It is striking to consider a proposal that directly challenges the convenience of modern air travel by suggesting that every flight ticket should come with a mandatory fee to subsidize our railways.
Straffico has launched a popular initiative called the “Mobility Voucher Initiative,” which aims to introduce a minimum CHF30 tax on air tickets and a steeper levy on private jets to fund public transport expansion. This plan relies on the “polluter pays” principle, with the expectation that the resulting revenue would generate roughly CHF1.5 billion annually to be distributed as public transport vouchers to the vast majority of citizens, while only frequent flyers and premium travelers would see a net cost.
Given that recent surveys indicate two-thirds of the Swiss population supports this shift away from flying, it raises an intriguing question for the rest of the world: if a nation can successfully align its climate goals with a system that financially rewards its citizens for choosing trains over planes, could other countries adopt a similar model to decarbonize their own transport sectors without relying solely on regulation?
My rebuttal would be apply road tax to all those driving in CH. Mostly wherever one can drive in ch, one can also take public transport (may not be equally as convenient as driving).
CH is land locked and flights are necessary. A 3 hour driving radius from zurich (example) only gets as far a milan, strasbourg and some places in Germany and Austria.
Enforcing flight tax and subsidizing something else … may be i might want what they are smoking this long weekend. The jury is still out on that the smoking part
That’s why I mentioned the transfer passengers. Short flights bring people here for intercontinental flights. Without that people, some direct flights from Zurich to far places would not be profitable anymore.
I don’t see the EU sharing the love with this proposal. Taxing EU residents to fund subsidies for CH residents won’t appear to be in the spirit of the Bilateral accords. Of course they couldn’t stop it, but they could reciprocate.
Projected gains suggested by the proponents are rarely realistic.
My biggest concern is the second part. While I agree with taxing flights (since airlines don’t pay VAT nor tax on kerosene), the money should not be used for subsidies, but simply paid back to the population. CO2 tax can be used as example (reimbursed through health insurance premiums).
That is not completely accurate. Swiss does pay VAT on kerosene used domestically but does not on fuel exported from Switzerland. The Chicago Convention 1945 provides that any taxes imposed internationally be used solely to support aviation infrastructure.
I was freelance living in ZH & often worked multiple single days for different clients in GVA. I would often finish work at 21.00 or later then have to drive from GVA to ZH or the other way round. I drove about 50,000 km a year, most of that commuting to work. Really not possible with a train
I understand and also feel for ya. Also not knowing your personal (permit?) situation, I cant comment on why you did not get a residence inbetween GVA and ZRH. But that’s another situation.
I knew a guy who drove daily from Berner oberland to ZRH and back - He wanted to maintain his residence in Ktn Bern so he could apply for his CH citizenship.
There will always be corner cases.
What you are describing is not how ‘normal’ (swiss) people do. Locality is a big thing here.
Charging the airlines to subsidize the train system is not the answer. My vote is on chraging the drivers to subsidize train system.
They were single day bookings, one off for about 6 Geneva companies. I did have a studio apartment in Chamonix that I sometimes stayed in if I had no bookings in ZH. I ended up sleeping on the floor in GVA when I got a 1 day a week GE booking for 10 weeks (Thursdays) with a start time of 07.30.
It all depends when the shoot would finish in ZH the night before, working till midnight or beyond was not unusual in both ZH & GVA so actually getting to the station after the last train would not be unusual.
My longest ‘day’ in GVA was 08.00 till 1400 the following day, that was a low budget music video!
After 10 PM there is no reasonable train services. If we go to Zurich for a concert, play, evening out the last train is at 22:04. The next at 22:32 is an 8h3m journey with multiple changes, including a 4 hour wait in Martigny arriving at 06h35
Travelling from Geneva the las reasonable connection leaves at 21h37.
Thats why I always had to drive, if a shoot finished at 20.30, then you can assume about 1 hour to clear the equipment so no time to get to Geneva main station for 21.37 with a call time in Zurich of 08.00 the following day.
Train is faster (city to city) than flying for a lot of journeys.
We had friends who were going to come here from London to go skiing but the flight out of London was cancelled due to fog.
I told them to jump on the train. They were only a few hours later than if they had flown.
There are plans for a direct train (no changes) from Zurich to London (going via Belgium rather than Paris).
That will be a game changer as long as it’s not too expensive.
Sounds all good in theory. As much as I like trains, realistically they still lack a lot of comfort that is offered by airlines.
Define ‘a lot’. In many cases, the main station is also not your final start and destination. Additionally, the more changes you have, the higher potential of a missed connection. Another point is comfort of booking a trip. Yes, there are travel agents who will book train rides through multiples countries. Still, it adds to the price. And train companies don’t guarantee the connections if your travel agents had to book multiple tickets.
Yes, if things so wrong, it’s good to have an alternative. Still, are your friends now dumping the plane to Switzerland and plan their future trips by train?
Yes, plans. My opinion: this will never materialize, the complexity of UK passport and immigration check for a train station such as Zurich far outweighs the benefits.
If they did this passengers could only join the train at Zurich and nowhere (without UK controls) in between. So a Zurich Berne Brussels Calais London service couldn’t board a Berne-Brussels passenger. And a passenger going Zurich Calais would have to do UK checks. The passport checks would have to be done at the last station before arriving in the UK or at the first UK station.
I would challenge that. It’s changed over the years.
Where a decade ago, I would have agreed with you (when I moved to Aargau, my team were shocked that it would take me 30 mins by car or 1hr by trains to get to the office) - now, it’s much more normal.
About a third of our team lives >1hr from the office. We have people commuting regularly from Bern, Basel, Lausanne (to Zurich).
At my clients, I know of people coming (albeit not every day) from Lugano to Zurich…
