Cheap Transit Plan
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To Fight its Gas Crisis, Germany Proposes a New Cheap Transit Plan / Bloomberg
Last May, Germany experiment with an all-use-can-use mass-transit plan that cost just 9 euros and allowed those on the plan to use all regional and urban buses, trains, trams, and subways as much as they wanted from June through August.
This three-month plan was an incredible success in terms of use (52 million were sold and 20% of them were bought by folks who didn’t typically use mass-transit) and reduction of emissions (it saved about 1.8 million tons of CO2 equivalent emissions), but less so in terms of money: it cost the government about 2.5 billion euros in lost fares.
The German government is now trying to figure out if they can capture some of the benefits of that experimental plan within the context of something more financially sustainable.
There’s a proposal on the books that would create a similar all-you-can-use ticket that would cost somewhere between 49 and 69 euros per month. At these price points, the government would still be out something like 1.5 billion euros annually, but that cost would be thought of as part of their larger effort to hit carbon neutrality by mid-century.
Other countries (like Spain, France, and Luxembourg, among others) are in the process of trying out similar plans.
Also: Bhutan issues tender for 17.3 MW solar park
If you’re enjoying Climate Happenings, you might also enjoy my other publications, One Sentence News and Brain Lenses.