" has become a synonym to "payed by someone else". Google is "free", Facebook is "free", public transport in Paris is "free". "Free" means I give you someone with no obligation from you whatsoever. In this case the citizens and businesses of Paris are paying for it, so calling it is "free" is disingenuous.
- frankling_ 5y ago
  What would be an example use of the word free that you would find appropriate?
  - gvv 5y ago
    no fee, tax-funded I guess ^^
    - imtringued 5y ago
      tax-funded fee free public transport. We haven't gotten rid of the word free though. We are now merely fee free.
- nomorewords 5y ago
  Well, free does mean that you don't get to pay to use. Where the money comes from is a different question, albeit the most important one. Perhaps it would make sense to tackle overly dependence on cars by slapping a tax which is directly used to fund public transport. So the more cars you have registered, the more money goes into public transport so that it can compete better, without getting left behind.
- imtringued 5y ago
  These types of comments are so overdone. Free just means free of charge. It means you, the customer or user do not have to pay for the service. It never meant that nobody pays for it, that's an internet boogeyman/meme that is circulating. Yes, taxed citizens are paying for it, but they are not paying for the service. Everything that is free still has to be provided by someone, it has always been that way since the existence of the universe. Dirt is free and you can turn it into bricks to build a house but you are relying on the existence of the earth and therefore the existence of the universe. If these comments were followed to their logical conclusion the word free shouldn't exist because nothing can be free. Thanks, now we have to come up with another word for "user doesn't get charged".
Havoc 5y ago
Make sense - almost like a UBI light in a way. Plus not exactly easy to abuse since driving up & down the city isn't exactly exciting unless you're 5 years old.
chmike 5y ago
Public transport is already free of charge in some 30 cities in France. One of the pioneers is Compiègne, which introduced the measure in 1975 and has maintained it ever since. The first city with more than 100,000 inhabitants to apply this free travel was Aubagne in 2009, followed by Niort in 2017. The next milestone was reached last year with the introduction of free travel in Dunkirk, which has more than 200,000 inhabitants. It is currently the largest French agglomeration to apply free travel, and it has as many inhabitants as Besançon. The only one of these cities to have a tramway is Aubagne, but it was built after the introduction of free travel and has only one short line, less than 3 kilometers long. Free public transport in France is thus not really an experiment. Source: https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/transports/transports-en-commun-gratuits-ce-qui-existe-ailleurs-en-france-1575304553 https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/transports/transports-en-com...
LatteLazy 5y ago
London has this for children and OAPs (I think kids pay a token amount if they use trains...). For OAPs it's limited to after 930am (post rush hour). I think its good, but you have to be careful. London pay for this via Londons taxes. If whatever government you have isn't prepared to make up the lost revenue (and to do so indefinitely, under all economic/political conditions) you're dooming your transport system.
skywal_l 5y ago
Public transport system in France is already pretty cheap. A customer only pay around 30% of the real price, all the rest is subsided by personal or company taxes. What are they trying to accomplish with this? They want more people to abandon their car and move to the public transport system? If you already made the trade off between 200euros / months for your car (don't forget to include initial price, gas, maintenance, etc) and a 40euros/months for the train, making the train free will not make a difference (or a negligible one). People prefer their car not because of economical reasons, but because it's damn more practical, especially if you don't live in the hyper-center of a european city. If you want people to abandon their car you will have to increase your QoS. Densify your network in the time and spatial dimension. I would be willing to pay 10x more to have a subway station 10 minutes walk from my home. But have a free bus every 20 minutes that take me to a train station on strike 50% of the time? Cool... Actually, what they are going to catch with this are all the people who were walking or taking their bike suddenly overcrowding the buses and make their service degrade due to overcrowding. The problem with all this is priority. What do we want to prioritize? Public transport? No. We should prioritize the only mode of transportation that is truly green: Walking. Rethink how cities are organized so that anybody can find a decent home at a decent price from a 20 minutes walk of their office. Give incentives to employers to allow telework, subsidies home close to work, etc. Don't force everyone to live inside a city that is as big as it used to be 300 years ago and surrounded by a super highway. For the public transport system, make people pay depending on their income. It should be free for poor people or students. As an engineer, I should pay through my nose if the service is really great. If it's not, I'll keep using my car whatever the price, thank you.
known 5y ago
1. Increase Employment opportunities 2. Reduce Air pollution 3. Reduce Oil imports
Proven 5y ago
How the hell is that free? Morons.
wink 5y ago
I'm a bit baffled that this is coming now, where a good part of the population is probably still working from home and not leaving the house much. If they want any kind of meaningful data, wouldn't this invalidate basically everything they measure?

213 points by astatine 5y ago

Look no further than Baltimore. We have a free bus system called Circulator. It's not perfect, of course, but a good start.

c-fe 5y ago
Or Luxembourg, neighbouring country of France, with completely free public transport (bus + tram + train)
- qaq 5y ago
  Luxembourg per capita GDP 114,704.59 USD US per capita GDP 65,297.52 USD
  - hu3 5y ago
    This could be interpreted as: Luxembourg policies work. We should copy them.
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      I also believe the US should become tax haven, like Luxembourg.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > the US should become tax haven I’ve got good news for you [1]. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_as_a_tax_haven https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_as_a_tax_haven
      - Barrin92 5y ago
        unlike Luxembourg the American government has bills to pay and an army to maintain and being a glorified storage deposit box doesn't work for a country of 300 million people
    - dannyw 5y ago
      Luxembourg is a tax haven. That's why their gdp numbers are artificially inflated.
      - qaq 5y ago
        It's also has way higher median household income vs US
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - fogihujy 5y ago
      Luxembourg is also a tax haven, AND extremely small compared to France. The costs of free public transport in Luxembourg is tiny both in actual numbers, and as a fraction of their GDP.
- mjul 5y ago
  For more information in English, see their public transport website: https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/living/mobility/public-transport.html https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/living/mobility/public-trans...
eesmith 5y ago
For other US examples, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport#United_S... . (That page, and the original BBC article, also describe a number of no-fare areas in Europe, but I assume by "Look no further" you are speaking from a US perspective.)

dukeofdoom 5y ago

I've taken public transport in Paris. Legit feared for my life one time. No thanks. Will gladly pay to take the taxi next time.

dv_dt 5y ago
In France for work for a week, I paid for an unlimited tourist public transport pass and had a wonderful time after work traveling into Paris from an suburb, then around in the city.
- dukeofdoom 5y ago
  Did you take a bus at night?
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    Some mix of buses trains and subway
  - watwut 5y ago
    I did and it was prefectly ok. I think you still got unlucky to be at place where young men fought. But it is not something that happens every time one uses public transport.
QuesnayJr 5y ago
The one time I fear for my life in Paris was in the back of a cab driven be a particularly aggressive driver.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  30cm is a perfectly acceptable distance to keep from the car ahead of you. Anything more is wasted space.
rorykoehler 5y ago
I've spent a good deal of time on Parisian public transport and have no idea what you are talking about. This includes many trips to less desirable neighbourhoods. The worst I saw was constant pickpockets. Do you care to elaborate?

pharmakom 5y ago

Hopefully this gets more people to switch from their cars! This is “the carrot”. When France tried “the stick” with a fuel duty hike, it triggered mass protests.

makapuf 5y ago
Don't forget that in France, gas is taxed maybe 80% (to pay for roads, the more you drive the more you use roads, as a good first approximation)
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  In France taxes on car fuels go to the general budget, they are not earmarked for roads.
ponyous 5y ago
I think it would help. My hometown made free public transport and since then my mom does all the trips she can with a bus (she doesn't like driving a car too much, has to do it every day for almost 2hrs due to work).
iggldiggl 5y ago
In Germany they recently did some experiments – while it has to be said that the comparison was only with a fare reduction and not a full-scale abolishment of fares, they found that service increases were more likely to attract additional users than fare reductions. So unless service levels are already maxed out and really cannot be increased further without disproportionally large investment, I'd personally rather prefer that that money was spent on funding more frequent services instead.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  I think it probably depends on the level of service and the price. Especially on whether or not public transport is cheaper than driving. I'd love to take the train more in the UK but it's both way less convenient and far more expensive than driving. E-scooters might help make it a bit more convenient at least because they make it easier to get too/from the station. But that doesn't help with the price.

cycomanic 5y ago

The additional bit of information is that often the ticketing systems make up a non trivial fraction of the overall cost of running the transportation network. Often these systems are implemented by large international consortia who funnel money from the public. Take Melbourne for example implementation of their chip card system ran much over budget and was 1.5 billion AUD in the end [1]. That doesn't mean making public transport free always makes sense, but it would eliminate some of the large rentseekers from the system. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myki

Joakal 5y ago
Also less injuries/settlements and criminal records from hiring private security with powers of police who have no police training.
- vkou 5y ago
  'No police training' for ticket checkers might actually be a feature.
stephencoyner 5y ago
Drivers also face violence for enforcing fares (however many agencies now ask them not to because of this). Handling cash adds a huge cost as well in addition to the electronic systems. Lots of friction across the board
- Raed667 5y ago
  In the town I live (Nice, FR) the drivers don't enforce fares. You can completely bypass them and they won't look twice at you. However, there are "control" squads, basically a large group of +6 feet guys in uniform that will randomly hop on tramways, trains, buses and do ticket checks.
  - Mordisquitos 5y ago
    > +6 feet guys in uniform that will randomly hop on tramways I know I'm adding nothing to the discussion, but I couldn't stop myself from giggling at alternative interpretations of this fragment.

peteretep 5y ago

I’d worry that “free” creates some weird incentives that don’t exist at €0.50, but it’ll be interesting to see how it pans out

wilg 5y ago
Like what?
- peteretep 5y ago
  People sleeping on public transport, reduced walking/cycling for short distances, kids using buses to hang out on
  - closeparen 5y ago
    A lot of public transit riders have unmetered usage due to monthly passes. It doesn’t seem to be a problem. Although that is still a class of people who can cough up $75 or whatever for the pass.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- martimarkov 5y ago
  When I was a student and literally only had 5 pounds I got on the London Tube and slept there for a few hours as it was super cold outside. It only happened once and it was my fault for being in that situation but that is an example. On the other hand now I give homeless ppl money for hostels. It was an interesting experience in hindsight.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    OK, so making it free rather than 50 cents raises the barrier to people with 50 cents?
Raed667 5y ago
The only weird incentive I can think of is that I'd hop on a tramway for one station if i see it coming instead of walking 5 minutes like i probably should.

Raed667 5y ago

Some more context: In France, public transport fees are 50% subsidized by your employer. The employer's contribution to public transport costs is compulsory. The employer (under private or public law) must pay 50% of the price of season tickets subscribed by his employees for the entire journey between their usual residence and their place of work accomplished by means of public transport services. even if several subscriptions are necessary for this trip (train + bus for example). Public bicycle rental services are also concerned. https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/employeur/calculer-les-cotisations/les-elements-a-prendre-en-compte/les-frais-professionnels/les-frais-de-transport/trajet-domicilelieu-de-travail/prise-en-charge-obligatoire-des.html https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/employeur/calculer-les-co... Also if you're a student, low-income, elderly, it becomes extremely cheap to get a monthly/yearly subscription.

ajmadesc 5y ago
It was ~300€ per annum for students when I was there. Great deal

jjcm 5y ago

Good. I'm excited to see the results from this. Public transport should be considered infrastructure in the same way roads are, with taxes on private vehicles to offset it. It leads to less cars on the road, less polution, less traffic, and a city designed around the public transportation once usage reaches critical mass.

Closi 5y ago
I think one flip-side argument is that this will predominantly benefit people in cities, which have much better transport infrastructure than suburban areas. Hopefully the money this costs is matched on a per-capita basis by region across the country to ensure that regions with less-developed public transport can also benefit.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  In France (like SV, I guess), the equivalent of America’s “inner city” is the French suburb and vice-versa, so if we take what you said as true then this is unfortunately not empowering those that need it the most.
  - vladvasiliu 5y ago
    That's true, but in the particular case of Paris, the worst thing related to transit is there are next to no "across" lines. Say you're in some suburb and need to get 20 km away in another suburb, you're likely SoL. You'll have to get all the way to Paris center and then back again. Or maybe change 5 buses for an even longer journey time. I had this exact issue when I was in college, 30 km away from my parents'. 25-30 minutes car ride or 1.5 h train ride. I'm really hopeful for the creation and extension of some metro lines, some of which will circle around Paris, helping with this suburb-to-suburb situation.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      Your information is a tad outdated. There are a bunch of trams ( Lines 1-12 are in operation and only 3 is in Paris, and runs along its border, the rest are across different suburbs) which are being built/expanded to cover just that, and then there's the biggest infrastructure project in Europe, the Grand Paris Express, a 200km+ ( iirc) system of 4 metro lines, linking suburbs to suburbs ( like the line 15, which will be a circle line in the suburbs). Fascinating stuff, and the first stage is expected for 2024-2025, while the latest around 2030.

LordDragonfang 5y ago

Something that isn't emphasized enough in these discussions is that public transit is one of those things that wealthy business owners actually benefit from a proportionately greater amount compared to the individuals who use it; transit brings in cheaper workers and more customers to high CoL areas where they otherwise could not get to. With that in mind, it's never made much sense for it to be funded by individual fares rather than a progressive tax. The fact that this particular implementation is funded by business taxes actually makes a ton of sense.

hnick 5y ago
They had a moratorium on parking tickets in Sydney during 2020 for a similar reason. They didn't want to discourage people from visiting businesses in the city if they had to, since it was already a ghost town.
vladvasiliu 5y ago
While I agree with your point, in the particlar case of Paris, France, this kind of argument might not be particularly persuasive. There are already laws in place for the employers to pay at least half of the monthly / yearly card of their employees (of course, this is considered income and taxed as such) [0]. As these cars allow unlimited journeys over the whole network (with two exceptions, one is a local train at Orly airport and the second I can't remember), it could be argued that transit is already fairly cheap for most "cheaper workers". Of course, this also applies to "expensive workers" (a software engineer friend of mine has his transit paid to 100%). There's also reductions for the elderly and a bunch of other categories. In the end, aside from tourists and occasional users, I think a good chunk of the population already has some kind of subscription, so the cost of maintenance argument might make more sense. I can't find the source, but I remember reading in a local paper that ticket sales were around 1/3 of the Paris' transit authority income. I don't remember whether the cost of the ticket systems was discussed. This was in the context of the regional elections (which more or less control the TA) that are happening right now, with one candidate wanting to push for free transit. --- [0] https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/employeur/calculer-les-cotisations/les-elements-a-prendre-en-compte/les-frais-professionnels/les-frais-de-transport/trajet-domicilelieu-de-travail/prise-en-charge-obligatoire-des.html https://www.urssaf.fr/portail/home/employeur/calculer-les-co...

unixhero 5y ago

To me this makes absolute total sense.

wilg 5y ago

I think this is great! Let's encourage people to take more efficient transport alternatives in every way we can. Nickel-and-diming discourages use, complicates UX (a severely underrated issue in government services), and makes people wonder why they are paying taxes for something they still have to pay to use.

chmod600 5y ago

I'm a fan of paying for stuff. I understand that some people can't, and they need to be accommodated. But I think things are better when people who can pay, pay. Subsidies can be fine, but free is often a bad idea. When you pay money, it's a vote to invest more in and maintain what you are using. It also gives you some stake in it to use it appropriately, and not do absurd things just because there's no cost. Community college (in the US) is a great example. It works well, and it's cheap and subsidized (generally the cost doesn't stop lower-middle class people from attending). People go there to learn, teachers are there to teach. If we make it free, it will ruin it.

Guthur 5y ago
People will pay, just indirectly. Pricing is a great signal for economic optimisation but if there is really nothing to be optimised as these services essentially run as monopolies then maybe this approach on balance comes out better for all.
- tjansen 5y ago
  "People will pay, just indirectly." Exactly, but indirect payment doesn't add friction. It depends on what you want to achieve, but limitless use of public transport isn't all good. For example, in many cities public transport operates at full capacity, at least in some hours. If free unlimited use results in even more passengers, it depends on where these additional passengers are coming from. If most of them were previously driving a car, you are reducing the number of cars. But if most didn't travel at all before, you may actually increase the number of cars, because some people won't like the crowds and switch to using cars.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Right. There might be saturation at peak times, but the rest of the time; just make the system free. It might even improve the peak time situations, reducing the need for more expensive investments to improve them.
martimarkov 5y ago
But we have also seen countries with free higher education and that has not be ruined, has it?

admissionsguy 5y ago

I really like free entry to public things. Like the museums in the UK. Not so much for the savings, but the reduced friction is nice, makes one feel more welcome. I remember Los Alamos in the US having free buses, that was also quite nice. I would like there to be a funding scheme for most public services similar to the UK student loan system. Where you pay out of your own pocket, ultimately, but only as a fraction of your income and above a certain very livable minimum, and only for the services that you personally use.

martpie 5y ago
In terms of reduced friction, I'm a big fan of the swiss transport system: you can hop in any bus or train without validating your ticket anywhere, and you get controlled from time to time. And the fine are big. So you get: - not much friction (+ the app is great) - you use transports more -> you pay more (and not everyone) - fraud is low because the fines are big enough to dissuade people, and increase every time you get caught
- patates 5y ago
  Germany has the same. I once had to pay a 80 euro fine because the driver opened just the middle door at the bus stop as he had nearly skipped the stop, and I hopped in without thinking, and the ticket controlled who stopped me (as I was going to the front to get a ticket) argued that I had to enter from the front door if I didn't already have a ticket. Still infuriates me when I think about it. This is just an anecdote, of course. I don't actually disagree with you.
  - Entalpi 5y ago
    In Sweden the fine is 120€..
    - patates 5y ago
      This was 8 years ago, not sure how much it is these days. It could as well be 1 euro, I'd still be very angry, as it's not about the money.

NicoJuicy 5y ago

Dunkirk ( France) has been testing it since 2018. So i guess they liked the results ( https://www.eltis.org/in-brief/news/free-public-transport-dunkirk-one-year-later https://www.eltis.org/in-brief/news/free-public-transport-du... )

hyperman1 5y ago

Belgium implemented partial free public transport for the elder. It mostly works, but there were some perverse incentives. Specifically, some elder people are so bored they climb on the coastal tramway early in the morning, then go up and down and up and down the line for the whole day. There were problems with some elder people starting fights because someone else took 'their' seat, even in an almost empty tram. One thing they did as mitigation was force everybody off the tram at the end of the line, which causes much moaning up to this day.

magpi3 5y ago
In Philadelphia, people do this on the subway. They pay a token to get on (or they ask someone for a token if they can't afford it) and then once they are on no one will ask them to leave. They can just keep riding all day. I think this points to another problem that needs to be addressed. It is a helluva thing if the best thing you can do with your day is ride the subway all day long, and some homeless people just feel safer on the subway (and I can't blame them).
- subpixel 5y ago
  Different problems, as in Philadelphia these are not retirees but people trying to escape the street. How bad is the street in Philadelphia? So bad that drive-through videos of Kensington are their own _genre_ on YouTube.
SilverRed 5y ago
>Specifically, some elder people are so bored This sounds like a problem on its own. We should avoid having people bored with nothing to do. Letting them sit on a train all day might actually be a very cheap way to entertain them and improve their lives.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  In large cities, there are many many things that elders can do, and many elder groups/clubs doing many different things. Sitting on train and taking space away from people who actually need to get somewhere is a bad solution.

JI00912 5y ago

It's not free. There's a reason why France has such high taxes. They changed from a model where people pay per fare to everyone has to pay and it's done via taxation. This model may make a lot of sense, but I'd hope we could skip the kinder garden level headlines.

dgellow 5y ago
I don't know why you're being downvoted. Anyone who followed the various public debates in France or is slightly familiar with the country knows that will be paid via a high tax.
- mytherin 5y ago
  The parent is downvoted because they are making an obvious statement that is not productive to the discussion and doing so in a condescending tone. Free public transport in the title clearly means that using public transport will incur no cost, not that the entirety of the public transport network would require zero funding.
  - JI00912 5y ago
    It's condescending because I look down on these types of articles. Journalists should stick to the truth. I realize you are able to interpret what is says so that "free" means "using public transport will incur no [additional] cost, but people shouldn't have to do that.
  - dgellow 5y ago
    Funding a system by introducing new taxes is a choice, not necessarily the obvious one. There are other solutions. But it's very likely to be a high tax in this specific case, because that's how France work, generally speaking, and what involved politicians suggested in public interviews.
  - dgellow 5y ago
    Funding a system by introducing new taxes is a choice, not necessarily the obvious one. There are other solutions. But it's very likely to be a high tax on local citizens in this specific case, because that's how France work, generally speaking, and what involved politicians suggested in public interviews.

asdff 5y ago

LA county is looking to implementing this. Fares only cover like 5% of the operating budget. Piles of money comes in through the half cent sales tax, metro is building new rail non stop since the measure was passed and coming out of the pandemic with a huge budget.

11235813213455 5y ago

That's great, another idea we'd need is more priority to bicycles on the roads, meaning this order: 1. priority vehicles (firemen, police, ambulances, ...) 2. bicycles 3. bus public transports 4. all the rest: cars, motos, .. Bicyles would be allowed to pass at traffic lights, and have priority in intersections on cars. This will help to promote bikes, and also because if there were only bicycles, traffic lights wouldn't be that much necessary (extreme case with dense traffic aside), with bikes the traffic is naturally fluid, health beneficial and non-polluting

frenchy 5y ago
I agree with your general sentiment, but not about the traffic lights. The whole reason traffic lights work is because 99.9% of the time, those hulking monstrosities we call cars, can just barrel right through on a green light, and when they can't, it's because something with a big loud siren is making noise. Bikes can't do that. I think the way forward ultimately involves re-thinking the way we architect transport networks: - Replacing large non-trunk roads and traffic lights with narrower roads and roundabouts - Increasing the number, size, and separation of bike lanes - Having bike lanes that cut through otherwise meandering road sections. This is significant, because roads are often designed to go in a very inefficient path for all sorts of reasons that don't apply to bikes. - Having mixed bike/car roads where the speed limit is 30 kph.
- nomorewords 5y ago
  > - Having mixed bike/car roads where the speed limit is 30 kph. Yeah, 30kph seems to low (hell, even I feel the 50kph limit in cities here is too low) to be a road limit for a mixed bike/car road. I think isolation is a better strategy and will lead to less accidents due to nervous drivers having their own lane instead of limiting themselves to 30kph behind some biker.
  - jeroenhd 5y ago
    Here, 30kph is the default for dense city streets, with 50 for the larger roads where bikes get their separate lanes and 70 or higher for large roads carrying large amounts of car traffic where bikes cannot go. The best solution is a mix of efficient road design, isolation, and speed limits where they make sense (which is pretty much everywhere except the through-roads). A large amount of 30kph bike/car roads are fine if the road network and city zoning is well-optimized.

giuliomagnifico 5y ago

Very good thing, also because in Paris a lot of people are already using private companies for moving around the city like Lime or F2M, etc... so the public authorities must keep the public services available for all. The real trouble is with the tax and if and how the public transports are sustainable in the long term.

fmajid 5y ago

The link is broken for me. Here is the Internet Archive version: http://web.archive.org/web/20210525045931/https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210519-how-france-is-testing-free-public-transport http://web.archive.org/web/20210525045931/https://www.bbc.co...

fmajid 5y ago

The title is misleading. It's not a national policy, it's something the Mayor of Paris was considering, and the regional council before that.

hellbannedguy 5y ago

Since Covid, it seems like everyone bought a car. Our busses have always been partially full, but since Covid; it seemed like every bus I saw has 1, or 0 people riding. Traffic in my county (Marin County) is more congested than pre-Covid. If anyone from Marin Transit reads this, how about free fares on busses, and the ferry? You might gain some customers? Your agency has always had problems convincing commuters your service makes sence on any level. Why not offer free service for a year? (The high tolls from the Golden Gate Bridge, and state/federal funds have supported our busses for decades now.) This is the time to offer free rides. Oh ya, put that Marin-Sonoma train to rest. We all passed the proposition. We had no idea there would be no where reasonable to park, and those salaries for management would be so high. Take the fences, and tracks down. It was good idea, but it didn't work out. Nix it. Or, try free rides for a year? I'm tired of seeing two coupled trains with 0 people riding.

Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Counter-example: Netherlands has had crammed trains again, despite there being a pandemic. Trains here operate more like trams / subways though, they're very frequent and the railways are occupied to capacity.

ekianjo 5y ago

They were already testing it for years since they almost never enforced fining people who never purchased anything.

kogepathic 5y ago

In the mean time, perhaps France would consider adopting the approach used in many German cities whereby monthly pass holders are permitted to take another adult and 3 children for free during evenings, weekends, and holidays. [1] Many German cities also offer cheaper subscriptions if you only use public transit after 09:00. This is great if you have a visiting friend, or a partner/family who do not have monthly passes but want to go somewhere outside of business hours. The RATP still considers weekly passes valid from Monday to Sunday and monthly passes valid from the 1st to the end of the month. They do not sell passes pro rata (e.g. if you buy a monthly pass on the 10th, you pay the same as someone who bought on the 1st), nor do they offer 7d/10d passes. They recently introduced Navigo Easy to replace tickets, but this is limited to trips in zones 1-2. [2] The fact that RATP are still this inflexible in 2021 does not give me confidence they can become more progressive. [1] https://www.bvg.de/de/abo-online https://www.bvg.de/de/abo-online [2] https://parisbytrain.com/navigo-easy/ https://parisbytrain.com/navigo-easy/

amai 5y ago
German cities public transport ticket systems are so complicated and burocratic that even locals often don’t understand it. You have dozens of zones, extra-bike and dog tickets, time restricted and number of station restricted tickets, tickets for groups and/or families, weekend tickets for groups of families and what not. Ticket machines in Germany have more buttons than you find in an aircraft cockpit. If the public transportation would be free, all this nonsense would not be necessary anymore. That alone is a good reason to introduce free public transport in Germany.
- immibis 5y ago
  Not sure what you're talking about. Here in Berlin I can buy a monthly ticket to go anywhere in the city limits. If I want to also travel in the small part of the network which is outside the official city limits, that costs a bit extra.

redleader55 5y ago

"Free" has become a synonym to "payed by someone else". Google is "free", Facebook is "free", public transport in Paris is "free". "Free" means I give you someone with no obligation from you whatsoever. In this case the citizens and businesses of Paris are paying for it, so calling it is "free" is disingenuous.

frankling_ 5y ago
What would be an example use of the word free that you would find appropriate?
- gvv 5y ago
  no fee, tax-funded I guess ^^
  - imtringued 5y ago
    tax-funded fee free public transport. We haven't gotten rid of the word free though. We are now merely fee free.
nomorewords 5y ago
Well, free does mean that you don't get to pay to use. Where the money comes from is a different question, albeit the most important one. Perhaps it would make sense to tackle overly dependence on cars by slapping a tax which is directly used to fund public transport. So the more cars you have registered, the more money goes into public transport so that it can compete better, without getting left behind.
imtringued 5y ago
These types of comments are so overdone. Free just means free of charge. It means you, the customer or user do not have to pay for the service. It never meant that nobody pays for it, that's an internet boogeyman/meme that is circulating. Yes, taxed citizens are paying for it, but they are not paying for the service. Everything that is free still has to be provided by someone, it has always been that way since the existence of the universe. Dirt is free and you can turn it into bricks to build a house but you are relying on the existence of the earth and therefore the existence of the universe. If these comments were followed to their logical conclusion the word free shouldn't exist because nothing can be free. Thanks, now we have to come up with another word for "user doesn't get charged".

Havoc 5y ago

Make sense - almost like a UBI light in a way. Plus not exactly easy to abuse since driving up & down the city isn't exactly exciting unless you're 5 years old.

chmike 5y ago

Public transport is already free of charge in some 30 cities in France. One of the pioneers is Compiègne, which introduced the measure in 1975 and has maintained it ever since. The first city with more than 100,000 inhabitants to apply this free travel was Aubagne in 2009, followed by Niort in 2017. The next milestone was reached last year with the introduction of free travel in Dunkirk, which has more than 200,000 inhabitants. It is currently the largest French agglomeration to apply free travel, and it has as many inhabitants as Besançon. The only one of these cities to have a tramway is Aubagne, but it was built after the introduction of free travel and has only one short line, less than 3 kilometers long. Free public transport in France is thus not really an experiment. Source: https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/transports/transports-en-commun-gratuits-ce-qui-existe-ailleurs-en-france-1575304553 https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/transports/transports-en-com...

LatteLazy 5y ago

London has this for children and OAPs (I think kids pay a token amount if they use trains...). For OAPs it's limited to after 930am (post rush hour). I think its good, but you have to be careful. London pay for this via Londons taxes. If whatever government you have isn't prepared to make up the lost revenue (and to do so indefinitely, under all economic/political conditions) you're dooming your transport system.

skywal_l 5y ago

Public transport system in France is already pretty cheap. A customer only pay around 30% of the real price, all the rest is subsided by personal or company taxes. What are they trying to accomplish with this? They want more people to abandon their car and move to the public transport system? If you already made the trade off between 200euros / months for your car (don't forget to include initial price, gas, maintenance, etc) and a 40euros/months for the train, making the train free will not make a difference (or a negligible one). People prefer their car not because of economical reasons, but because it's damn more practical, especially if you don't live in the hyper-center of a european city. If you want people to abandon their car you will have to increase your QoS. Densify your network in the time and spatial dimension. I would be willing to pay 10x more to have a subway station 10 minutes walk from my home. But have a free bus every 20 minutes that take me to a train station on strike 50% of the time? Cool... Actually, what they are going to catch with this are all the people who were walking or taking their bike suddenly overcrowding the buses and make their service degrade due to overcrowding. The problem with all this is priority. What do we want to prioritize? Public transport? No. We should prioritize the only mode of transportation that is truly green: Walking. Rethink how cities are organized so that anybody can find a decent home at a decent price from a 20 minutes walk of their office. Give incentives to employers to allow telework, subsidies home close to work, etc. Don't force everyone to live inside a city that is as big as it used to be 300 years ago and surrounded by a super highway. For the public transport system, make people pay depending on their income. It should be free for poor people or students. As an engineer, I should pay through my nose if the service is really great. If it's not, I'll keep using my car whatever the price, thank you.

known 5y ago

1. Increase Employment opportunities 2. Reduce Air pollution 3. Reduce Oil imports

Proven 5y ago

How the hell is that free? Morons.

wink 5y ago

I'm a bit baffled that this is coming now, where a good part of the population is probably still working from home and not leaving the house much. If they want any kind of meaningful data, wouldn't this invalidate basically everything they measure?