Daily Loaf

On the relative cheapness of travelling.

A point was raised today on a mailing list I subscribe to but seldom comment on, the Academic Elitists, which piqued my interest - possibly because I was so busy with the daily humdrum of attending calls, dispatching mails, invoicing, helping some poor guy who was doing robot installations at our new factory get his car towed after it had broken down some miles away from 'downtown', that I needed something completely different.

Markus pointed out the attention Markus Drake's latest venture into freeriding had gotten in Helsingin Sanomat, and how he felt Drake's political integrity was waivering by not standing by his acts - essentially denying that he had anything to do with this peculiar act of economic subversion, a sophisticated, web-enabled form of thievery. I felt much the same; if you're going to endorse crime, then do it openly, like you've done it before!

The whole demand for free public transportation is absurd from a national perspective. Just how fair would it be towards those students living in, say, Haapajärvi, whose scant income in the form of study grants from the government does allow them to pay the lower rents, but leaves them wanting at the end of the month because they have to own a car to get anywhere in a town where 5 kilometers is practically next door?

I'm all for public transportation, but just like any other service or good, it does have a price and I don't see why it should be subsidised so heavily as to make its consumer price null. This would generate more demand, granted, but if the higher income classes are already driving their cars to work and elsewhere anyway, a lower price will increase demand very little. If we're going to prioritise spending in big cities like Helsinki, already struggling with budget deficits, let's keep the money in education and healthcare, both of which enable social mobility.

Just as a side remark, by my quick and dirty math we're only paying about half the real cost of transportation whenever we pay for our tickets or monthly passes - those of us that DO pay, that is - and that's without capital expenses, which are pretty steep in a rail-dependent city like Helsinki!

My father once did the math for car ownership, given a middle-size family saloon, purchased new and traded in after 5 years at 150 000 km. The result: back then, 50 000 FIM, running and capital costs included. And some people really have no alternative, if they choose to have a job. Suckle on that, Markus Drake.