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Geneva makes public transport temporarily free to combat pollution spike
- mertleee 1y ago[flagged]
- cenamus 1y agoYou do realize that they're combatting polution in Geneva? As in smog?
- binaryturtle 1y agoMany people do not know: "smog" is short for "smoke fog".
- motbus3 1y agoCould you please tell me the list of top polluters? Could you also please tell me which countries have not fulfilled their pro environment policies?
- mertleee 1y agoHave you seen the state of the river Ganges / any river in a developing nation? Not to mention how the amazon rainforest is just burned down to clear space for palm oil plantations?
- Daishiman 1y agoOzone pollution due to smog is local.
- roflmaostc 1y agoAlso look at the historic CO2 emissions per capita. And btw, we also burn plastic, just in facilities. Doesn't make it fundamentally better as the CO2 is still released into the air. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita
- AshamedCaptain 1y agoFor the record this is already par for the course for all the French cities surrounding Geneve.
- paulette449 1y agoYes, true here in Lyon, 2hrs away from Geneva.
- docdeek 1y agoIs it true in Lyon? I was under the impression that there was a special ticket to buy on peak pollution days but it was not free.
- elashri 1y agoIronically the small French cities next to Geneva are served by the TPG, the operator of busses in Geneva. And they don't have good coverage because of that. They are the only public transportation available.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoOK, imma just say the quiet part out loud here: There would be less need for daily transportation commutes if companies allowed 100% WFH wehre applicable and the government would force/incentivise this on companies for the positions that can be done remotely in order to save the environment. Especially given that Geneva labor market skews heavily towards specialized office jobs like diplomats, banking and pharma where most time is spent in front of the PC and on Teams/Zoom calls anyway. But from my job search there and anecdotes from mates and the internet opinions, Swiss companies have a highly mandatory in-office culture, plus the cross-border commuters from neighboring countries who drive in and out every day to benefit both from high Swiss wages and also from the cheaper living abroad. Well then no shit Sherlock your air quality goes down the shitter. So I doubt that the public transportation not being free is what caused the higher pollution in the first place, since people drive by car not because public transportation costs too much money, but because on their commute route, it saves a lot of time despite the extra cost of car ownership (you can make more money but you can't make more time). To me, it just feels like another way for politicians washing their hands of the elephant in the room: the forced need to commute every day for jobs that don't need it. It seems like the lessons from the pandemic have been quickly forgotten since early to mid 2020 when everyone was locked in their homes had the best air quality we ever experienced, but somehow politicians can't put this 2 and 2 together and go fight made up strawmen instand.
- ferguess_k 1y ago> OK, imma just say the quiet part out loud here: There would be less need for daily transportation commutes if companies allowed 100% WFH wehre applicable and the government would force/incentivise this on companies for the positions that can be done remotely in order to save the environment. Exactly. On the contrary, the politicians everywhere are pushing for return to office, or at least not promoting WFH. And then some people on HN just complain that private cars are enemies of the public service.
- mvieira38 1y agoWell put. Easy pollution-reducing policies are all under our noses but governments chicken out of implementing them for whatever reason. Office workers having at least one mandated day of remote work would be a godsend, and it's very noticeable post-pandemic how much nicer the cities where this is unofficially implemented are on fridays
- mvieira38 1y agoPublic transportation should always be free in cities, with car commuters paying the operation costs. Not saying it can be implemented right away, but it should be a policy goal for cities. You have all the right in the world to prefer driving and chilling on your air conditioning and stereo if you can afford it, but it shouldn't be free if you're occupying the lane space 10 people would occupy in a bus, and making the traffic slower for the bus in doing so.
- cyprien_g 1y agoCompletely agree with you. I live in Montpellier, France, and we have had free public transportation for a year and a half, and it's very good. I definitely use my car less and take public transport more often. Everyone, including people without cars, pays for the roads through taxes; it is only fair to do the same for public transport.
- Herring 1y agoSociety pays for cars in a lot of ways other than just taxes. Roads/highways/parking takes up tons of valuable land (opportunity costs). Cars cause a lot of medical conditions, from respiratory/cardiovascular diseases, to obesity. Cars add to climate change, which causes extreme weather events. Congestion and noise impacts health and the economy, etc. Cities all around the world would be net improved with much fewer cars.
- komali2 1y ago> and making the traffic slower for the bus in doing so. Strong agree except here, busses should have their own lanes at all expense to cars - even if this means entire roads are now no longer available to cars. The private car should be the slowest, least convenient way to get where you're going.
- mvieira38 1y agoWe have dedicated bus lanes where I live, and they don't really work during heavy rush hour, unfortunately, due to merging and turns. For example, most of the time the bus lane needs to be on the right so it can pick people up, so cars turning right will have to cross the bus lane somewhere. The opposite happens if the bus needs to take a left turn, or if another bus is stopped for maintenance or something and overtaking is necessary. Not to mention a lot of people figure out where the cameras are for the bus lane auto-fines and just dodge them when appropriate, but I guess that's a third world problem.
- dukoid 1y agoWhy do we still allow drivers to externalize most of the costs associated with cars? There is existing technology to extract co2 from the atmosphere, and the current cost of this should be the free market-based price for co2 emissions.
- SkiFire13 1y agoBecause drivers are still a majority of the population, so this would be wildly unpopular
- dfxm12 1y agoGovernments do a lot of wildly unpopular things. I can't speak specifically for Switzerland, but one recent example is UK's Online Safety Act 2023. Even related to drivers, speed cameras are enabled despite being unpopular.
- sofixa 1y agoUnfortunately, that's not how Switzerland operates, because it's a very direct democracy where the status quo and the will of the majority takes priority over common sense and long term thinking. Full franchise (women being allowed to vote) didn't happen in all cantons until the 1990s (after it being made possible in the 1970s), because the existing voters (men) just voted against it.
- dotancohen 1y agoEven disregarding your quip about when women got the vote, your post reads like another anti-Western agenda post that has become very popular in the past two years.
- bondarchuk 1y agoIt's true though, quite amazingly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerl...
- komali2 1y agoThis is excellent, but I always wonder at the way cities seem to bend over backwards for the worst technology for moving people ever invented, and don't dare do anything that deprioritizing the use of this technology. Here, I found some street parking for cars: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Quai+Turrettini/@46.2054512,6.1410995,68m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x478c650693d0e2eb:0xa0b695357b0bbc39!2sGeneva,+Switzerland!3b1!8m2!3d46.2043907!4d6.1431577!16zL20vMDM5MDI!3m5!1s0x478c65f4aeb9f84b:0x8cfcd8f3e401b433!8m2!3d46.2055116!4d6.1411925!16s%2Fg%2F11kjg5zx06?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDgxMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D https://www.google.com/maps/place/Quai+Turrettini/@46.205451... Alongside a gorgeous canal, with bike lanes there as well as what appears to be a train station a few blocks away, as well as what may be some kind of street car station? I can't imagine a more phenomenal waste of space given the far superior transport options surrounding this area. Go west just a bit and you can see a much more useful use of that space: some greenspace https://maps.app.goo.gl/xmDdqxob4LegGvwt5 https://maps.app.goo.gl/xmDdqxob4LegGvwt5 (I don't understand why this business' pin is there but so be it). Go east a bit and see how an entire bridge is wasted on giving cars some complicated spaghetti to let them go either north or west. https://maps.app.goo.gl/GQNMabh7d9cEf7MC7 https://maps.app.goo.gl/GQNMabh7d9cEf7MC7 Instead that entire middle portion could be further bike parking (you can see some is already there) or a wonderful greenspace to enjoy the river as you cross the bridge. Hell, you could probably fit a few food stands there if you really wanted to get jiggy with it. In the era of the hyperdense city and the perfections we've brought to non-car transportation technologies, it's time to let cars go. They were a bad idea, we can see that now from how they clog our cities, kill our kids, and cause us to choke on their exhaust, let's be done and aggressively remove them! Edit: more examples, look to the river near here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/45iLSKpVa4kLwuM69 https://maps.app.goo.gl/45iLSKpVa4kLwuM69 Everyone's view of the river spoiled, and precious space wasted, all so that 28 cars, just 28 cars, can park on the street. Or, compare this neighborhood: https://maps.app.goo.gl/Xobo9E5jjQU2Pv2f8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/Xobo9E5jjQU2Pv2f8 to this one: https://maps.app.goo.gl/SAEYTGBqFDZXUkMn9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/SAEYTGBqFDZXUkMn9 Note how much more dense, how much more housing and businesses, fit in the former, how much easier it is to walk around and get places. Notice how in the latter, they turn all their space in the pavilions into parking lots , whereas in the former, they use them for gardens and trees. The former is for humans, the latter is for cars, which aren't people! So why do we build a city for them?
- thmsths 1y agoHow effective do they expect a measure like this to be? Once a car and its insurance are paid for, the marginal cost of a single trip is quite low. I seriously wonder how many people woke up that day and thought "instead of driving I will take the train today because they are waiving the $3 fee" not many I bet. If we want to encourage people to take public transports we need to keep them competitive against the car at all times not one random week per year.
- Kapura 1y agoMaybe you don't see it, but many folks would value the pro-social benefit as being worth more than the marginal costs of driving a car. Like, for instance, if you're living through a spike in pollution, you may be motivated to do your part to help.
- bluGill 1y agoIt might be enough to get someone to try transit and see that it actually does work. If you are used to driving everywhere and have never used transit then you won't actually know how it works. Routes, timing, transfers, missing the bus... - there are a lot of things that are different about using transit, none of it hard, but all of it needs to be learned. Free transit may be enough to get you to try it once (exactly once!), and if transit works that will be enough that you become willing to figure out how to buy the fare in the future. In general free transit is a bad idea - nearly everybody is willing to pay a small fee for transit and what they really want is better service (better service meaning more routes, faster routes, and more frequent - pick as many as possible)
- colechristensen 1y agoThe $3 -> wouldn't motivate a lot of people, it's more like the cherry on top of asking folks nicely to drive less. Like if you asked me to help you move a couch and offered me a beer, a beer isn't really a fair trade for the labor value, but I'm being nice and helping, a nice treat makes things a little better.
- tokioyoyo 1y agoCultural differences. Think of pandemic days, and how each country/city operated. Despite having almost no official lockdowns, Tokyo operated in self-induced lockdown style as people didn’t really want to exacerbate the problem. It was kind of the opposite in other places. People in Switzerland might consider other things as the main goal (making the air cleaner), and this could be a simple nudge to change their behaviours. It’s not always monetary competitiveness that shapes behaviour.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoNot sure it will make a difference to people's travel habits; I think those inclined to take public transport already do so. But it does highlight the fact that we subsidize private transport (our taxes pay for the roads, traffic police, etc.), so why not public transport?
- ferguess_k 1y agoWhat do you mean "subsidizing private transport"? I'm sorry but "your tax" also includes the tax paid by people who drive private cars. And since most public transit companies don't break even anyway (at least in Canada), it is the private drivers that are paying for the public.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoDid you miss the part about the roads for cars? If I don’t have a car I’m still paying for all the roads built and continuously maintained so that those with cars can drive them. So yeah, we are subsidizing private transport.
- ferguess_k 1y agoYou are still depending on the roads for trucks that transport merchandises around and emergency vehicles and a lot of other stuffs. We are also paying for your public transit, thank you, because at least in my city it never breaks even, so everyone including us gets taxed -- but I have no issue with that -- I mostly take public transit anyway.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoSure, roads are multi-purpose. But if the roads were only used for public transport, transport of goods, and emergency vehicles, that would reduce wear and tear significantly and many might not even be needed. How much do you think road maintenance costs would drop by? Significantly. So that very large amount is being subsidized by taxes so people can drive private cars instead of taking public transport. Yes, we as a US society are subsidizing private transport because "it's the American way". Other countries do this too but not to this extent. I'm in my 50s and never even owned a car until I moved back to the US ~7 years ago.
- roflmaostc 1y agoI live in Lausanne and also noticed that the air looks quite hazy these days. But the MeteoSwiss weather app does not indicate any high levels of bad air quality. Notably, ozone shows a value of 90µm/m^3 around Geneva. The article states 180µm/m^3. All other index such as PM10 or NO2 are not crazy high either.
- svpk 1y agoSwitzerland has its act together with public transit as far as I'm aware, so the following doesn't actually apply to them. But something to note is that when trying to increase ridership the two most important things are reduced head times (ie a train shows up every 5 minutes, not every hour) and being consistently on-time. Only after those are sorted should transit look at eliminating fares. As if you eliminate fares first you're cutting into revenue that could be used to reduce head times and increase timeliness.