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I live in Germany, and am moving to a place ~50km from my workplace. It's a small town with about 15k inhabitants. It's an affordable and nice place, but I'm on

by fmobus 3y ago

I live in Germany, and am moving to a place ~50km from my workplace. It's a small town with about 15k inhabitants. It's an affordable and nice place, but I'm only really doing because there's a direct regional train to the main city. In fact, I can commute faster than some people living _in_ the city. But here's the thing: this train I'm talking about _is not_ an ICE, it's a _regional_ train, but it makes only one stop, and cruises at 160km/h. And being a regional train, I can ride on the Deutschlandticket, which costs 49 euros a month. Even if they raise the price on that ticket (likely), it will still be worth. Good regional train services is the key to this problem. Provide nice services into the cities, allow those towns to densify around their station, and that will relieve the pressure.

ben_w 3y ago
> In fact, I can commute faster than some people living _in_ the city. I've noticed a similar thing here in Berlin with some of the surrounding commuter towns. I certainly hope the Deutschlandticket stays at the current price; but you're right, it will still be good value even if the price goes up — even the more expensive BVG ABC ticket is still only around 1/5th the price of a UK Cambridge-London season ticket. Unfortunately, the UK does not have particularly good train service any more, thanks to cuts made in the 1960s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts
- fmobus 3y ago
  My hope is that the political cost of cutting the Deutschlandticket (as in, let it go back to the previous situation) would be too high, so governments will find a way of making it fit in the budget and only bump the price a little. As context, for people not in Germany: each transportation region sets their own prices, but the new (nationally subsided) €49 ticket is already cheaper than monthlies in most places. This is good and convenient for people living in downtown, but it is a godsend for people living in suburbs, because their distance-based monthlies were sometimes two or three times that. For people living in the edge of a region and commuting to another, it was even worse, as they needed tickets from both regions. I believe the equivalent "legacy" ticket on Deutsche Bahn (all regional transport free) was something like €212/month. €49 is one hell of a deal.

by fmobus 3y ago

ben_w 3y ago

> In fact, I can commute faster than some people living _in_ the city. I've noticed a similar thing here in Berlin with some of the surrounding commuter towns. I certainly hope the Deutschlandticket stays at the current price; but you're right, it will still be good value even if the price goes up — even the more expensive BVG ABC ticket is still only around 1/5th the price of a UK Cambridge-London season ticket. Unfortunately, the UK does not have particularly good train service any more, thanks to cuts made in the 1960s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts

fmobus 3y ago
My hope is that the political cost of cutting the Deutschlandticket (as in, let it go back to the previous situation) would be too high, so governments will find a way of making it fit in the budget and only bump the price a little. As context, for people not in Germany: each transportation region sets their own prices, but the new (nationally subsided) €49 ticket is already cheaper than monthlies in most places. This is good and convenient for people living in downtown, but it is a godsend for people living in suburbs, because their distance-based monthlies were sometimes two or three times that. For people living in the edge of a region and commuting to another, it was even worse, as they needed tickets from both regions. I believe the equivalent "legacy" ticket on Deutsche Bahn (all regional transport free) was something like €212/month. €49 is one hell of a deal.