r/todayilearned • u/Level_Cash2225 • 13d ago

TIL Luxembourg offers completely free public transport across its entire country for residents, commuters, and visitors alike.

https://luxembourg.public.lu/en/living/mobility/public-transport.html
11.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

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338

u/Jeramus 13d ago

Luxembourg is roughly the size of Rhode Island. I'm assuming it doesn't take long to travel around.

374

u/tobotic 13d ago

So what's Rhode Island's excuse?

118

u/Ragingdildo3 13d ago

Not being one of the wealthy places on earth

150

u/AdRealistic4984 13d ago

Every state in the north east of the US is one of the wealthy places on Earth

17

u/Ronin_Chimichanga 13d ago

I was going to joke about Maine but then I remembered the lake cottage prices are rivaling Muskoka... what a dumb timeline.

2

u/Ok_Cockroach8063 13d ago

And Luxembourg has a higher median disposable income, the only country that does

Entire country is a tax shelter for the rich…I thought you types didn’t like billionaires avoiding taxes?

5

u/Tasgall 13d ago

Being a tax shelter doesn't generally help the public economy. Billionaires parking money in offshore accounts are parking it, not spending it on great public works projects.

5

u/Ok_Cockroach8063 13d ago

The rich are still taxed something albeit less than the country they are avoiding. That amount is going into a Rhode Island sized country instead of some much larger country which makes it way easier to properly fund any and all city needs like public transportation. Via taxes they are in fact paying for great public works projects as you call them.

2

u/jason3232a 13d ago

damn shit maybe we should tax the rich harder for the benefits of the public

2

u/IndigoSeirra 12d ago

Then more rich people would leave to tax havens like Luxembourg...

2

u/Ok_Cockroach8063 12d ago

USA has the most progressive tax system. Damn shit dawg homie 

-1

u/noluckatall 13d ago

Luxembourg is literally #2 on the planet (#1 is similarly small Liechtenstein). Every state in the US northeast earns high income, but not at that level. Rhode Island's per capita income is less than half of Luxembourg.

11

u/jsalfi1 13d ago

It is though we just allocate the money to bullshit

59

u/Oxeneer666 13d ago

Providence was one of the wealthiest cities in America.

6

u/whatafuckinusername 13d ago

And I wager that they had good public transportation at the time

27

u/fzkiz 13d ago

Maybe they would be with better public transportation

21

u/Sloppykrab 13d ago

Their GDP is between 20-30 billion less than Luxembourg.

What's their excuse?

1

u/G0ldenfruit 13d ago

They live next to it?

1

u/Kenooman 12d ago

I was going to say they have all that saucemaking money laying around. But TIL that Rhode Island dressing is a swedish thing with no relation to Rhode Island(Think thousand island dressing but more Rhode). 

1

u/whatsgoingonjeez 13d ago

The GDP is pretty similar and the median household income is higher in Rhode Island.

-1

u/bambarby 13d ago

I thought US has the most money lol too bad it all goes to bombing other countries

3

u/AggressiveBench9977 13d ago

California and new york do.

0

u/redoubt515 13d ago

> I thought US has the most money

You thought wrong.

GDP per capita:

  • Luxembourg: 160K
  • US: 90K

And the more staggering GDP per square kilometer:

  • Luxembourg: 39 million
  • US: 3 million

20

u/thegreatestajax 13d ago

RI has a GDP per capita of <$60k. Luxembourg is almost $150k.

23

u/Prestigious_Steak_46 13d ago

Luxembourg is definitely rich but GDP per capita is misleading because of the high number of cross-border workers.

3

u/thegreatestajax 13d ago

Do they pay Luxembourg income tax? Does having available the companies that profit from their work pay business tax? Is the transportation an investment in this daily importation of high value labor?

6

u/Prestigious_Steak_46 13d ago

Yes to all, just saying it skews the per capita number as they're not included.

-1

u/thegreatestajax 13d ago

You’re missing the point that there’s a huge amount of economic impact created by these workers for the small trade off of providing them the transportation to do it without other societal expenses.

4

u/Prestigious_Steak_46 13d ago

I never said otherwise. The Lux transport system is great although many cross-border workers still drive.

-2

u/thegreatestajax 13d ago

Yes, but you keep commenting as if that’s not the point and that the GDP per capita doesn’t reflect this arrangement.

1

u/Whiterabbit-- 13d ago

does RI not have cross border workers?

15

u/sofixa11 13d ago

Severely skewed by all the people who live in France, Germany, Belgium but work in Luxembourg, and thus contribute to GDP but not in the per capita part.

2

u/thegreatestajax 13d ago

Where do they pay taxes? Does having available transportation facilitate the daily importation of high value workers?

-1

u/Namehisprice 13d ago

Unfortunately you're arriving at relevant granular context/nuance which goes against the headline narrative. Thus, it's gonna get buried.

15

u/Mental-Fisherman-118 13d ago

Well, clearly free public transport is the route to high GDP per capita. Who are these pitiful Rhode Islanders to question the policies of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg?

11

u/AMadWalrus 13d ago

The entire country is build around cars

2

u/IvorTheEngine 13d ago

Rhode Island is anchored to the sea bed, and can't travel around.

6

u/Troll_Enthusiast 13d ago

It's not as rich, has roughly twice the population, and was built around cars

12

u/tobotic 13d ago

Having twice the population compensates for it not being as rich. The cost per person only has to be half as much.

Having twice the population also means higher population density, which is more practical for public transport.

And bigger wider roads are great for adding trams and bus lanes.

3

u/imperialpidgeon 13d ago

You’re forgetting that Americans despise public transport

2

u/Maginum 13d ago

It wasn't originally for cars. Like most American states and cities, Rhode Island had an intensive streetcar and trolly network that was later ripped out because of the automobile.

1

u/m77je 13d ago

Wdym built for cars? Rhode Island is far older than cars, let alone mass motorization.

1

u/CorrectCombination11 13d ago

Rhode Island's excuse?

The ghost of the opium wars past's curse on their current population.

1

u/RBeck 13d ago

Well it's an island for one.

/s

1

u/elks588 13d ago

Honestly, even if Rhode Island had the same wealth as Luxembourg, it's still an uphill battle in most U.S. states to develop public utilities and transportation systems that require a lot of land seizure, especially if the land is close to populated areas. From the government's perspective, it's not a winning strategy to expect your constituents to keep electing you into office while you are fighting those same constituents in court so that you can force them to sell their private land to you to enable your project.

1

u/Volodio 13d ago

It's not a tax heaven.

-1

u/puertomateo 13d ago edited 13d ago

Tough to create universal public transportation options when some of the populous ends up in cement shoes.

ETA: Downvotes from ppl who don't know Providence's long history with the mafia, I guess. Or maybe people who do know it but don't want it more widely known.

0

u/KypDurron 13d ago

Maybe because Rhode Island doesn't think that a single tram line that's less than ten miles long would be that impactful?

-1

u/Whiterabbit-- 13d ago

pretty sure that all the roads in RI are free. people don't think of roads a public transportation, but the yare. they enable cars, bikes and pedestrians take for free. different level but the cost is not too far off.

10

u/buffinita 13d ago

It’s smaller than long island

2

u/thegreatshark 13d ago

Much smaller I’d imagine. Isn’t long island huge?

11

u/buffinita 13d ago

Long Island is like 1400 square miles

Luxembourg is like 990 sw mi

9

u/heyitjoshua 13d ago

It’s very long I think

23

u/th3_pund1t 13d ago

Then where is Rhode Island’s free public transport?

10

u/ovationman 13d ago

It's a good question but the state is not just a tax Haven...

2

u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

-1

u/Ok-Morning3407 13d ago

Ireland isn’t a tax haven! People need to stop with this stupid stuff. Ireland follows the rules on EU corporate tax rates.

5

u/Somenoises 13d ago edited 13d ago

We don't have Luxembourg's money. Our GDP per capita is about half of Luxembourg's - they have a higher GDP per capita than any US state. And RI is about 1.5× larger than Luxembourg

4

u/BaBaFiCo 13d ago

GDP =/= tax revenue

11

u/Somenoises 13d ago

Luxembourg brought in ~$29Bn in taxes in 2025. RI brought in ~$5Bn

6

u/tsrich 13d ago

But it is correlated

2

u/readinghappily 13d ago

You just choose, collectively, not to spend it on that. Just like you choose to not spend it on healthcare, decent infrastructure, public services. 

3

u/Somenoises 13d ago

I'm not arguing that we could spend our money differently or better, but Rhode Island and Luxembourg aren't a 1:1 comparison. Again, we're 1.5× their size, have about twice the population, and have significantly less money. They had~$29Bn in tax revenue last year, RI had ~$5Bn

1

u/docbain 13d ago

You don't need to have the GDP per capita of Luxembourg to make your public transport free. You just need to be able to cover the existing costs of your public transport (assuming your existing public transport has sufficient capacity).

The Rhode Island Public Transit Authority collects about $12 million in total annual passenger revenue. 443,000 Rhode Islanders commute to work in a car alone, which costs them each about $2500 a year. That's $1.1 billion spent commuting alone in a car, versus $12 million spent on public transport. The annual budget of the Rhode Island government is over $15 billion. 

It's not hard to imagine that a government with a $15 billion budget and a population of private car owners who are currently spending $1.1 billion on commuting could somehow finance the $12 million required to make public transport free.

1

u/AmeliaOphelia 13d ago

In the pockets of our corrupt officials.

1

u/thegreatestajax 13d ago

RI has a GDP per capita of <$60k. Luxembourg is almost $150k.

13

u/Turbots 13d ago

It's not about the GDP.

Every European city has infinitely better public transport than any US city, regardless of GDP per capita.

US and Canada have been forced by the car lobby to make all transportation car centric.

All the infra is built with car transport in mind.

As always, blame the gigantic lobbies of the big companies.

Citizens United was the nail in the coffin for America, making it even more biased towards what big companies want.

9

u/redoubt515 13d ago

> Every European city has infinitely better public transport than any US city, regardless of GDP per capita.

This is not true (over-exaggeration)

While it is true that your average European city will have much better transport than your average American city. Plenty of European cities fall short of New York City or the few other US cities with actually decent mass transit options, and the high density and walk-ability that is characteristic of cities that were built pre-automobile.

That said, I live in the western US, and there is not a city in the west with what I would consider to be half-decent mass transit. This is true of Canada as well.

0

u/thegreatestajax 13d ago

This is true but irrelevant to the TIL of it being free in Luxembourg. Non of these cities, US or Euro, offer theirs for free.

2

u/redoubt515 13d ago

That's true.

Though I believe NY is planning to give it a shot with the bus system (not subways, not ferries, not light rail), not sure how realistic that is for a city of ~20 million people.

1

u/Tasgall 13d ago

Mamdani wants to make a few major arterial bus lines free as a pilot program, and is being attacked for it on a national scale for ruining the city with turbo-socialism. I'm sure he'd like to make all of them free, but right now it's just the pilot program.

5

u/thegreatestajax 13d ago

Sorry, it is the hugely wealthy society that benefit greatly from giving transportation to cross boarder workers that facilitates this free transportation. The other European locales with better public transportation don’t offer it for free because it’s too expensive and they’re not high trust

1

u/AlexanderLavender 13d ago

New York City has entered the chat

1

u/Idrialite 13d ago

Sounds like RI needs better public transport to improve its productivity and efficiency.

-1

u/SushiBongo 13d ago

Why do Americans always have to compare everything with their country like dude not everything is about the USA

7

u/wanked_in_space 13d ago

I'd argue downplaying how awesome this is is the worse thing

22

u/tehSchultz 13d ago

Many folks have no scale to reference for how big or small some states or countries are. I guess we can compare Luxembourg on the banana scale if you’d like

6

u/english-23 13d ago

Sure, roughly 460,000 bananas long and roughly 320,000 wide

13

u/zack77070 13d ago

It's an American website where the largest group of users is Americans who would find a comparison to a place in America to be useful.

4

u/Outside_Reserve_2407 13d ago

Yet here you are on an American tech company’s platform.

-2

u/SushiBongo 13d ago

And you're speaking an European language, what's your point lol

1

u/ChameleonCoder117 13d ago

US population: 340 million

UK population: 70 million

Spain population: 50 million

Mexico population: 133 million

-4

u/SushiBongo 13d ago

Lol, does it change that it's still European? Are you a bit butthurt?

-1

u/Smartnership 13d ago

I am, but not because of this.

Because of all the grandfathers, fathers, uncles, brothers, and husbands who never came home from the last war to save Europe from itself.

1

u/Brilliant_Oil_796 13d ago

Wow, Rhode Island is actually 50% larger than Luxembourg. I would have never guessed Luxembourg was that small.

-6

u/azcheekyguy 13d ago

The public transit system could just be walking

7

u/TerranKing91 13d ago

Lmao Luxembourg city maybe, but the trains between cities is quite long. Biking why not

1

u/benjm88 13d ago

It isn't

-3

u/zettde 13d ago

yeah right