The article from Le Temps discusses a proposal in the Swiss Parliament to increase the price of gasoline by 4 centimes per liter. The idea is that this small surcharge would help reduce traffic congestion on highways by discouraging excessive car use, while also generating funds to support infrastructure and public transport. The measure is gaining traction among lawmakers, though it raises debates about fairness, environmental impact, and the burden on drivers, especially those in rural areas who rely heavily on cars.
Would you personally support paying a little more for gasoline if it meant less congestion on highways and better investment in public transport, or do you feel this measure unfairly penalizes drivers who depend on their cars?
https://www.letemps.ch/suisse/payer-l-essence-4-centimes-plus-chere-pour-desengorger-les-autoroutes-l-idee-fait-son-chemin-au-parlement
Posted by peters-mith
40 Comments
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It won’t change anything, other than burden working people on middle to low income.
I would support a price increase, but not using that money to build more roads.
A price increase that goes to public transport, and/or offsets the various social measures we voted on however (13th AHV etc…) would get my vote.
come on let’s be realistic… nobody will be encouraged to drive less because of a 4 cents increase….
so people really think that if gasoline becomes 4 cents more expensive, people will drive less?
Ah yes, i use my car for hobby and unecerray use. Ah, i want to pay for public transportation AND a car so much, yes please you donkeys, increase the price.
We saw that even at 2chf/l people still went around with the car.
Just one more lane bro, trust me, that’ll fix everything. Induced demand is a thing.
Most people that use their car are ALLERGIC to public transport…They will tell you with a straight face taking the bus is soooooooo expensive will driving their car everywhere…Also my bus line literally cannot take more people during the heavy traffic hour because there’s not enough space in the bus so it’s not even a solution…
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Ok how about this: halve the GA price & watch the low & middle earners switch. I bet money there would be less traffic.
So they just want more money, like everywhere else. small amounts overtime.
Like the frog in boiling water.
Increase it by one franc and use the money to fix some of the massive issues caused by traffic thanks.
Nobody will be discouraged by this. The only thing this will do is to decrease the spending power of the lower and middle class.
what about making it cheaper and easier for commuters to use the öv instead?, how about make better öv connections in rural areas?, so that instead of taking 1,5 hours to get into the city it would go down to a similar time or lesser time than by car? How about incentivize öv instead of penalizing the ones that need a car or truck for work, think about all the trade-workers that need their Vans for work ?….
This is again just a way to gather more money for whatever.
they should incentivise car pooling. all the cars during commute are empty
When they increase it car owners will cry a lot, but will continue to drive just as much as they did before. And then a few years later they buy an even bigger car.
Given the low price elasticity of demand for fuel, that’s a ridiculous statement
It is like taxes on tobacco. A raise of price will always trigger a much lower drop of demand.
It’s an easy way to milk taxpayers.
No, i dont like to reduce my wage. Cant take public transport so it would just hurt me. This would mainly affect the lower classes and countryside
anyone who supports this is a moron
What a joke. This is just another layer of tax that will do nothing to address chronic underinvestment in infrastructure that has made getting around in Switzerland a time consuming and insanely expensive ordeal.
In the end it’s impacting the poorer more than the rich for a problem mostly created by the rich.
Instead of all this nonsense regarding gas/cars/public transport they’d better make remote work mandatory for all work that is possible. All those people traveling to Zürich or Bern just to sit in large office buildings all day. Would be much better for the enviroment to not travel at all and make more space for those who actually need to touch and move stuff for work.
Just one more tax increase bro. It will fix everything.
– your local bank robber
No, because public transport is still more expensive and cumbersome for me. If it’s cheaper I’d use it.
Bro, this won’t affect the folks that are filling up the cars with premium gasoline.
These kinds of measures always make me wonder if people really think everyone with a car is just driving around frivolously and will stop if you make it incrementally more expensive. I have a car because of my work commute, and making fuel 0.04/L more expensive is not an incentive for me to quit my job or to move away from my home town where all my friends and family are. You’d have to double the price for it to make me reassess my living arrangement. Anyone who thinks 0.04/L will change anything obviously thinks we’re all just driving around for fun all the time.
It would be hard for those wh cannot oive without like technicians and craftsmen.
It is a new poor tax. The reach people doesn’t care of this change but the poor families will not able to go shopping to far distance or do a holiday with a car. So at the end it will only make the poorest more vulnerable and the reach people can enjoy the motorway freely.
Don’t rise it by 4 cents, but 4 francs! People will need to pay the true cost of this almost free energy, and rethink their way of life. Do I need to go to work on-site everyday? Should I take the bus/train, can I run my errands once week, instead of every other day, do I need this 300HP SUV, shouldn’t I turn off my car instead of idling? I can go on and on.
Suddenly, there will be no need for another lane.
What about e-vehicules, they use the same streets
Making cars more expensive -> yes, as external costs are not covered. Ideally you introduce road pricing which makes it more expensive to drive during rush hours
Subsidising public transport with the income -> not really, you are simply making mobility too cheap ending up with a lot of negative effects. The additional money from the motorists should be used to minimise external costs and (ideally) be given back to the people who are affected by external costs
Most comments and OP themselves got something wrong: the purpose of this tax is *not* to discourage car use. It is to gather money and finance highway extensions.
I would support this, but seriously what are the chances? It’s been merely one year since the Swiss citizen rejected exactly this in a national referendum…
Let’s say the fuel price will be increased.
Consequences?
1) people will continue to drive, because they need to drive.
2) they’ll have less disposable income, so they’ll reduce their expenses in other goods. It will cause loss of workplaces, loss of taxes for government, lowered quality of life.
Switzerland is too rich for such small price increases to have any meaningful impact.
People dont drive becuase it is cheap but because it is comfortable and they want to. Making fuel cost 3.- per liter would probably not even change habits by a bit. But it could subsidize public transport and other infrastructure projects.
instead of taking more money away from the citizen, they should expand the highway network and build it to 3 lane per direction spec.
Regressive tax – bad idea.
So we voted against more highways…and now they will build more highways…
“Sovereign” my butt!
Just like with the pension reform, the new fighter jets and mass immigration…
Try to ask real sovereigns 3-4 times the same question like the kings of Saudi Arabia or Brunei or go around their decisions and see what happens…
This is beyond stupid. Years ago the price was 1.30, now it’s around 1.70. Are there less cars? No, there are more. What makes these people think 4 cents more will make any difference whatsoever?
Right, price out the lower end to reduce usage. Brilliant
The expensive part of driving a car is not the fuel, but all the fixed costs, starting from the car itself, insurance, roadtax, garage, repairs, and so on. Once you have paid all that, the cost of fuel is not only negligible, you have the feeling that you have to use your car, since you have already paid so much.
It would be much better if fuel would cost much more, while fixed costs were reduced as much as possible.
Oh, and put a surcharge on fuel and use that to have subsidized public transport for low- and middle income families.
Now, that would decongest.
Currently it is so much cheaper to drive with my family than taking SBB. And we’d love to take the train instead of the car, but the economics just don’t give us a choice.