Germany Lowers Cost Of Rail Tickets To Get People To Take The Train And Stop Sea Rise

Who pays for this? The tickets are either vastly over-priced or the government will have to allocate the lost money, meaning, taxpayers still pay

Germany OKs Cheaper Train Tickets in Plan to Lower Emissions

Germany’s upper house of parliament has approved a plan to make rail travel cheaper as part of a package of measures to combat climate change.

The decision Friday by the chamber representing Germany’s 16 states will reduce value-added tax on train tickets, making them about 10% cheaper starting Jan. 1.

The German government hopes that cutting rail prices will encourage more people to use trains, thereby helping reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases.

Rail travel in Germany, where much of the track is electrified, produces significantly less carbon dioxide per passenger kilometer (mile) than conventional road transport. The country has a well-developed rail network with high-speed connections between most major cities and to neighboring countries.

Deutsche Bahn, the main rail operator in Germany, expects passenger numbers to increase by 5 million a year as a result of the VAT cut.

A lot of people aren’t taking the train because it is inconvenient. It’s a lot easier for them to jump in their fossil fueled vehicles for longer trips, rather than waiting around, getting on a crowded, smelly train, taking longer than driving, then having to get from the train station to wherever you are going. It can work well on a small scale, like in NYC, DC, London, and others. Other cities? Not so. Much. Trying to take a bus to work would take me at least an hour. I can drive there in less than 20 minutes.

And then there’s Democrat/Warmist run Virginia

Virginia announces big plans for cleaner transportation, economy

In two separate announcements, Virginia leaders introduced plans yesterday to dramatically improve and expand the state’s rail network and legislation to cut the state’s carbon emissions by encouraging energy efficiency, rooftop solar, and joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

The rail agreement between Virginia, Amtrak, and freight rail provider CSX includes doubling capacity at a notorious bottleneck and the state taking ownership of hundreds of miles of track and rail right-of-way to facilitate expanded service. A key component of the initiative will be much more frequent passenger rail service between Richmond and D.C., which is projected to reduce traffic and vehicle emissions on the notoriously clogged stretch of I-95 between the two capitals. By comparison, a recent Virginia analysis found that adding new lanes to I-95 would be prohibitively expensive and do very little to address rush-hour congestion.

Another stretch of rail right-of-way to be acquired by Virginia could host high speed rail from Richmond to Raleigh, while an additional rail line to be acquired could be a key component of a new east-west rail service SELC proposed in a report we co-authored in September.

“Transportation is Virginia’s leading source of climate pollution,” said Trip Pollard, SELC’s Land & Community Program leader. “We’ve got to provide cleaner transportation options, and this agreement is a bold effort that could transform rail in Virginia, cutting pollution while also reducing congestion.”

Well, good luck getting riders. Though, I’d love it if the plan between Richmond and D.C. would work. Extend it to Baltimore. Because traffic on 95 during the day stinks. It is always backed up from about an hour south of DC to just north of Baltimore. It makes a car trip that should take 7.5 hours take 9. But, will people take the train? And why are we moving back to the 19th Century for the climate cult?

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41 Responses to “Germany Lowers Cost Of Rail Tickets To Get People To Take The Train And Stop Sea Rise”

  1. Elwood P. Dowd says:

    Why would TEACH criticize Germany for reducing taxes? Perhaps his denialism of global warming and his worship of Trumpism has driven him crazy.

    They are lowering the Value Added Tax (VAT).

    The decision Friday by the chamber representing Germany’s 16 states will reduce value-added tax on train tickets, making them about 10% cheaper starting Jan. 1.

    Meanwhile. In America, Congress (Dems and Repubs), repealed billions in taxes and added monopoly extensions, tabled “surprised billing” and cost cutting on pharmaceuticals, all to reward the health care industries. Every policy enacted rewards America’s wealthy at the expense of the working classes. The system is broken; same as it ever was.

    • John says:

      99% of American corporations pay no federal tax
      America was great when taxes were high
      Make America great again

      • formwiz says:

        No, America was great when there were few taxes.

        • John says:

          When was that ? In what century ?
          You mean before there were roads ?
          When we were allowed to own slaves ?

          • Kye says:

            The 16th amendment established the federal income tax in 1913. There were no slaves. However you keep wanting to go back to the 30’s,40’s, 50’s and 60’s when taxes were high and the Democrats had Jim Crow laws, abused blacks, and hated Jews. Oh, that’s right they still hate Jews. You want to go back to two World Wars and the costs in lives and treasure that precipitated those high tax rates. You want to enslave the American people to your economic agenda. It’s been tried and it failed. Try looking forward rather than backward and see what freedom to earn, spend, build and live as one wants can be the real benefit to Americans and humanity.

            The old days of Democrats owning slaves or denying blacks and others their God given rights are over. You don’t own other people John and you are not entitled to tax away what they worked hard for. You sound like a common thief who wants the government to do the actual stealing for him.

      • Jl says:

        No so, John. Many times the tax code taxes those who receive money from corporations rather than the corporations themselves. https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/08/16/two-thirds-of-us-corporations-dont-pay-federal-income-tax-true-but-horribly-misleading/#77eed3ad67b1

    • Jl says:

      Not totally true-America’s policy of hardly taxing the lower income groups at all as far as the federal income tax is concerned, favors……. the lower income groups

    • formwiz says:

      Maybe because it’s a gimmick to get people to ride the train in the name of the phony climate scam and not any indication of profitability.

      Meanwhile. In America, Congress (Dems and Repubs), repealed billions in taxes and added monopoly extensions

      Cutting taxes is what put people back to work, but you want everybody on welfare, don’t you?

      tabled “surprised billing” and cost cutting on pharmaceuticals, all to reward the health care industries.

      That was your boy, Zippy, doing stuff like that.

      Every policy enacted rewards America’s wealthy at the expense of the working classes.

      Funny how the working classes will be on the Trump train next year.

      • John says:

        America was great when people were not too lazy to walk to the bus stop
        Under trump the unemployment rate has fallen 1.5%
        Deficits under Trump are recorded breaking
        Is that conservative financial planning ?
        The Dow has gone up about 2% in the last 2 years and that only because the Fed has the currency printers going at max speed
        What happened to Trumps promise of high
        GNP?

  2. John says:

    America was great when we had the best trains on the planet
    Make America great again
    The reason that Amtrak loses money is because the senators in middle America (flyover country) will not fund it unless their are trains going through their states
    Amtrak is profitable on both coasts
    Teach Germany is planning on cutting their ticket prices 10%
    How could you believe that this would in any way indicate that the tickets are “vastly over priced”????
    Taking a commuter bus should take no longer than driving a car, even less if they have dedicated lanes

    • Dana says:

      John epitomizes liberal ‘logic’:

      The reason that Amtrak loses money is because the senators in middle America (flyover country) will not fund it unless their (sic) are trains going through their states

      Uhhh, if the government has to fund it then it is losing money, period. The only way Amtrak can be considered as having made money is if its fares and outside advertising brings in more money than its capital outlays and operating costs.

      • formwiz says:

        If it is losing money, then it’s adding to the debt.

        I thought Bolshevik Bunny and the rest of his cartoon characters wanted the debt reduced. /sarc

      • John says:

        The bigger problem is that operating the cross country trains that the red states senators demand
        Do you think that Billings MT needs Amtrak service ?
        Amtrak can not cut its unprofitable lines
        It should be able to do that

      • John says:

        Amtrak goes bring in more money on its coastal routes
        It is not allowed to cut its routes that life money
        Does Bernie trigger nightmare gir you ?
        Try warm milk before bed
        Dana weren’t you a deficit hawk when we had a black POTUS
        What has changed ?

        • formwiz says:

          Bernie? He’s a joke. A slug who never held a job until he was 40.

          Dana weren’t you a deficit hawk when we had a black POTUS

          Jeffery, were you a deficit hawk when we had a halfa cracka PUS?

          • Elwood P. Dowd says:

            Sibley, sorry, not familiar with whatever language you’re grunting.

            Something about the debt?

        • Dana says:

          I’m still a deficit hawk, and have criticized President Trump’s tax cut due to that.

          • Kye says:

            We could instantly eliminate the annual deficit simply by taxing all registered Democrat Communists at the rate they believe is correct: 90%.

            If John and the rest are correct their lives should be greatly improved and they will be living proof that high taxes makes America great again by living the lie.

          • Elwood P. Dowd says:

            Kye,

            The problem with your plot is that there is no such thing as a registered Democrat Communist.

            Aren’t you a registered Republic White Nationalist?

      • John says:

        I take public transportation 95% of the time
        Sone weeks I do not drive my car at all
        Train tickets in Germany are already quite reasonably priced
        Pick 2 cities in Germany and check if youlike but don’t gob off without already knowing that train ticket prices are cheap
        Google departful for more info on German train tickets
        They are also much faster than ours up to 200mph forthe best
        Must are about 100mph
        That would be about 1 hour New York to Boston or DC in one hour

        • formwiz says:

          Swell. Go to Germany and spend the rest of your life riding the train.

        • gitarcarver says:

          I take public transportation 95% of the time

          In all those times you don’t see cars passing you bus regularly as it sits at a stop picking up or discharging passengers?

          How much is your fare subsidized by taxpayer funds? Why are you riding on our dime?

          Your knowledge of mass transportation is not great John.

          But you do seem to fit into the idea that you hate the US transportation system which is another example of all the left having is hate.

    • Dana says:

      John wrote:

      Taking a commuter bus should take no longer than driving a car, even less if they have dedicated lanes

      That is only true if the commuter bus stop is right outside of your home, and its terminal stop is right outside of your workplace.

      • John says:

        America was great when people were not too lazy to walk to the bus stop

        • gitarcarver says:

          Taking a commuter bus should take no longer than driving a car, even less if they have dedicated lanes

          Talk about idiocy and a lack of awareness.

          A bus has to stop every block or every few blocks. While it is stopped, the cars drive past it and on their merry way. As Dana noted, the only way the times are similar is if the bus stops at your door and stops at your work.

          America was great when people were not too lazy to walk to the bus stop

          Well, you would know about lazy, John, living in your mother’s basement as you do.

          The fact is that many bus lines (not companies – the lines they travel) are not profitable and require tax money. Back in the day, mass transit companies were private entities and were profitable. They remained that way until government regulations on routes, times, fares, etc stepped in. You won’t find many privately owned mass transit companies around anymore.

          America was great when government stayed out of the way but as the left hates freedom, they want more regulation.

          After all, all the left has is hate.

        • formwiz says:

          Ever depend on public transportation?

          You see a lot of fat people waiting.

      • Kye says:

        And if the commuter buses don’t make 20 stops like the commuter trains do.

    • formwiz says:

      America was great when we had the best trains on the planet
      Make America great again

      Like CA’s train to nowhere? We were great when there were no trains.

      And we still have lots of trains hauling freight. People want to go faster, so they use planes or in their own time, so the use cars.

      A bit behind the times, aren’t we?

      Teach Germany is planning on cutting their ticket prices 10%

      I see the new talking points are out.

      How could you believe that this would in any way indicate that the tickets are “vastly over priced”????

      Maybe because nobody takes the train?

      Taking a commuter bus should take no longer than driving a car, even less if they have dedicated lanes

      Says the one who obviously never took one.

    • Jl says:

      “America was great before….”. Oh, my. Another assertion without any proof. John, why don’t you provide your proof?

  3. Dana says:

    One thing about European trains: they are pretty good. The train stations, at least in Italy, are almost as bad as airports, but they system is good.

    American leftists just love the European rail transportation system, but they have simply assumed that what works in Europe will also work here. We had passenger rail in the United States, and it failed, because Americans chose automobile and air travel instead. We now have Amtrak, which works between the major cities in the northeast due to the dense population, but once you get away from the Washington to Boston corridor, things don’t work as well.

    Here in the Bluegrass State, you might, with plenty of subsidies, make an Amtrak train work between Lexington, Frankfort (the state capital) and Louisville, but that’s about it. And even that’s doubtful, because people would still have to take their automobiles to the train station, and then hire a taxi at the destination station, to get where they wanted to go. That’s why passenger trains dies out in the US once the interstate highway system was built! It’s door-to-door, not station-to-station.

  4. formwiz says:

    Sibley, sorry, not familiar with whatever language you’re grunting.

    Something about the debt?

    Not just a river in Egypt, huh?

    The problem with your plot is that there is no such thing as a registered Democrat Communist.

    Of course, there is. Buttpeg, Zippy, f’rinstance.

    Aren’t you a registered Republic White Nationalist?

    If you mean a white person who puts America First. What other kind is there?

    And weren’t all those white people who made up the Democrat party for 200 years Democrat White Nationalists? Y’know like Woody Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Willie Whitewater.

    • Elwood P. Dowd says:

      Sorry Sibley, but I don’t speak white supremacist.

      • Kye says:

        You’re too busy speaking communist globalist. Besides you hate white people that’s why you want to eliminate them by bringing in tens of millions of non-whites. I guess that makes you a brown supremacist. Oh, and an Islamophile, since they, like you, hate Christians and Jews.

        Trump 2020 Keep the Christian haters in Iraq

        • Elwood P. Dowd says:

          Kye,

          You should read our Constitution sometime! It doesn’t promote a white, Christian nation but quite specifically promotes the ideal of discouraging your kind of religious bigotry.

          It’s hardly non-whites “brought in” who threaten your privilege and terrify you, it’s non-whites already here and their future children.

          Your fear and anger is understandable from what we’ve learned of your beliefs, although you’re confused at what “supremacist” means. A dominant group ALWAYS feels discriminated against when the oppressed groups demand equality. Whether Black civil rights, women’s equality, Jewish existence, LGBT equal rights – now white male, hetero-, Christian conservatives feel under attack and are defending their “legacy”. And The Don is their champion. So yes, to you and your tribe, anyone defending the civil rights of Blacks, women, LGBT, non-Christians, immigrants is a threat to your unearned dominance.

          You and your tribe believe that the differential expression of genes involved in melanin synthesis confers some inherent superiority, but there’s no evidence to support this. After all, even you are descended from our dark-skinned ancestors of Africa.

          https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/melanin-pigment-definition-meaning-skin-color.html

  5. formwiz says:

    After all, all the freedom hating, rapidly deteriorating gitarcarver has is hate.

    Funny how everybody who shows how wrong you are and what a blowhard you are only has hate.

    More like truth.

    The hate’s all yours.

  6. formwiz says:

    You should read our Constitution sometime! It doesn’t promote a white, Christian nation but quite specifically promotes the ideal of discouraging your kind of religious bigotry.

    sounds like you ought to read it instead, buttplug. It promotes religious liberty and most scholars will tell you it really is intended as an endorsement of a Christian nation/

    It’s hardly non-whites “brought in” who threaten your privilege and terrify you, it’s non-whites already here and their future children.

    No, it is on the imported Hispanics and Moslems who were promised a life on welfare in exchange for a vote for the Democrat party.

    ICYMI most Hispanics here legally don’t like the illegals anymore than Kye does. That’s Trump’s support from Hispanics is at about 3/8.

    Your fear and anger is understandable from what we’ve learned of your beliefs, although you’re confused at what “supremacist” means. A dominant group ALWAYS feels discriminated against when the oppressed groups demand equality.

    Well, if we’re talking supremacist, that’s your crowd. They think they’re entitled to control Congress, the courts, and the state houses.

    People like you are the ones who are afraid. You might not get your spot as gauleiter somewhere if the Americans take power.

    Whether Black civil rights, women’s equality, Jewish existence, LGBT equal rights – now white male, hetero-, Christian conservatives feel under attack and are defending their “legacy”

    You do realize you’d have none of that if not for all those white male, hetero-, Christian Conservatives who were tolerant enough to let them have their peice of the pie in the face of the Lefty aristocracy.

    anyone defending the civil rights of Blacks, women, LGBT, non-Christians, immigrants is a threat to your unearned dominance.

    Unearned? That’s a hot one.

    There wouldn’t be a country, much less a hemisphere, for you to ruin if it weren’t for the white men who discovered it, colonized it, settled it, fought for it, and created a system where even losers like you can live well.

    You know you could go back to Africa and hang with all the homies any time you want. I’m sure a collection here would get you air fare.

    You and your tribe believe that the differential expression of genes involved in melanin synthesis confers some inherent superiority, but there’s no evidence to support this. After all, even you are descended from our dark-skinned ancestors of Africa.

    I don’t think so. The Bible puts the Garden of Eden in the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, that’s white folks country.

    If, as some suggest, there were humans on this continent before the last ice age, it means they evolved independently of the Great Rift Valley. So there’s nothing to preclude we evolved independently from you.

    Which makes sense, since we developed civilization and you were still in tribal villages of mud huts a century to go.

    Which also explains all your hatred. We really are superior. Your crowd is still having tribal wars, even in St Lou.

    • Elwood P. Dowd says:

      You’re rarely worthy of response, but you take your anthropology from the bible?

      That’s a hoot!

      Buh bye

      • formwiz says:

        No, I take anthropology from anthropology and anthropology says there may have truly been “Native Americans”, people who evolved independently and may have died off in the sixth extinction.

        I take evidence of the Garden of Eden from satellite photos saying it’s right where the Bible say it is and Aryan man may well have developed there.

        But, then, your concept of “science” is the real hoot

        And, since we’re here, if I’m rarely worthy of response, why do you do it all the time?

  7. Kye says:

    “anyone defending the civil rights of Blacks, women, LGBT, non-Christians, immigrants is a threat to your unearned dominance.”

    My “unearned dominance”? You’re kidding, right? My family has been here since 1752 and we’ve fought the Indians, the French and finally the British for our “dominance”. We have also fought in every war since the Revolution and that includes me personally. My “dominance” was earned in blood, sweat and tears and flooding my country with millions of colored people because you hate your own race and the country we “dominant” people built you want to equalize others without them putting in the work.

    For some reason it’s fine if Japan is only for Japanese, if Arabia is only Mohammadans, if Somalia is only blacks but God forbid a white nation exists THEN it’s racist and “white supremacy”. I call bullshit. Our country has always been one of the most “diverse” on earth but since it’s predominantly white that’s just not good enough. You want whites to be “put in their place” but we’ve already proved that aside from being the most advanced, intelligent and innovative people on earth we’re also the best warriors. For some reason you haters have decided we white folks who built this country don’t deserve to keep it. If it comes to war we will once again prove how wrong you are.

    Just to show you how full of hate for America you leftists are:
    https://youtu.be/nt-oD4JBmkI

    Trump 2020 Keep America strong.

  8. Professor Hale says:

    All passenger trains in the world lose money. Globally, passengers are simply unwilling to pay the full cost of carrying their bodies from place to place. So government always subsidizes it. In Virginia, the subsidies mostly come from the gasoline tax fund that could easily pay for two more lanes on I-95, if it were not stolen every year to pay for trains.

    The Virginia Railway express is one example. It runs from Fredericksburg to DC just for Rush hour each way. It is packed full to capacity, pays nothing to maintain the rails it uses and still losses money on every passenger they carry. Freight rail subsidizes them by maintaining the rails. Each county with a train platform pays the rail with tax dollars. But on top of that, it would still have no passengers if the federal government and large corporations did not offer transit subsidies to buy the tickets.

    So, lowering taxes on rail tickets is just a gesture. The German government is already underwriting the operation of German passengers. The current argument is just about how much.

    What Virginia needs is a new Interstate connecting the DC beltway to the Richmond Beltway. Parallel to I-95 and about ten miles away. But we will never get it because transportation politicians are currently in love with building toll roads and shifting highway funds to rails that only serve a few suburbs around DC.

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