Public transport in Poland has not had a good political streak for decades. 10 years of neglecting the subject have led to a situation where, having overtaken a nation as loving motorization as the Italians, we became the second most motorised state of the European Union. It's not fiction. Last year, the home of Ferrari, Bugatti or Lambo vehicles was overtaken by a country for which the adventure with its own motorization associated with the installation of Lanos on Żeran, after their erstwhile dismantling in Slovenia. Many years of neglecting public transport led a number of travellers to their own cars, resulting in more and more public transport being only those who were termed pejoratively "less resourceful". Instigating something between contempt and policy users of increasingly underfunded regional buses dreamed only to get to their own "cinquecento in gas", which was kind of natural if after school in the method school it was sometimes essential to wait an hr and a half for transport...
However, for any time now, the public debate has been calling for the following: "This will not continue." There are a number of factors involved. On the 1 hand, there are actually immense areas of the country where the car is simply essential for life.
Two courses on the cross, only on school days, mean that basically, in order to get anything, you gotta go by car – doctor, pharmacy, any authoritative matters.
Transport exclusion as a subject has become fashionable in its own way. On the another hand, it is simply a desire to improve the quality of life in cities. Bottom-up movements, indicating very different aspects of the “motorisation” – the fight for the anticipation of entering the school locker area (because the bubble breaks its feet on the stairs), the elimination of green areas for road and parking lots, the derision of drivers who organize races for a 4th mile – besides contribute to publicising the request to make meaningful collective transport. Against this background, political forces are perfectly average and rational to manage the subject in any way. I only regret that this "management" of the subject takes place in a very shallow dimension.
Of course, politics screams from billboards, and does not work in focus in a laboratory, but it would be good if the billboard slogans found their support in any deeper thought. In the meantime, only catchy slogans about how 1 should introduce 1 and specified a ticket that will cost that much, that's all.
Instead of a factual discussion on social needs, there is an auction for publishing – in fact very depressing.
Ticket to (almost) everything
The fact that this thought is nothing more than a calculus of solutions that are being introduced more widely in countries that have a higher level of public transport than we do adds to the added flavour. It is precisely unreflective – I dare to usage this word – monkeying Austrians, Germans or Hungarians makes the offer grotesque.
Because the actual value of the "bill for everything" depends not on the price, but on what this "all" is. Our “all” unfortunately looks poor.
Because, in any large cities, urban transport is at a decent level: investment is visible, but besides the level of offer that follows. However, this image can change diametrically on the horn: the place of the air-conditioned jointers, available to people with disabilities, occupy buses of a very different standard, whose connections with any public organization end in an authoritative stamp on the applicable paper of the politician or marshal.
Therefore, the basic question raised by all average individual after proceeding the thought of "a ticket for everything" concerns this "all". Will “all” besides include the bus station Grójec, which is delivered to Wilanowska metro station? Will it besides include Bus-Brothers, carrying people of Sprinters from Katowice to Cieszynski Silesia? Will you be able to get to Janów Podlaski? Or the Comanca? Or more than erstwhile a day?
It is worth mentioning about a kind of divided personality: the proposed ticket – which is again the carbon of the German solution – would not cover long-distance trains. Why do I talk of this as “the divided personality”? This is the central power that would "provide" 2 different things in 2 different transport subsystems. On the 1 hand, the Ministry of Infrastructure would ‘offer’ long-distance trains (which is the organiser who orders and co-finances) on the another hand, to ‘offer’ a transport ticket which it does not organise. It looks something like this:
The actions proposed by the majority of political forces in the form of a "bill on (almost) everything" for a small higher or a small lower amount actually have small to do with any thoughtful and rational transport policy.
Such a ticket can, at most, reduce the financial stream which is obtained from the marketplace by the public transport sector, nothing more.
Can it be expected that, in the current state of offer, individual will control to public transport just due to the fact that they will be offered a (some) joint ticket? On the 1 hand, we have truly well-filled transportation courses (to Warsaw from Siedlec or Skierniewic; to Wrocław from Legnica and Wałbrzych; to Krakow from Trzebina and Bochnia...), on the another hand we have full areas of the country where public transport is limited almost exclusively to school courses. In the first case, it will be hard to get fresh customers, due to the fact that already present close to fill the warehouses, in the second 1 too, after all, who will get on the ticket, on the basis of which it will arrive at the most to the center of its county, and on selected days.
At most, the consequence will be that those who buy (some) more costly tickets present will "sit" for a common ticket, and those who pay little will alternatively stay with their erstwhile ticket.
Let's face it, even the fewer who commute by bus or train, in the avalanche most of the afternoon activities are served by driving. The car goes shopping, the car drives the kid to karate, the car goes for a weekend day off... Although it is possible to see an chance here (on the rule of “rest from the car”), but again – on 1 pole we have Bieszczady, so far distant that it is impossible to even return on the same day, on the another – a broken bus to Polanica-Zdrój, to which they were incapable to get even to the difficulties of the Scouts.
Finally, there are those who drive cars today. I bet dollars against nuts that almost all of them will proceed to drive cars. In the vast majority of cases, the choice of specified a means of transport alternatively than another means of transport is not dictated by the deficiency of 1 or another "common" ticket, and the fact that public transport, in the eyes of these people, appears to be a weaker or much weaker alternate to mobility.
Finally, the issue of political convenience remains. This component is highly crucial and – you can get the impression – completely overlooked. This omission is profoundly intellectual – it is convenient for politicians to ignore it.
Don't notice. How much better is it: “We will give you a ticket for 30 zlotys” than “We will make 3 percent of the journeys carried out by cars present on trains, trams and buses”.
The second is dangerously approaching the question of what percent of the journey is carried out by political promises, public transport – let us add, more mundane than Pendolino to the Village.
Text prepared by the Institute of civilian Affairs under the task "Institute of civilian Affairs – we think, act, change" financed by the National Institute of Freedom – Centre for the improvement of civilian Society from the civilian Organization improvement Programme for 2018–2030.
