Swiss voters had their say on Sunday on a set of ballots which went right down to the wire.
Summary
Swiss voters rejected a $5.6 billion (CHF 5 billion) motorway expansion plan (52.7%) and two proposals to ease eviction rules and tighten subletting controls (53.8% and 51.6%).
Environmental concerns and housing fairness were key to the opposition.
Meanwhile, a healthcare reform to standardize funding for outpatient and inpatient care narrowly passed (53.3%), marking a rare success for health policy changes.
The results highlight public resistance to certain government-backed initiatives.
Drove from Geneva to Lausanne the other day, the traffic was crawling the whole way. It was busy but not dreadfully so
Absolutely fuck all to do with the size of the motorway or the density of the traffic but 1000% the fault of the selfish, arrogant Geneva banker wankers in their Beamers and Mercs, hogging the fast lane and driving WAY too close to the car in front, causing tailbacks by braking too harshly
Start fining these cunts and making them take time off work to attend driving courses, that'll solve the entire motorway problem
Traffic flow would theoretically be smoother if everyone understood basic fluid dynamics concepts, but their selfishness would make that pointless because it would turn into "yes, I could go slower to make traffic go more smoothly for the people behind me, but fuck them! I gotta get my caramel white chocolate macchiato!"
Ok so you're west of me and not east of me, but we agree on the need for basic life skills in the curriculum here. How not to bounce a check and fluid dynamics.
Cd here. In my experience as a cyclist, VD and GE are least considerate on the small roads, but CD are worse on the highway, in cities and when it comes to parking.
If you don't take the train regularly it's also pretty fucking expensive. If you need to take the train more often there are options to buy a "subscription" so you only pay half price for the ticket or even one where you can ride all year for "free" but the threshold is pretty high.
It's not discouraging you to take them. You don't need a car in the country and a car is actually expensive (taxes, insurance, gas, etc.).
The public transport system in unified. One ticket is valid on all the transports. A pass is valid on all the means of transport, even some cable cars.
You can buy a pass for the country or for a local area.
I want to eat an ice-cream in Ticino because of the sun. I hope on the train and go there for the day. No congestion, no driving, nothing. Also, you don't need a reservation in long distance trains. It's like a metro system.
If you charge infrequent users of the system twice as much as frequent users of the system, they will be much less likely to even try the system and experience the perks you mention.
The system is okayish. The "pay half" thing pays off of you take the train once or twice a month depending on distance. The all you can ride is way more expensive and you really have to take the train almost daily, eg if you don't have a car. But both also include busses and even ships.
But I'm with you, I'd rather see public transport being cheaper. We have a car because we have kids and live on the country side. Doing everything by train or bus is simply not possible. But when I see people driving oldtimer or riding their motorbikes for fun at weekends I can't wrap my mind on why you still do that with todays knowledge.
One of my most radical opinions is that all cars should be blackboxed and outfitted with sensors for said blackbox. If the car honks or brakes too sharply, the sensor data is recorded a time prior to and after the event, and a police report is filed. If you want to un-file the police report, or report it as some sort of triviality, this should be done on the website of the traffic police, and is not guaranteed. This way, insignificant events have an out, and repeat "trivial" offenders can be statistically correlated and be fined or have their license revoked.
Whether your insurance company should know these stats... IDK. I know this entire idea is very surveillance-state, which I don't like. But I am really thoroughly bothered by how expensive, dangerous, and otherwise harmful motorism is to all of us.
Whether your insurance company should know these stats… IDK.
If this is the direction we're going in, definitely. It should also be available to your medical and life insurance companies because unsafe driving raises your blood pressure and therefore raises risk of a cardiac event in the long term (meaning you should have higher medical insurance premiums) + you have a higher risk of dying in a traffic accident, so they should be able to decline payouts for anything traffic related automatically.
Maybe also let financial institutions have access to stats here. People with unsafe driving records would get worse rates for everything because they're more likely to die and stop paying their debts, but in particular they'd get higher interest on their car payments because of the extra risk involved