Before the here and now you have to travel into the past. That’s not a problem in this case, it’s about the track in the broadest sense and it’s basically not quite up to date. So we quickly climbed into our time travel machine and set the exotic date October 2022! You can already hear a proposal coming from Berlin City Hall to Munich.
At that time, the state of Berlin introduced a 29-euro ticket as the successor to the 9-euro ticket, which was so cheap for a short time on local transport. A good idea, found parts of the opposition in the Bavarian state parliament, that would also be something for the Free State. “daydreaming”, said Transport Minister Christian Bernreiter (CSU). Everything is far too expensive, and public transport in Bavaria is not comparable to that in the city state of Berlin. “I also have the strong impression that the 29-euro ticket in Berlin is purely an election campaign.”
So quickly back into the time travel machine and back to the here and now. And that’s really strange. In July 2023, the state government actually – drum roll! – introduced a 29 euro ticket. Although “only” for trainees, students and young people in voluntary service. But 29 euros is just 29 euros and not 49, as most pay for the nine-euro successor Deutschlandticket. In any case, Bernreiter said: “For 29 euros across Germany is an excellent thing.” Which will probably cost the Free State 55 million euros this year.
As a time traveler, you now face the dilemma of trying to explain things that were once thought impossible. The supposedly most obvious answer would be to take Bernreiter at his word and suspect a “pure election campaign maneuver” behind the Bavarian 29-euro ticket. But anyone who knows the state government knows, of course, that something like this is completely absurd. More likely, the time traveler must have made a mishap himself. It is well known from films like “Back to the Future”: once you take a wrong turn during your journey into the past, crazy parallel universes are created in the present. So hello, alternative year 2023 – and hello, Prime Minister Uli Hoeneß!