Why we need all the encouragement we can get to use public transportation
Reenforcing his commitment to helping out crisis-hit families and reducing the country’s carbon footprint, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced on Tuesday that short and medium distance train journeys in the country will be free of charge for four months from September.
The initiative — which goes a step further than Germany’s €9 a-month rail travel introduced for three months in June — may end up becoming a permanent measure; a radical refocusing of the functionality of public transportation as an essential service for city dwellers, financed by the taxes its inhabitants and those living in dormitory towns pay.
The goal is for more and more countries to move on from the idea that a rich country is not one where the poor can afford to travel by car, but one in which the wealthy want to use public transportation. Working to achieve varied and quality public transportation is one of the most important and difficult challenges we face, but that will contribute the most to the quality of urban life.
The experiments with free public transportation carried out in cities such as the Estonian capital Tallinn, in Luxembourg, Dunkirk or a growing list of French cities for several years prove that the approach works, and that making it easier to getting on a train, bus…
