| 1) The 9 € ticket wasn't about CO2 reduction, it was about providing cheap(er) public transportation for the masses. 2) Even 10 billion is not really much money for a state like Germany. If the 9 € ticket, or a successor, would be rolled out permanently you'd expect savings in different areas which could make up for the additional cost of a subsidized ticket. Make the ticket 30 €/month and you'll only have a third of the costs left. 3) Sounds fine to me: People who would normally not be able to pay for a train ticket were able to do so, enjoy what they could reach by train and have a nice summer. I don't think there's anything bad in this, especially for people with a lower income. What this "experiment" clearly showed is: - Make public transportation easy and cheap to use and people will use it - German public transportation massively lacks capacity You might call it a "hoax" but it showed that we're just as bad in public transportation as we are in broadband internet access. Politics didn't do anything to improve this situation in the last 20 years because gas was cheap and everything else was fine, too. |