I think that’s the main reason people use cars, convenience. When husband was working I guess he could have used public transport, but would have been been a walk down to the bus stop, bus to train station, train then another bus to nearest point to his workplace and then maybe another walk. Compare that to getting into the car, driving to work, getting out of the car. Also using public transport would have added to his journey time with his 2nd job. It was an hour by car so didn’t really want to make it even longer by another hour to hour and a half each way.
Also think of the convenience for shopping. We usually have 3-4 bags for our weekly shop and wouldn’t want to try and carry those on/off buses/trains.
Maybe if we lived in a big city with lots of shops around then public transport would be okay, but living out in a village that doesn’t even have a general store now means not having a car would be a real pain.
Agree, we shop by car. Possible to do it buy bus but rather than a 10 minute drive it would be two buses via Nyon over 45 minutes. Or a 30 minute walk to another bus stop.
Well, if you own a car … by default you are already paying for insurance / taxes for it. Besides the garage service costs (which are up for debate) … you just pay for gas … which is cheaper for 2 + people than going by train.
Shopping is more easier (especially outside CH) / VAT back in Germany the same vs the train station thing.
Even with the half card for 2 people is cheaper to go by car than train
Don’t think we can even get to the shops we use regularly by public transport as there’s no train/bus stop nearby. We’d have to switch to the ones in the city, but even there they’re a fair distance apart so would have to walk from one to the other carrying bags before heading back to the train station to get the bus home.
It’s always an interesting topic. Overall, most people who have a car have it for reasons other than to ‘compete’ with public transport (shopping, family ‘uber’, entsorgung etc). So those sunk costs are… sunk. Per trip costs are more interesting. One person in the car, with parking, fuel and added Kms is still, unfortunately, generally cheaper than the train, and 4 people in the car is no contest. But… I’ll pick the train if I’m on my own and the costs are not much different and other factors apply, like having a drink or wanting to be in a city centre or doing a bike ride/hike which isn’t circular.
For me it’s a convenience issue. You can definitely live here without a car, and we have many friends that do, including people with young families.
But if you’re going to have a car for one reason or the next, then yes marginal trips become so much easier, and for families cost effective. Walking with two toddlers in weather to the nearest bus stop, while on a timeline to get that specific tram and then that specific train. Don’t want to deal with it at all. In the same way I guess that friends of mine don’t want to deal with insuring and taxing and servicing and parking a car. Fair enough.
And when doing cost calculations is all about the mental math. Do I charge the car to “work” because I commute in it? Do I split all trips equally and just charge per Km? Whatever makes everybody happier or allows them to justify their choices better. But public transport is quite expensive here, and yes the quality is there, but if you’re an occasional user it’s eye watering. Halbtax helps for sure, and if you get a super-saver it gets better, but somehow I think that public transport should be cheaper, regardless of the mental math for any other mode of travel. In Athens you get a massively expansive public transport network, that connects pretty much every place in a massive area, not in the best quality, but effectively at the end of the day, and it is fractions of the cost for a 1h ticket within the admittedly small city of Zurich. Obviously different levels of service and subsidies, but that’s the background that probably makes me think that public transport should be a lot cheaper.
Cars are not rational. The calculation shared in the article prove it:
Once someone has decided to buy a car and has insured it, the marginal cost of driving it is fuel. Train travel, by comparison, has a high marginal cost, unless you buy an all-you-can eat pass. However, most don’t use the network enough or travel far enough to warrant buying one of these passes. So CHF 20 of fuel wins over two train tickets at CHF 25.
A few things missing:
Depreciation is not explicitly mentioned.
Parking cost is not mentioned at all.
Maintenance costs must be covered by angels because not considered too.
The extra travel the car allows since it’s easier. It leads to higher expenses but this is precisely the reason we got the car. Because we’re not limited to the public transport offer.
Public transport is awesome provided you leave your place by 6h00 and are back by 20h00. Anything outside that interval becomes much more complicate. I remember going to German courses from 19h30 to 21h00. The way back home got longer because reduced service, frequent disruptions due to maintenance works at that time. Also, if you’re a worker bee with a Mo-Fr,or even Sa schedule…I have very bad news for you: the Sunday, that free day of the week, that day public transport offer is reduced.
Going a bit on the cynic side, public transport is perfect if people only goes to the village industrial site and business places . Forget about improving your life with night courses or seeing something beyond the boundaries of your village. Don’t drink, don’t smoke and buy at Migros, be a good worker!
There’s a mix of things. I prefer to travel by train, but it has to be convenient, which covers ~70% of Switzerland I guess, and not too crowded. I’ve recently moved farther away from Zurich and I witnessed how crowded public transport is in the morning. I prefer to pay even 5x more for the commute to avoid such crowd. You can cope with crowd for a few minutes when you commute inside the city or from the suburbs, but not for half an hour or longer.