Hopefully Belgium will do the same: “Dutch government considering cuts to public transport cost in response to energy crisis”

No let us not hope they do this.
Let us hope instead they stop trying to privatise the public transport and realise that the governement should be a service provider

I really don’t believe fare price is the prohibitive factor in Belgium for people to use public transport instead of a car.

A lot of people don’t have decent access to public transport. I doubt this will make many people suddenly use public transport.

So the effect would be a discount for the people that already dont use oil.

Nothing is free. So that would come from taxes. Resulting in either lower quality in other government responsibilities(lower pensions?) or higher taxes.

Yeah, now would be a great time to restructure the wage-cost (both for employers and employees)by removing this idiotic idea of the company car as one of the few viable ways for a employers to raise an employees wage without raising the taxed level too much.

Hopefully in a coherent and well-thaught-out- way (it is belgium so its level impossible). And reinvest in the degrading public transport.

Just my opinion i suppose.

Sadly, Belgium seems obsessed with punishing the poor.

I’m in Tasmania now and public transport is free here. I was surprised how quickly they implemented it. 

Unpopular opinion:

I hope the Flemish government does **not** do this, and the reason is very simple: the Flemish government ever since NVA took a dominant position in the government in 2014 has been actively working every step of the way to dismantle De Lijn piece by piece.

It first started with consistent budget cuts (after accounting for inflation). Then it continued with opening the door to having private companies operating certain bus lines. Then we got this new definition of “basisbereikbaarheid” which completely gutted the need for providing bus service in more rural areas and had it switch entirely to an on demand system which only works if you’re retired and have all day to schedule your trips around the inconsistency of the on demand system.

And when people who work for De Lijn complained about all of this that it made their job increasingly impossible, the Flemish government responded with

>Private companies don’t complain, they find solutions. We recommend De Lijn also focuses on finding solutions instead of complaining otherwise we might have to look into having the system privatized entirely

Cutting fairs now will not lead to a compensation from the Flemish government whatsoever, they’ll just use this as the next step in their “starve the beast” strategy of De Lijn so that they eventually can point and say “it doesn’t work, privatize it”.

I feel for people who are struggling due to the energy crisis, but cutting public transit costs at this moment will only mean our public transit will struggle even more than it already is and in the long term will be incredibly detrimental. It would have ramifications long beyond this current temporary crisis.

Ecolo tried to ask for this and is simply being backlashed to hell.

Good idea but I think lowering taxes on millionaires and large business owners is a much better idea. Maybe throw in something for those poor second and third homeowners too.

This money would be far better spent IMPROVING public transport rather than making the existing offer more affordable – which, when you look at our neighbours, it absolutely already is. SNCB could use a Belgium-wide ticket but that’s not exactly about commuting.

We need public transport that’s more reliable and more often. And yes as others have said, we could cut the company cars and use that money too, now’s the perfect moment

> government considering cuts to public transport ~~cost~~ in response to energy crisis

There you go. I’ve got the Flemish government version.

NVA:

“Considering cuts to public transport” Real shit?

“costs” I sleep.

Fuck no, NVA is so close to their ultimate goal of privatising public transport