Re:Deutsche Bahn’s Meltdown and High-Speed Rail
by mrep on Monday July 25, 2022 @08:40AM
(#32223500)
> gas taxes don’t come close to covering costs
You sure about that because when I did some quick math on US road spending I found it would require about a $2.50 tax per gallon to fully fund our yearly road construction costs with taxes [0] and Luxembourg charges $2.23 per gallon [1] which is just 10% shy.
Re:Deutsche Bahn’s Meltdown and High-Speed Rail
by iggldiggl on Monday July 25, 2022 @07:44AM
(#32223073)
Luxembourg traditionally had very low farebox recovery ratios (something around 14 %, and definitively much lower than Germany, even if you account for things like reduced fares for students), plus it's a small state that still is somewhat of a tax haven.
Alternatively a country could stop subsidizing cars. It’s weird that people complain about investment in trains but fail to realize roads are extremely expensive too and gas taxes don’t come close to covering costs.
There’s virtually no free parking in Japanese city centres and all highways there are tolled. For one person the tolls are similar to high speed train fare, and it’s a no brainer to travel by train instead of car for most destinations.