Would you trade your car for a lifetime public transport pass?

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By Tim Beissmann | July 18th, 2011

Would you give up your car for a lifetime public transport pass?

This is the question confronting the residents of Murcia, Spain as the local government looks for innovative ways to reduce congestion and emissions and encourage the use of its new tram system.

Residents in the southern coastal city were invited to take advantage of the ‘everlasting tram ticket for clunkers’ program last month.

The cars needed to be in working order and had to be registered to be eligible for the scheme.

There are no statistics on how popular the swap scheme has been so far, although the government is understood to be happy with the take-up rate.

The government has been proactive in its efforts to reduce emissions from the region’s car fleet. In April 2010, early EV adopters were offered up to 6000 euros ($8000) in rebates as the government sought to have 2000 electric cars on the road by the end of the year. Less than 20 were sold in the first three months, leading to the phase out of the scheme.

To give the current tram swap system a better chance, the government ran a creative campaign to keep it in the public’s mind.

Cars have been stacked on top of each other to highlight the inconvenience of finding a parking spot, while another initiative has seen local mechanics remove a part from scrapped vehicles positioned prominently around the city for each message that is left on the program’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

Clearly the scheme will be most attractive to people who drive a battler of a car and those who plan to live in the city for a good portion of their lives.

What do you think? Would you give up your car for a public transport gold pass? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000229920376 Stevo Terry

Only if it included taxis.
scottjames_12

You’re probably not going to get a very unbiased set of responses on a car website! I for one though like the creativity of the idea and the interesting ways they went about promoting it.

Now if we could just get decent public transport where I live in Perth!
http://Frosty Hicks

As the current public transport system stands in Australia. No chance in hell. You couldn’t even pay me.

Like our roads in Australia, our public transport is woefully inadequate and still living in the 1980s.

http://Nissan Kazuo

our public transport scale is 30 years behind other developed countries.and julliard trying to convienc us to catch it

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1435885244 Yani Hendriawan

no
charger

Depending on your circumstances its a very clever idea! although i dont think it could ever work here as our transport systems and vast distances etc are very different to Europe.
Wd

The enjoyment of driving is too much to give up!! I would like a lot of other people (Toyota drivers mainly) to give uptheir cars for public transport though.
F1MotoGP

I would. Average car cost min $125pw or $6500pa. Fuel with 15Tkm pa $1.45 a liter and 9 l/100km cost nearly $2000pa, service $400pa, insurance $500pa and a $26000 car loose around $3600pa in value. In 20 years with 4% inflation is min $162,000 but your car maybe won’t last 20 years or service is much higher. Fuel in 20y will be around $4.50. I did not calculate parking, maybe speeding fine…etc I think for me is a good deal.

Bold

It is not really a money issue I think. There are plenty of people now live in urban area who don’t drive from mon to fri, but they still own a car because public transportation out side of peak hours are hopeless.

paulb

In Perth an Eastern Suburb rail was promised last state poll.Now canned 2030,for Ellenbrook.
Not even worth thinking about unless public transport was reliable enough.Maby a bigger city with better public transport.
Jacob

Just make public transport free.

We already pay for it with taxes and fares, just make it “free”, and more people will use it.
Mark

Of course i would as you don’t have to give up cars just trade a crap one in for an unlimited pass!
Pauly

I own a car, but it stays in the garage Mon – Fri, as I’m close to a train station to get into work.

Not everyone is this lucky.
HJP

No. Victorian government has to address our appalling public transport system, particularly the trains.
Tom

In a city like London, Hong Kong, or New York with excellent public transport, I would consider this. In any Australian city, not a chance.
http://www.facebook.com/priusfreezone Matthew Werner

If I lived in Europe with good public transport, I’d consider it. Depends on how far you can go with that transport ie can I go to visit friends / family in another city?

In Australia? No chance, they’ll have to pry my car keys from my dead hands.
IfItAintARotorItAintAMotor

Personally, I think this is a great idea…for someone else. Personally, no god damn way. Driving to/from work puts me in a good mood. But I think that could work wonders for peak hour traffic. But as has been mentioned before, service would need to be picked up, to ALL parts of all cities. And the buses/trains etc., themselves would need to be much nicer. Thats half the reason I drive everywhere on weekends too, I’d prefer to pay for parking in the city than catch a bus/train there…
IfItAintARotorItAintAMotor

I think this is a great idea…for someone else. For me, no god damn way. Driving to/from work puts me in a good mood. But I think that could work wonders for peak hour traffic. But as has been mentioned before, service would need to be picked up, to ALL parts of all cities. And the buses/trains etc., themselves would need to be much nicer. Thats half the reason I drive everywhere on weekends too, I’d prefer to pay for parking in the city than catch a bus/train there…
TKs@ck

No way in Australia that we will accept this idea, especially in Sydney where public transport gets you nowhere and you need a PhD to figure out how to get to your destination which usually involves 3 to 4 transfers. Too damn hard!
Tim

Not in Australia!!!
http://about.me/sharynmunrova Sharyn

I would in a second if there was a decent public transport system. If I needed to drive any distance, or had things to do that needed a car I could still hire a car or take a taxi.

As it stands at the moment though, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than having to rely on the hit & miss Brisbane public transport system.
Shak

I would most definitely trade my car in, but only if all our public transport was integrated properly and ran up to the second on time. In saying that though, the current system isn’t as bad as people make it out to be. Our trains in particular run on time and are generally graffiti free, but the same cannot be said for our buses.
darkone

yeah right like that will work in WA.things here are so spread out and decent public transport only covers about 100km from perth to mandurah.you would be better off buying a bicycle.
Al Juraj

Yes, bring it on! I just love 30-year old trains that get delayed all the time, sardined of B.O. flavour, topped with uncouth, mindless bastards, plus suspensionless trams and buses with reckless drivers.

Sure I would, right when speed limits in Oz are no more!
Bomber

Our cities and in particular our suburbs are not designed to be able to give up a car entirely.
If you live in an apartment in the city near shops and schools it’s definitely possible.
If you live in the suburbs and have a young family it would be extremely difficult. Grocery shopping and taking sick kids to the doctor are just a couple of things I can think of that would very challenging. Besides that, a car gives you independence.
I do like the idea of communities that are designed to lessen the reliance on cars though.
Peanut

Rip up all the train lines and make them into Motorways.
Remove all the bike and bus lanes and return them to the cars.
Public Transport sucks. Mainly beacuse you have to share it with the umm…… public.

Salt and Vinegar Chips

Hmm.

Peanut by name, peanut by nature…

Andrew Juma

In a word, NO.
Wayne Kerr

Only if they construct those human transport suction tubes like in Futurama. That could be more fun than driving.