ARD put up a serious story on the Bahn system (the national railway network) today. The emphasis? A state of financial failure.
The German Federal Court of Auditors finally published fairly in depth piece and it's pretty critical on the German government.
Their hint is that for 25 years....there's been no real national plan or agenda for the Bahn.
Present debt by the Bahn? Twenty billion Euro.
Adding to the year by year mess....in this 25-year period, there's been barely any real rise in the number of people using it. The freight traffic? That has gone down by almost 20-percent over the same period.
The chief organization in the government holding the 'stick' over the Bahn? The Transportation Ministry. You can go through various coalition governments and find the same tendency.....a lot of talk, but no real path to controlling the debt or improving the mess.
Since 1978 when I first rode the German railway, I've come to three conclusions about the Bahn:
1. Between on-time service and reliability.....there's no network in Europe that matches their level of competence.
2. Cost-wise, it's relatively cheap.
3. In terms of safety, you find their efforts to be something that you can appreciate.
But if you take this debt thing, and the zero-plan situation serious...it leads to two serious issues which people don't want to face. First, tickets probably need to improve or rise by 50-percent, which would shock the hell out of most Germans. Second, most metropolitan areas with built-up tram and localized networks.....need to increase their cost level even more (probably another 50-percent rise).
For me, that one-way ticket in the Wiesbaden-Mainz region which runs 2.70 Euro? It probably ought to be closer to 3.70 Euro. This new 365 Euro a year ticket for kids (for school purposes)? It probably needs to be closer to 500 Euro a year.
So what will happen with the audit report? Nothing. None of the political parties have the guts to do anything over the Bahn, or the 20-billion in debt.
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