The university city of T\u00fcbingen, in southwest Germany, is testing free public transportation for all residents. Two weeks ago, the city began a two-year pilot project using its own funds to provide free rides on Saturdays.<\/p>\n
For seven years, local authorities have been trying to provide unlimited public transport, free at the point of access, for a flat 15-euro monthly tax for all residents, Mayor Boris Palmer explained. To do so would require a change in law.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already have a decent system in T\u00fcbingen, with 89,000 inhabitants and 20 million rides a year,\u201d explained Palmer, who doesn\u2019t own a car. \u201cOne in three people uses public transport regularly; a third sometimes; and we are looking at the third that never uses it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you ask them, they don\u2019t know how the system works and are not prepared to pay 5 euros when they have a car in the garage and can \u2018do it free.\u2019 In attracting these people, the price barrier is very important.\u201d<\/p>\n
The aim in T\u00fcbingen, he says, is twofold: to lower emissions and reduce travel costs for people on low incomes. A municipal memo reportedly put the cost of zero-fee public transport for all at 14.5 million euros ($18 million).<\/p>\n
There is a proposal to test free public transport in four other cities in Germany, which faces EU fines for breaking air pollution laws.<\/p>\n
So, could this simple \u2014 but costly \u2014 measure work for other cities, using free buses, trams and trains to help cut private car use, reduce emissions and make cities less congested and more livable? The question takes on more urgency in Europe, where the European Commission found in November 2017 that 400,000 citizens die prematurely every year due to poor air quality.<\/p>\n
Estonia\u2019s capital city, Tallinn, introduced fareless public transport for residents in 2013, although people from outside the city and tourists must still pay. Allan Alak\u00fcla, head of the Tallinn EU office and official spokesman for the project, says that five years later, \u201cno one seriously thinks it can be reversed.\u201d There are 140 million trips a year, the vast majority by Tallinn\u2019s 450,000 residents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The university city of T\u00fcbingen, in southwest Germany, is testing free public transportation for all residents. Two weeks ago, the city began a two-year pilot project using its own funds to provide free rides on Saturdays. For seven years, local authorities have been trying to provide unlimited public transport, free at the point of access, … Continue reading “Cities In Germany and Estonia Are Offering Free Public Transport To Their Residents”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[59,58],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impact","tag-estonia","tag-impact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ampforwp.com\/demo\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}