If you would get rid of it for 9€/month you should also do it for 49€/month.
This ticket is basically a big (!) raise for anyone using public transport. My wife will save 150€/month and can travel everywhere instead of a 50km single route
Frankly, I find it very odd the inhabitants of one of the richest countries on Earth argue over 9 vs 49 euros a month... that feels like next level spoiled.
At 10 (or less) it's a safe assumption for everyone. You can start building things with zero provisions for cars, no excuses. It's a massive social shift.
But the general point is that 49 euros a month to use public transport is dirt cheap and is definitely not a barrier, quite the opposite.
NB if a ticket is 3 euros it means 60/120 euros a month to commute daily without any discounted pass. Obviously, if you use only now and then the 3 euro ticket will be the cheapest option anyway...
It's not that the local pass is cheaper for them, it's that they use the transportation network so little that buying single tickets on demand is cheaper.
Which makes this whole argument kinda pointless.
I think they believe the 49€ ticket is an attempt to try to make driver stop using the car and use the public transport instead. But this isn't exactly the goal here.
even as someone working from home, i go out at least 3-4 times a week, shopping, other errands, events, meet friends. two rides each time adds up to at least 30 rides a month.
3€ per ride only gets you 16 rides before you reach 49€. any semi regular user of public transport will reach that easily.
I.e. 10 rides are just 5 trips
if you have a ride home from work and take some side route to stop at a shopping mall or Kino or so that counts as an additional trip
but someone using it for work daily tends to have more then 42 rides a month not just 10 and that is just for work transit in a 5 work day week
and then this is assuming you only travel in the AB area and not the outer area of Berlin
and there are many (in summer) nice places close by Berlin, some still in the C area some beyond
lastly, it's very convenient, I mean since I don't have a semester ticket anymore I forgot to buy a ticket way to often and just was lucky to never got cought
I mainly get around by bike. I basically use my car for: bad weather, large shopping trips, outings with kids and going to the area around Berlin. I'd consider doing some of the latter two with a public transit pass if I had one.
I actually used to have a monthly ticket -- when I needed it for work. But a lot of people work from home, or bike to work, and for those folks a €49 ticket still really can't be justified. You'd need to make 20 trips a month for it to work out, and if you're not taking public transit to work, that's a larger number than one's likely to need.
In fact, in central Berlin people that cycle as a primary means of transportation is extremely common. (I honestly can't think of a single of my friends who uses public transit daily.) €9 vs. €49 makes a difference for people who use public transit as auxiliary transit, not primary transit.
which means you don't really use the public transite net at all
because a 4-(one direction) trip bundle ticket cost already 10€, and that is AB only, i.e. excluding the outer areas of Berlin
or in other words if you use the public transportation so little and drive so little that it also doesn't cost you much you really are not the audience this ticket is meant to help