[comrade1234]

Nice pass. Would be perfect for my wife and I since we don't commute for work. There is something similar here in Switzerland but not as good.

Funny fact: there are cities here that have tried to make public transport free. But the constitution says public transport must have a "reasonable charge". It's obvious that law was created to not overcharge but the courts have ruled that it also means that there can't be no charge. So no free public transport.

[wavemode]

My understanding of that ruling is that, the intent of the constitutional clause is not only to prevent ticket prices from being raised unfairly, but also to prevent ticket prices from being so low that they no longer cover the cost of running the network, which would shift that cost to the general taxpayer.

Still frustrating (if the taxpayers want it, might as well let them have it), but not purely a semantic technicality.

[KeplerBoy]

Public transport is not sustainable from ticket prices alone anywhere in Europe.

[stephen_g]

Neither is road infrastructure basically anywhere in the world... Here in Australia we have a fuel tax and each state has registration fees but combined those don't even cover half of what is spent by Government and local councils maintaining existing roads and investing in new road infrastructure, and that's before even thinking of the hidden costs of traffic enforcement, ambulances responding to accidents, etc.

It's the same case for basically everywhere around the world, driving ends up being quite heavily subsidised too.

[pjerem]

True for local lines of everyday transportation. But actually high speed trains are sustainable, at least in France.

But also they are super expensive.

[geraltofrivia]

Prohibitively expensive! A 1.5h train ride from paris can set me back more than 100EUR some times.

[throw-the-towel]

Just out of curiosity, are these the lines to Bretagne/Normandy? I find the prices on southbound rail lines to be more reasonable, about 60 EUR for a couple hours on the train if you're buying the day before your trip.

[andrepd]

That's a bold assertion.

Never mind that you know what's also not "sustainable", if the definition means "costs > revenues"? Automobile roads :)

[TheOtherHobbes]

The fossil fuel industry gets a global subsidy of $7tn a year if you include implicit costs, on top of $3tn year in revenue.

Worrying about train fares seems a little petty in comparison.

[crote]

Citation needed.

Public transport in larger cities is generally profitable as the seats are well-filled. Commercial companies pay the government for the privilege of being allowed to operate the services.

Public transport is indeed not very profitable in rural areas, as you're running a bunch of mostly-empty buses in order to provide the bare minimum of usable connectivity. The companies operating them are paid by the government to do so.

Besides, it is myopic to look solely at ticket prices. Roads are incredibly unprofitable as their maintenance costs far exceed the tiny amount of money brought in by vehicle taxes and fuel duties. But we're okay with that because the added value to the economy more than compensates for that! Lose money on road building, make money by taxing the companies who drive the trucks sustaining their businesses over them. Why not take the same approach with public transport?

[KeplerBoy]

Full seats don't mean much revenue in the cities I frequent. In Vienna for example the ticket for the whole year was 365€ until very recently. Now I live in a smaller city where it's 280€ per year for residents.

I love it and I am perfectly happy with my taxes subsidizing this for others but there's no way they're making money off this.

[sigmoid10]

Does the Swiss rail not receive public funding? It seems to me that undercharging would only necessitate more public funding, not some fundamental change where taxpayers suddenly have to pay for something they didn't before.

[CalRobert]

Are the city streets tolled?

[test1235]

having a nominal charge would probably lead to less abuse of the system, and any contribution to the upkeep/maintenance would be welcome, I'd imagine

[AndrewDucker]

What kind of abuse are you thinking of?

[cromka]

Ecological? You can be sure companies would somehow exploit ut for their services. It should cost at least enough to cover the energy expenses.

[vel0city]

If the train was going to run regardless, and there isn't that high of a demand on this level of off-peak, adding the weight of a person or two is practically nothing to the rolling of the train.

[pocksuppet]

i've seen this argument before, normally they're talking about homeless people sleeping on trains or in stations

[wahern]

Homeless are the most visible, but perhaps not the biggest issue. See, e.g., the problem with public toilets: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/02/1248664709/-public-good-why-i...

> JOHN COCHRANE: I think the activists who wanted toilet equity did not imagine the solution would be no toilet or a fight with businesses over who's going to be able to use the toilet.

> [...]

> BERAS: Without that incentive, Nik-O-Lok was right. The free public toilets were overrun with people who had to go or people abusing drugs or having sex. Cities were changing. In lots of places, they struggled to fund and maintain public places. With no income from the toilets, taking care of them was harder than ever. Cities couldn't deal. Eventually, they closed them or let them fall into disrepair. The pay toilets may have been flawed, but they served a purpose that no public or private entity has been able to effectively fill since. John says this is a classic tale of a price control, when the government imposes a price.

I think the case for at least allowing nominal payments for toilets is pretty strong. Anything that is free either requires significant and expensive oversight to mitigate anti-social behaviors, or a society that has equivalent anti-social checks baked into the culture (which the U.S. definitely does not have). We should aspire to ubiqitous free toilets, free transit, etc, but there's an infinite number of things people want to be free, or at least subsidized. The public has to pick & choose and allocate its resources wisely.

Note that almost everywhere in the U.S., transit is strongly subsidized and often effectively free for the most in need, but it might require some legwork. In SF where it's quite trivial to get this subsidy (https://treasurer.sf.gov/economicjustice/sfmta-transit-disco...) people still balk at the requirement, though I think the people who complain the most are the ones far too wealthy to have to worry about these things. Some government programs, especially Federal programs, have onerous application and reporting requirements specifically designed to dissuade use, but individual transit subsidies aren't generally structured this way. In SF and to a lesser degree California, there are armies of people paid to hold people's hand through these processes (mostly for Federal and Federally subsidized programs, as many state and especially local programs tend to be very low friction).

[CalRobert]

I love paying a euro for the toilet in Europe and getting one that 1) actually works and 2) isn't utterly vile.

[asdff]

Always funny to me how people try and put laws on things for homeless people when the ills people are worried about with homeless people are already illegal but not being enforced. E.g., "we must charge for transit, to keep homeless people off as they could smoke meth on the platform." Never mind smoking meth on the platform is already illegal. Never mind that it isn't getting enforced. Never mind that this lack of enforcement on meth usage suggests farebox enforcement isn't going to suddenly out prioritize meth usage enforcement and be successful to combat meth usage in some round a bout way.

It ends up being about the optics of politicians getting to advertise that they are doing "something" and never mind if it works or not, because the people clamoring the loudest, angry suburban whites usually, aren't even the ones using these systems to begin with. They are told in their propaganda bubbles that these systems are dangerous rather than experiencing it with their own eyes and making any conclusion. They demand action for a system they will never use. After whatever action passes they don't become users either, the goalposts move to some other slight or ill that is really a proxy for "I don't feel safe around black or brown people."

[CalRobert]

This has crossed my mind for other things too, like immigration.

People say they don't want immigrants because of crime (whether that's a reasonable concern is a different topic entirely), but it presupposes that laws against crime aren't enforced. If we had stricter law enforcement would people worry about (immigrants, the homeless, etc.) less?

[quickthrowman]

Switzerland (2.5 per 10,000) has just under an order of magnitude less homelessness per capita than the US (19.5 per 10,000)

[andrepd]

On the other hand, no charges mean you can get rid of a lot of cruft: no tickets, no gates/turnstiles, no machines, no payments, no paperwork thereof, no ticket inspectors, etc etc. So in fact having 0 charge is unequivocally better than having a residual charge.

In other words: charge price = cost, or don't charge at all and get funded by public revenue.

[bluGill]

In every city I know of, the fares for public transit more than pays for the cost of collecting. Also, in every city I'm aware of, even the ones with high transit ridership (Tokyo), there is lots of room for adding more transit and getting even more people on, but money is lacking to do that.

I'm also aware of no place where people who use transit to consider cost one of the major barriers to using it more. The barrier, even for the poorest people, is almost always not cause, but the service just doesn't meet their needs. Which is to say most transit systems need to raise their fares a little more and use that extra money to give people the service they actually want.

[greggoB]

I wasn't aware of that fun fact - I always just assumed it was down to the "personal responsibility" mindset ("people must pay for what they use").

Have the courts also said anything about the charge being super low, e.g. like a CHF 1 per month abo or such? I wonder if that would be a way around those rulings.

[milesvp]

That sort of begs the question about elevators and escalators. I’ve never been charged riding those, and I can’t imagine fares tacked on in Switzerland. Have they been ruled on? An elevator in a public building is very much public transport.

I know it’s stupid, but I’m genuinely curious now.

[halestock]

Presumably there would be a legal definition of what constitutes public transport, and I would expect it wouldn't include those. But I'm neither swiss nor do I speak any swiss languages so hell if I could find it.

[close04]

> An elevator in a public building is very much public transport.

Every country defines what counts as public transport - it could be a snowmobile, a boat, or a helicopter if needed. The simple definition of "transports people in a public place" would cover a lot of funny things as public transport, like a carousel in a playground.

[ivanjermakov]

Free public transport routes worldwide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_public_transport_...

[euroderf]

What's the largest-value coin in circulation ? Charge one of those. Drop a coin in the gumball machine, get a token.

[ivanbakel]

Is this a knowing joke? Switzerland's largest (very much in both senses) coin is 5Fr, around 6 USD. Not a token amount by any means, though it wouldn't even cover most public transport journeys in cities.

[euroderf]

Oh wow, that bites. No, it was not a "knowing joke". Just a failure to anticipate Swiss ways.

[bottle_roket]

The trains can still charge, but what if the government pays the tab automatically?

[Vaslo]

People who use it more really should contribute something vs those who never use it.

[pocksuppet]

Should people who use roads more contribute something vs those who don't?

[KeplerBoy]

Yes and they do in many jurisdictations. In Austria gas tax is used for road maintenance, on top of that there are tolls for highways.

[JumpCrisscross]

Yes. This was the original intent behind the gasoline tax.

[gib444]

Personally, I find no charge very, very reasonable lol