Fifty years ago, Switzerland was poised to become as car-dependent as anywhere in North America. Now it has the best transit system in the world. What’s the secret to this alpine nation’s success
Fifty years ago, Switzerland was poised to become as car-dependent as anywhere in North America. Now it has the best transit system in the world. What’s the secret to this alpine nation’s success
Fifty years ago, Switzerland was poised to become as car-dependent as anywhere in North America. Now it has the best transit system in the world. What’s the secret to this alpine nation’s transport supremacy?
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This was a revelation. For just over $6,000 a year, the Swiss can travel anywhere, reliably, in comfort, and get where they’re going on time. (In neighbouring Austria, where the cost of living isn’t so high, the equivalent national rail pass costs just €1,100 – or $1,600.) In Canada and the United States, the average cost of car ownership – including payments, parking tickets, insurance, parking, and gas – is more than $12,000 a year. That’s a high price to pay for a system that delivers congestion, traffic deaths and injuries, air pollution – and, more often than not, gets us to work or school late. For half the price North Americans pay, the Swiss get reliable, anywhere-to-anywhere mobility.
The secret is "not having politicians that bend over backwards for car companies for over a century while your country is still in development" and "having people in influential potitions or states that understand taxes aren't inherently bad" with just a Powerpuff girls size dash of "the wealthy like to keep poor people in their place and poor public transit and education keep things that way"
That's why no amount of "it's actually cheaper to do it the other way than you already pay and here's 10,000 studies and real world examples all over the world that prove it" will convince the people who can change anything.
They know.
They simply like things they way they are.
Hell, they kick the poor down a couple pegs where possible.
The secret is having a over a third of your country living within a few kilometers of your largest city and more than half the country live within a few kilometers of the capitol and largest city.
It is nearly the exact same size as Virginia and shares almost exactly the same population. They just have the majority of their citizens living in or around two cities that aren't that far from each other (hour and half drive or less than an hour by train between the two cities).
So what you're saying is that Virginia could have public transport on the level of Switzerland. I imagine it would even be cheaper since Virginia is much less mountainous.
Edit: even economically they are not radically different
Virginia: GDP $759.2B, per capita $86,747
Switzerland: GDP $942.2B, per capita $106,097Yeah but you would have to convince Virginians to live closer to one place instead of being scattered to the wind across their state lol.
In Germany, it's currently 696€ a year to use all local and regional public transport (metro, bus, regional train, etc.) nationally, 4899€ a year to also use all long distance public transport (IC, ICE).
Unless you travel around the country a lot, the first plus a long distance discount card is usually enough to get around.
Still, there has been too little investment into public transport for decades, and the 696€ Ticket is partially funded by the federal government, so let's see whether that lasts past the next election. All in all, could be better, but could also be a lot worse.
Same same, I don’t know why they talked about the 6k pass (AG 1st class is 6500, 2nd is 4000) as it isn’t widely used. Most of those are offered to employees at management level by their companies, or by rich people who doesn’t care about money and doesn’t travel by car (so maybe 5 people?)
The rest of the population use the 2nd class AG only if they travel a lot on IC.
And most of us just have a cantonal pass + half fare card for long distances. For my canton it’s 500chf annually (public price, I have it for 370) and for the quality of Swiss public transport I think this is very reasonable.
Uh, the GA transport pass is more like $3900, if you pay per year, not 6k. And a lot of people get discounts from their jobs or other things.
6k (6500 chf I believe) is the first class GA.
Besides discounts, most people don’t use a GA (that covers 100% of public transport types in 100% of the country) but a way cheaper local pass, like city to city.
GA is awesome tho, but you really need to travel a lot across the country every weeks to really need that.
The secret is being tiny
No lol having more population makes this stuff easier via economy of scale, try again