Tallin is often seen as the E-Capital. The capital of Estonia is leading the world in e-government, even having an “e-residency”. The rest of the country is also top in IT development. The available broadband width for citizens is higher then in most other countries even with Estonia having only one tenth of the population density of Germany.
Estonia is one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, despite(?) having all such “socialist” things as universal health care, free education, and the longest-paid maternity leave in the OECD. All that with only 1.3 million inhabitants.
Estonia’s capital Talllin has introduced free public transport for its citizens five years ago, and the government is now planning to make free public transport a nation-wide normality.
Costs?
Free public transport is often denounced as being too expensive. And while it is true that free means less fees and higher demand (which often means higher costs), this math does not include the external costs and profits.
Streets get less crowded by cars, which means less noise (noise makes sick = health cost), less pollution (again makes sick = health cost) and likely less costs for street construction and maintenance.
Also the money not put into fees does not magically disappear. It is still there, and Tallin is sure that it is put to good use.
They are simply going out more often for entertainment, to restaurants, bars and cinemas. Therefore they consume local goods and services and are likely to spend more money, more often. In the end this makes local businesses thrive. It breathes new life into the city.
It is like promotion of economic development, just with mountains less of bureaucracy, more democratically, more effective and based totally on the free will and market.
The socialist project is actually a libertarian wet dream.
Does your city offer any sort of free or at least subsidized public transport?
Its great steps by a country towards success.
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It will be certainly intersting in the future when the "it is impossible to do on big scale" and "it is way too expensive" cryers can just be countered by saying "Estonia".
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News like these should be spread and so I resteem this post in my blog for more to see. I wish every country's government was thinking the same way like the one in Estonia, which is promoting the public good for its citizens !
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They actually asked the people about it!!! (The one on Tallin). Can you believe that? Asking people on the best course for something they do daily and even if not affects them?
And they said yes! You cannot trust the people ;)
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Lol! Actually I believe that it's all about the ones having the power and management of the city showing respect and trust to regular people..
Have a nice day !
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I could imagine that cities of the future will have free high-speed internet and public transportation, with tax money pooled to enable movement of people and information with smaller friction than in a system where each individual has to provide for themselves.
In Tallinn the free public transportation did increase the mobility of people in lower incomes. However, it's perhaps also worth mentioning that the growth in the use of public transportation was not only by the expense of driving, but it also reduced walking and cycling.
Based on the experience in Tallinn it might be good to combine it with free public bicycle renting system.
I've visited Tallinn many times, warmly recommend others to do so as well.
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