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Public transport use soars in Montpellier a year after becoming free
(www.euronews.com)
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this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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I wonder who do they think that pays for car infrastructure (gas stations, roads, road patches, gas subsidies, etc.)
Gas Stations pay for themselves. Otherwise its also tax based.
Still completely free public transport is not a good idea instead of investing in a high quality offering. (Higher Frequencies, Better Vehicles, more dense network). Because People usually take the car because it is more convenient, its always more expensive than public transport.
And in the past, free offerings have just diminished people walking or taking the bicycle, but no shift Car>Public Transit
It's not more convenient. It's only more convenient if the infrastructure isn't there. Dodger stadium is a classic. It's the stadium with 12 stadiums worth of parking lot around it. Some stadiums in Europe have 3-4x the capacity of dodger stadium and no parking. That's because it's convenient to get there by public transport. The US specifically makes zoning laws so people need cars from the isolate suburb to the yuge department store.
Even gas stations don't pay for themselves. Gas would not be "profitable" or affordable for anyone if our governments didn't spend billions subsidizing it.
That was my Point, people who drive right now don't use Public Transport because it isn't convenient for them.
Instead of burning funds to make it free for People who are perfectly capable of paying 300€/Month for their Car, you should use it to expand the Networks (New Train/Tram/Bus Routes) and augment their quality (Longer Operating hours/ Higher Service Frequency) and let them participate a Bit in the Costs, so you can improve the Network even further. (If they we're able to pay 300€/Month for their Car, they can certainly pay 50-100€ for a monthly subscription too)
You misunderstand the billions a year it takes to keep the public roads functional, it's not burning funds when it's your money. This whole free market spin of "participating a bit" you're trying to put on this makes no sense at all. That's called taxes.
Public transport is underfunded and blocked by the car lobby, so it's too expensive for what it is. Cars aren't that expensive because theyre already heavily subsidized (and you ignore all the money that goes to maintaining it). Your math doesn't add up in the real world if you take the true costs of cars, and it adds up even less if countries didn't specifically design stuff for cars.
We shouldn't build entire cities based on the few who can afford to waste money on a car, and make travel extremely difficult for everyone who can't, even if public transport was a poverty thing. (it's not)