49-Euro Ticket Chatter

 There was a meeting this week in Germany of the Federal Transportation Minister, and the various state (16) Transportation Ministers.  Topic?  This 49-Euro a moth rail/bus pass.

There's a tremendous amount of hype existing....where people want a cheap public transportation 'deal'.  The meeting result?  They all seemed headed to a January start-up of a national 49-Euro monthly pass.

Chief problem?  Well....even if a third of society buys into this.....it won't be enough money to cover the real cost of running the bus and rail system, so the federal government will have kick in at least a billion or two.....to make this work.

Last night, for the late news on ARD (public TV, Channel One), they ran a simple segment on a 'one-horse' village in the middle of nowhere (Fischerhude, maybe a 12-mile piece east of Bremen).  

The mayor stood there at the one single bus stop for the town....looking at the schedule.  Sixteen buses arrive each day.....eight going one direction.....eight going the other direction.  

The 49-Euro ticket for these people is useless....they won't have the infrastructure to make it worth the deal.  That is the pit of woes that the ticket drags along.

I can drive 30 minutes north of where I live and it's more or less the same story....a very rural area of Hessen.....with marginal bus or rail service.  

I used to live in the K-Town area....in a village which had nine buses a day pass through.  If I rode a bike over to the next village....they had rail service....but only 10 trains passing south, and 10 trains passing north, per day.  On weekends, it'd go to seven trains passing each direction. 

Now, if you live in highly urbanized areas (like Frankfurt, Mainz, or Stuttgart)....the 49-Euro ticket would be terrific.  But is it priced right?  Presently, if you live in Mainz,  and want a monthly pass for the Mainz-to-Frankfurt situation....it's 199-Euro per month (adult price) for the full 30-day schedule.  So when you price this at 49-Euro.....you are subsidizing the urban situation by 150-Euro per person.  The rural guy?  He's not getting the same value.

Where is this leading to?  An unfairness scale.....where urban folks score more because of where they live and they soak up the tax revenue pot.