From BZ/dpa
The reintroduction of the Berlin-wide 29-euro ticket promised by the black-red Senate would cost between 250 and 335 million euros per year.
This emerges from a response from the Senate Transport Administration to a request from the Greens MP Oda Hassepass, which the German Press Agency has received. The expected costs are dependent on specific implementation details, it says.
Alternatively, the costs for a cheaper Germany ticket for 29 instead of 49 euros for groups such as trainees, senior citizens and students would probably be around 27 to 50 million euros annually. That would be a tenth of the cost of the 29-euro ticket for everyone in the AB fare zone. The daily newspaper “taz” (Friday) reported about it first.
Hassepass, transport policy spokeswoman for the Greens, criticized that the 29-euro ticket made no sense. It remains the case that neither the Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg (VBB) nor the state of Brandenburg showed any sympathy for Berlin’s extra sausage. Both would have to agree to a 29-euro ticket. It remains to be seen whether the Senate plans can be realized at all. In the end, no one was helped by the collective bargaining war between Berlin and its partners.
“Berlin is hanging out”
“Socially and economically, it would be right to quickly implement the reduction of the Germany ticket to 29 euros for certain users,” said Hassepass of the German Press Agency. “People who would particularly benefit from a cheap Germany ticket are left hanging in Berlin by the SPD and CDU. Other cities are leading the way, Berlin is lagging behind.”
The traffic policy spokesman for the left-wing faction, Kristian Ronneburg, agreed with the criticism: “The figures from the Senate clearly show that the CDU and SPD are on a traffic and financial policy ghost trip with the 29-euro ticket for the AB area,” said he the “taz”.
He pointed out that Berlin would have to co-finance the nationwide 49-euro ticket regardless of its own special tickets with 271 million euros per year provided for in the budget draft. From his point of view, it would therefore be wiser to start with a targeted discount on the 49-euro ticket “instead of using a separate subscription to ensure that the tickets cannibalize each other”.
During the election campaign, the SPD spoke out in favor of the 29-euro ticket for everyone, while the CDU advocated a similar model. Finance Senator Stefan Evers emphasized at the end of May that the reintroduction of the 29-euro ticket for everyone had been firmly agreed. He did not give a specific time for this. The traffic administration is also covered in the answers to the Greens’ request for details of the 29-euro ticket or the status of the negotiations with the VBB.
The black-red Senate wants to finance climate protection measures with a special fund of initially five billion euros. The cost of the 29-euro ticket could also be financed from the pot.