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Re:Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant modal sh... by barrkel on Saturday October 12, 2024 @05:32PM (#41822852)
Cars also have a huge subsidy in the form of roads
Re:Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant modal sh... by Ferret7446 on Saturday October 12, 2024 @06:22PM (#41823232)
There are generally taxes (e.g., car or gas taxes) that cover the costs. I don't know about Germany's situation, but it is not impossible to make that net zero.
Re:Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant modal sh... by eigenspace on Saturday October 12, 2024 @06:31PM (#41823297)
Not even close to net zero in Germany. Do you have any examples of countries where car and gas taxes do actually cover the cost of roads?
Re:Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant modal sh... by threeseed on Saturday October 12, 2024 @06:47PM (#41823397)
In Australia, petrol tax raises ~18bn.

Cost of road infrastructure is ~36bn.

Re:Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant modal sh... by ben-schaaf on Saturday October 12, 2024 @08:19PM (#41824016)
And these comparisons often exclude externalities like carbon emissions, pollution from tires and brakes, road accident costs, noise pollution and the cost of suburban sprawl.
Re:Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant modal sh... by andrepd on Saturday October 12, 2024 @07:32PM (#41823702)
If you would even attempt it to make it net zero you would get truly ungodly amounts of pushback, I don't think you understand how bad it would be. Truly, for those used to a privilege, fairness is an attack.

Furthermore: you have a state of affairs where you are pretty much forced to own and drive a car to e.g. get to work or move around. You make it reflect its true cost making it impossible to afford for anyone except the rich. What now?

Re:Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant modal sh... by addandsubtract on Saturday October 12, 2024 @09:46PM (#41824506)
A more fitting complaint about cats would be the Pendlerpauschale, which is paid out to people driving to and from work in their car. It's a much larger sum than the €3b spent on the train ticket subsidy.
Re:Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant modal sh... by okr on Sunday October 13, 2024 @05:55AM (#41826602)
I think it is an invalid argument. Please inform yourself about the reasoning before you post half truths.
Re:Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant modal sh... by iggldiggl on Sunday October 13, 2024 @05:00PM (#41831546)
It used to be different, but these days that one is paid to everybody who commutes, no matter by which mode. And people who commute by public transport are actually slightly privileged, in that they can claim their actual ticket costs if that works out more advantageous, whereas everybody else is limited to the basic km-dependent allowance, even if their car commutes maybe actually costs more.

And while there are arguments to be had about negative incentives posed by it with regards to incentivising people to commute farther than necessary, the original basic principle is quite simple: Just as companies are mostly only taxed on their profits, so workers ought to pay their income tax only on the money made after deducting any work-related expenses.

And Germany hasn't solved the cost-of-housing problem, either, so a certain degree of commuting is unavoidable. In fact, recently the housing minister basically declared her defeat by announcing that her latest plan for dealing with that problem wasn't building more where people want to live and can make a living, it was subsidising people to move back to the countryside.