[ericmay]

Yea it also ignores that if everybody stopped riding the $100 train then you’d never actually be able to drive into the city, let alone park anywhere for under $100.

Also, this is a deliberate choice. They can improve train services and lower costs. Idk why people who ostensibly are market oriented are so fixated on current prices and assuming they can’t change or be improved upon. Germany is an example $49 for a ticket for all (I think) transit.

Another thing while I’m at it - how much does your car, insurance, gas, maintenance, tires, and other things cost? How much money per month are you paying to pay for the roads and highways? Etc. It’s hard to do a fair apples to apples comparison here either way.

[cogman10]

Yeah, everyone also ignores that public transport can be supported through taxes and operated at a loss.

In the US, we have a weird obsession with all public goods/services paying for themselves. We should ditch that, operate at a loss, and pull the difference out of progressive taxes.

There's no reason your CEO or office shouldn't foot part of the bill to transport you into work.

Heck, were I king I'd fund public transport 100% from taxes and do away with ticketing. Imagine how much less money we'd pay on road maintenance, police doing traffic duty, running ticket stands/etc. Not to mention the air quality improvements and environmental impacts.

[mikepurvis]

The weirdness of the obsession is even stranger when you compare it to basically any other public service. Like, are schools supposed to pay for themselves? Airports? City infrastructure like streets, parks, and rec centers? The military?

No, of course not. All of these things are essentials for the which the benefits are felt across the economy, but those benefits are far too diffuse to be individually tallied up and toll-boothed— which is of course why they are (generally) financed out of the general tax base rather than by private industry.

[jrockway]

I've heard an argument that schools are supposed to pay for themselves. The idea is that people who go to school end up in a higher tax bracket, so it's an investment, not merely public good. Similar arguments are made for parks and recreation; more open space, less noise, so less stress-induced heart attacks, which means more years being a taxpayer.

I think this is a toxic way of thinking of things, but I guess it allows even the most greedy politician to live with himself for not opposing schools.

[AnthonyMouse]

But then you can make the same argument about transit. It facilitates people coming into the city to engage in taxable activities.

[mikepurvis]

Exactly— that's a "diffuse" benefit, and indeed the same logic that most of the world also applies to healthcare, though introducing that to a US-centric discussion just muddies the waters, for obvious reasons.

[Reason077]

In much of the world, yes, airports are supposed to pay for themselves through landing charges, retail, etc.

In many countries, airports are privately owned and operated and make a profit. The US is, perhaps, a bit unusual in that airports are owned by governments and often subsidised.

[AmpsterMan]

Honestly though, you see a strong movement, especially on the right, to privatize and have those perks "pay for themselves" all the time. I've been to many state parks that require an entry fee, many city parks that require a parking fee (and are impossible to get to ootherwise). School vouchers are a first step toward full privatization of schooling.

I agree with your sentiment but let's not forget that people have been trying to fence off the commons for ages now.

[yurishimo]

> There's no reason your CEO or office shouldn't foot part of the bill to transport you into work.

This is how it works in the Netherlands. Transportation to and from work is required to be paid by the employer, and importantly, the employee gets to decide how they commute.

If I want to take the train from the other side of the country everyday, my employer needs to foot the bill. With a subscription, this is around €350/month for a 2nd class ticket. If I want to drive, the company must pay the kilometer rate set by the government.

To help control costs, some employers may offer company cars to employees, but in my experience it is mostly used as an employment benefit and a tax write-off. Both parties save on the tax burden while the employee also gets access to cheap and reliable transportation.

If the US implemented a requirement to reimburse employees for their travel to and from work, the amount of public infrastructure would explode.

The average commute is about 20 miles; 40 x 40 cents = $16/day (there and back). $80/week or $320 per month for an employee that lives, on average, pretty close to where they work.

A unlimited pass for the Dallas TX public transit system is $192/mo. So an employer could save 50% of the transportation costs by encouraging employees to ride the light-rail and the bus.

Unfortunately, we all know that there's a lot more that goes into incentivizing people to use public transportation. Walkable destinations, sidewalks, mixed zoning, etc etc all play into the decision, but if 3000 people are lining up to outside the same bus stop every day, some business is going to open up nearby to take advantage of the increased foot traffic.

To bring this back around, forcing employers to pay for transportation is a good way to incentivize public transit by making the companies goals in line with that of the municipality. If the city has better public transportation infrastructure, everybody wins!

[MandieD]

The 49 EUR/month ticket in Germany covers all local transit, and you can generally piece together regional trains to get across the country if you’re patient, but it doesn’t cover the InterCity Express, InterCity, or some long-distance regional trains.

So it’s a good way not to worry about how Berlin transit pricing works if you’ve already have a Deutschlandticket to cover a Nuremberg-area commute, but getting to Berlin from Nuremberg still requires an ICE ticket… or a lot of patience.

[blkhawk]

I agree - takes almost 3 times as long than with an ICE.

It might be interesting to people that if you buy early enough the prices get stupidly cheap. I bought a ticket in march for May and the ticket for a Nuremberg - Frankfurt ICE would have only cost me 12,90EUR. I splurged for 1st class (instead of just seat reservation) at 22,90EUR.

So if you say visit Germany by plane you are probably booking that early as well - do yourself a favor and just book a couple of train trips early as well. That way you can save on car rental for a couple of days. The website to buy train tickets at is bahn.de

[MandieD]

Price orientation for those of you who don't regularly use German trains: the impulse buy price for me for this route today, a BahnCard 50 holder, is 35.50 EUR, while it would be 71.00 EUR without the annual discount card, which is expensive enough that it only makes sense for people who live here and use long-distance trains a fair bit.

[tshaddox]

> Another thing while I’m at it - how much does your car, insurance, gas, maintenance, tires, and other things cost? How much money per month are you paying to pay for the roads and highways?

Not to mention the driver’s costs are artificially reduced because they benefits from externalities that are distributed across everyone, particularly pollution and climate change. Driving would be a tad more expensive if you had to pay for carbon sequestration for every gallon of gas you burn.

[lotsoweiners]

Even better would be if office workers whose jobs can be done from home could fill out paperwork to pass along that carbon sequestration to their employer when they are required to come into the office. Why let the companies that are responsible for all of the transport and traffic off the hook?

[ericmay]

Very neat idea. I think if employers were required to realize economic impacts of commutes they’d be a lot more open and judicious about who they require to come in to the office. Being able to effectively price in the cost of the commute and potentially saving money via tax credits or something is cool.

On the other hand this presents a bit of a problem for, say, Boeing or Honda or Caterpillar who require workers to physically be present. I guess you could argue well then they should figure it out, but that probably results in private transit infrastructure and company towns and those probably aren’t a good path either.

One thing that kind of sits in the back of my mind is that you can effectively create a rat race about going to the office since ostensibly the C-suite team will have the company pay for their commute and then so on and so on as more people demand the company privilege of being able to go to the office.