Germany considers free public transport in fight to banish air pollution
Poor idea.<p>1) It will have an enormous cost. TfL in London collects £5bn&#x2F;yr in fare revenue. While fares are lower in Berlin and it&#x27;s a less busy system, it will still probably cost €500mn&#x2F;yr for Berlin alone.<p>2) Most people driving are not doing it because they cannot afford public transit fares. They are either wanting a more &#x27;luxurious&#x27; environment, can&#x27;t get where they are going easily on public transit, etc. I&#x27;m not convinced it would actually induce much demand on the system <i>from car drivers</i>.<p>3) It may induce a load of demand from non-car drivers, who can now do a load more trips, longer commutes, etc.<p>4) Most public transit systems are at peak capacity in rush hour. In London if you switched everyone who was driving to public transit you&#x27;d need to double the capacity to do so. Considering crossrail is being built for ~£20bn to increase capacity 10%, you&#x27;d probably be needing to spend hundreds of billions of euro on capacity upgrades.<p>Much better to actually tax the diesel cars properly for the externality cost rather than do some other policy which doesn&#x27;t directly address the issue.