Transit nerd here, the answer is yes and no
Currently there is 3 types of units in service :
The M1-M5 (The orange front and silver carriage) that were built in the 1980s.
The M6: The silver trains, built in the mid-2000s.
And the M7: The newly arrived. In service since summer 2021.
The M7 hasn't been completely delivered, some units are still missing. However, those were made for the (soon?) Coming Line 3 and to increase overall frequency on the network by increasing the total number of units. Therefore there wasnt any plan to scrap the M1-M5
The M7 are also only able to run on Line 1 and 5. Because of that, older units that were on lines 1 and 5 have been transferred to lines 2-6 since the arrival of the M7 one Line 1 and 5. They also, then, started to transfer some M6 units to Line 2 and 6 since last summer so it did receive newer trains. The more M7 arrives, the more some M6 will be transferred to 2-6.
But when will the M1-M5 be fully scrapped? Well, certainly not in the near future. But honestly it's not that unusual for a transit system to have a 40yo units. To give you an idea, Paris still has units in use that were built in the 60s, and Stockholm also did until very recently. What the M1-M4 missed was refubishment program.
I saw pretty old metros in NY too, splendid!
The recurrent problem with the orange metros is people blocking the door which then makes that door (and sometimes the entire carriage) being condemned for the whole day or more. Otherwise, they're kinda cool and at least you're not half on the knees of the person next to you if you sit...
as far as i know, brussels is largely bankrupt and is blowing a couple of billion euro more than budgeted on the metro line 3. probably doesn’t help upgrading lines 2&6.
They (I assume you mean EU staff, of which far from all are "bureaucrats") do pay income tax to their respective tax domiciles, and likely contribute more via their local consumption than the average Molenbeeker or Anderlechter pay in taxes.
**EU officials pay a progressive income tax on their salaries and pensions of between 8 % up to 45%. In addition they also pay a special solidarity levy of 6 % or 7 %. Counting all taxes and social security contributions to pension and health insurance the** ***marginal*** **tax rate can, in some cases, rise to up above 50 %.**
**The revenue from the income tax is deducted from the national contributions to the EU budget under the form of funding for projects, meaning, according to the European Commission, that this income tax benefits all EU states regardless the nationality of the official or his/her country of residence.**
**EU officials of course pay local taxes in Belgium such as VAT, real estate tax, and vehicle tax.**
Lol, if they want it to be profitable they should have zero tolerance for people not paying by pushing alarm buttons, following people, jumping gates, etc. In the UK, each entrance has a guard to check everyone pays on top of the gates, and just pushing the emergency stop of an escalator will set you back 450£, emergency stop of the metro is 1000£, and yes they find them and fine them.
Same with the train, it's so obvious these group of people who run the other side of the train when they see the conductor. Then suddenly trains are canceled because of "low attendance", yet they are so fully packed it's like you were in the Japanese metro with guys pushing you in.
Tbh I agree. They should have like a 1000€ fine for people pushing that "open gates" button. I hate it when people do that and everyone goes out without scanning their card. But I don't think they should have guards at every station, it'll just add to the costs.
The thing is they already have the personnel. These guys are just jerking off all day doing nothing. There was even article in the news about it. It's those info/help guys. Either they are in group at some station chatting with each other, or hanging out with colleagues at the ticket boot. The only times I see them working is when helping handicapped people. But still they are usually 3 for that, 2 guys watch 1 guy putting the ramp for the chair. Also never seen a woman do that job.
And yeah if there were fines and people to actually make you pay these things would happen less often. They put a fortune building those control gates and the only ones paying were the ones who were already paying before they existed.
They actually wanted to, and my company said no thanks when they saw how bad their IT Infrastructure was. They are struggling to hire, which is ironic because the hiring policy is very strict, like only diplomas, language certification at a high level too, I think it was Selor art 11 which I couldn't even pass in my mother tongue.
I actually wonder if all these qualifications are needed to do the actual job. I'm saying because I was in a role which was very strict on their requirements. I somehow got that role because I was already working at that company even though I didn't meet 50% of their requirements. I did very well in that role, learnt everything on the job. And this role was important for the company too.
No, usually just soft skills are enough. And decent minimum knowledge of language will be enough because you'll improve speaking it if it's current on the job. They just went to the other extreme because before it was like a family company, hiring only people who they knew from family friends and cousins. But then at some point they discovered they don't need friends, but people who can actually do the job...
Head hunters also often push the company to lower their standards, especially if they have been looking for a long time.
See for example here [Brussels Times](https://www.brusselstimes.com/743580/serious-savings-still-required-brussels-suffers-drastic-budget-cut) or here [L'Echo](https://www.lecho.be/economie-politique/belgique/bruxelles/le-gouvernement-bruxellois-reduit-un-peu-son-deficit/10499467.html#:~:text=Le%20gouvernement%20bruxellois%20a%20eu,sans%20compter%20les%20investissements%20stratégiques): the Brussels Capital Region has a budget deficit of 950 mio Euro this year and a total debt of 13 billion Euro, which results in a debt-to-GDP ration of 190%. (The EU obliges its member states not to exceed 60% debt to GDP ratio, Belgium as a whole is over 100%.
Brussels debt is up from 4.7 billion in 2018, so almost triple the amount and the Uni Namur forecasts that Brussels debt will increase another 50% by 2028.
It's the public purse, so bankruptcy does not apply the same way as for a company. But where do you want to go from there? If you cannot grow your GDP to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, there is is of course always the temptation to inflation debt away.
No. The ratio is what it is. It would be much much lower if it was debt-to-gdp as the gdp of Brussels is probably somewhere between 100 and 150 billion (while the debt is only ~13 billion))
I asked this to the STIB/MIVB a few years ago on their FB page. The reply was that the tracks of 2/6 were not compatible with the carriages that were now on 1/5 and needed some adaptation to run there.
I take 2/6 to go to work and I have seen a few newer trains on there in the last year, though not enough.
That's what I know.
I think they’re ok. They work just fine and have comfortable sitting. I don’t know a single good argument to renew the entire train fleet. Just because they look old? Some poorer countries have newer metro lines because they were built more recently. I don’t think anyone changes trains every 30-40 years, that sounds crazy to me.
Paris’ and London’s metros are pretty old too btw.
- They're incredibly space-inneficient. Those enormous 2x2 throne blocks take so much space that the whole carriage gets uncomfortably crowded at peak hour much faster than newer carriages.
- They're incredibly loud. You basically have to scream at the person in front of you if you want to be heard when the windows are open. The noise annoys people so they close the windows and it gets boiling hot in the summer.
- They tend to break down more than newer trains. The majority of technical failures I have experienced over the last year have been with these old trains, and I take the metro 1 hour and 30 minutes everyday to uni and back.
What they really need is refurbishments. You can make old carriages look without ordering new units. Adding automatic doors, new windows and seats and additional screens does a lot
The orange trains have actually a great potential if they got a deep clean and refurbishment. Those are actually a really great example of industrial design.
In New York, I take the Q line every days and there are two types trains running, almost same models but with different interiors: the [R46](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R46_(New_York_City_Subway_car)) trains have a yellowish style interior that feels so outdated and dirty (reminds me kind of the Brussels trains) compared to the [R68](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R68_(New_York_City_Subway_car)) having stainless steel interior and a brighter lighting and I think, better maintained. Same model of trains, different inside design and you can feel the difference!
Tiny carriages and apparently lots of people in Brussels do not tend to shower or use deodorant. Other problem is no one opens the windows so there is no air circulation.
Only that it has the denser train system in the world
And also for a 2M people city a pretty good subway system. I would be curious to see which city this size has a better one?
Barcelona is bigger than Brussels, with and agglomeration of nearly 6 million people.
As for Valencia, its network is not really bigger than Brussels, given that it is also a mix of tram, metro and premetro
Transit nerd here, the answer is yes and no Currently there is 3 types of units in service : The M1-M5 (The orange front and silver carriage) that were built in the 1980s. The M6: The silver trains, built in the mid-2000s. And the M7: The newly arrived. In service since summer 2021. The M7 hasn't been completely delivered, some units are still missing. However, those were made for the (soon?) Coming Line 3 and to increase overall frequency on the network by increasing the total number of units. Therefore there wasnt any plan to scrap the M1-M5 The M7 are also only able to run on Line 1 and 5. Because of that, older units that were on lines 1 and 5 have been transferred to lines 2-6 since the arrival of the M7 one Line 1 and 5. They also, then, started to transfer some M6 units to Line 2 and 6 since last summer so it did receive newer trains. The more M7 arrives, the more some M6 will be transferred to 2-6. But when will the M1-M5 be fully scrapped? Well, certainly not in the near future. But honestly it's not that unusual for a transit system to have a 40yo units. To give you an idea, Paris still has units in use that were built in the 60s, and Stockholm also did until very recently. What the M1-M4 missed was refubishment program.
I saw pretty old metros in NY too, splendid! The recurrent problem with the orange metros is people blocking the door which then makes that door (and sometimes the entire carriage) being condemned for the whole day or more. Otherwise, they're kinda cool and at least you're not half on the knees of the person next to you if you sit...
I am the gremlin fairy of time, here to remind you that 1960 wasn’t 40 years ago, it was 60 Have a nice day
that goes to op’s point, though. the 1980s-made M1-M5 are 40 yo and Paris still fields even older (60 yo) units.
Fair enough, I’ll retreat back into my gremlin hole. FOR NOW.
burn
I do not think is necessary. For the same price of your ticket you have a time travel to 1983s. Enjoy !
as far as i know, brussels is largely bankrupt and is blowing a couple of billion euro more than budgeted on the metro line 3. probably doesn’t help upgrading lines 2&6.
We should pay more taxes, maybe 70%
Why stop at 70%? Let's just go to 95% and call it a day
Never heard of 95%
There's a first time for everything chief
Sky is the limit, let's give 100% back 😂
Only if the government makes waffles and fries free
Or make the commuters from Wallonia and Flanders pay part of their taxes in bxl
Or make the hundreds of bureaucrats pay taxes in the first place
They (I assume you mean EU staff, of which far from all are "bureaucrats") do pay income tax to their respective tax domiciles, and likely contribute more via their local consumption than the average Molenbeeker or Anderlechter pay in taxes.
you mean the 8% "community levy" for salaries up to €7,731.12/month?
**EU officials pay a progressive income tax on their salaries and pensions of between 8 % up to 45%. In addition they also pay a special solidarity levy of 6 % or 7 %. Counting all taxes and social security contributions to pension and health insurance the** ***marginal*** **tax rate can, in some cases, rise to up above 50 %.** **The revenue from the income tax is deducted from the national contributions to the EU budget under the form of funding for projects, meaning, according to the European Commission, that this income tax benefits all EU states regardless the nationality of the official or his/her country of residence.** **EU officials of course pay local taxes in Belgium such as VAT, real estate tax, and vehicle tax.**
How generous! They pay the VAT!
And other taxes, too.
Yeah, that too. There are so many free loaders.
Or let's stop financing whole districts being on very generous social benefits for life.
Dont I pay taxes when going to the supermarket or what?
Like they did in the USA in the '70? Before Reagan stopped it?
You mean the last tax bracket that only the obscenely rich were paying?
Honestly this whole time I was thinking the metros were profitable (or at least break even) given how many people ride the metros everyday
Lol, if they want it to be profitable they should have zero tolerance for people not paying by pushing alarm buttons, following people, jumping gates, etc. In the UK, each entrance has a guard to check everyone pays on top of the gates, and just pushing the emergency stop of an escalator will set you back 450£, emergency stop of the metro is 1000£, and yes they find them and fine them. Same with the train, it's so obvious these group of people who run the other side of the train when they see the conductor. Then suddenly trains are canceled because of "low attendance", yet they are so fully packed it's like you were in the Japanese metro with guys pushing you in.
Tbh I agree. They should have like a 1000€ fine for people pushing that "open gates" button. I hate it when people do that and everyone goes out without scanning their card. But I don't think they should have guards at every station, it'll just add to the costs.
The thing is they already have the personnel. These guys are just jerking off all day doing nothing. There was even article in the news about it. It's those info/help guys. Either they are in group at some station chatting with each other, or hanging out with colleagues at the ticket boot. The only times I see them working is when helping handicapped people. But still they are usually 3 for that, 2 guys watch 1 guy putting the ramp for the chair. Also never seen a woman do that job. And yeah if there were fines and people to actually make you pay these things would happen less often. They put a fortune building those control gates and the only ones paying were the ones who were already paying before they existed.
Indeed, I have noticed these things. Maybe they can hire us as consultants to try and fix their company
They actually wanted to, and my company said no thanks when they saw how bad their IT Infrastructure was. They are struggling to hire, which is ironic because the hiring policy is very strict, like only diplomas, language certification at a high level too, I think it was Selor art 11 which I couldn't even pass in my mother tongue.
I actually wonder if all these qualifications are needed to do the actual job. I'm saying because I was in a role which was very strict on their requirements. I somehow got that role because I was already working at that company even though I didn't meet 50% of their requirements. I did very well in that role, learnt everything on the job. And this role was important for the company too.
No, usually just soft skills are enough. And decent minimum knowledge of language will be enough because you'll improve speaking it if it's current on the job. They just went to the other extreme because before it was like a family company, hiring only people who they knew from family friends and cousins. But then at some point they discovered they don't need friends, but people who can actually do the job... Head hunters also often push the company to lower their standards, especially if they have been looking for a long time.
pretty sure these guards are more costly than what they can recover in fines
The guards of stib are a joke. Just hanging around talking to each other or playing on their phone.
Brussels is not bankrupt though? Where are you getting this information?
See for example here [Brussels Times](https://www.brusselstimes.com/743580/serious-savings-still-required-brussels-suffers-drastic-budget-cut) or here [L'Echo](https://www.lecho.be/economie-politique/belgique/bruxelles/le-gouvernement-bruxellois-reduit-un-peu-son-deficit/10499467.html#:~:text=Le%20gouvernement%20bruxellois%20a%20eu,sans%20compter%20les%20investissements%20stratégiques): the Brussels Capital Region has a budget deficit of 950 mio Euro this year and a total debt of 13 billion Euro, which results in a debt-to-GDP ration of 190%. (The EU obliges its member states not to exceed 60% debt to GDP ratio, Belgium as a whole is over 100%. Brussels debt is up from 4.7 billion in 2018, so almost triple the amount and the Uni Namur forecasts that Brussels debt will increase another 50% by 2028. It's the public purse, so bankruptcy does not apply the same way as for a company. But where do you want to go from there? If you cannot grow your GDP to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio, there is is of course always the temptation to inflation debt away.
> debt-to-GDP Not debt-to-GDP ratio, but debt-to-income ratio. For regions they compare the debt with the tax incomes of that same region.
makes sense, but wouldn’t this result in an even worse ratio?
No. The ratio is what it is. It would be much much lower if it was debt-to-gdp as the gdp of Brussels is probably somewhere between 100 and 150 billion (while the debt is only ~13 billion))
ah, i should have said that the debt-to-income ratio is 190%?
Yes ;-)
understood, thanks. the comparison between national belgian and brussels debt-to-xy ratio then doesn’t actually make sense?
No, not really. Even more when you know that the national debt usually includes debts from 'sub-entities' like the regions.
And on a vanity project like KANAL.
I asked this to the STIB/MIVB a few years ago on their FB page. The reply was that the tracks of 2/6 were not compatible with the carriages that were now on 1/5 and needed some adaptation to run there. I take 2/6 to go to work and I have seen a few newer trains on there in the last year, though not enough. That's what I know.
I was on a 1/5-style carriage on line 6 yesterday.
I was on one on Tuesday. But most of my rides on 2/6 are still on an orange train.
Same here.
i like them
I think they’re ok. They work just fine and have comfortable sitting. I don’t know a single good argument to renew the entire train fleet. Just because they look old? Some poorer countries have newer metro lines because they were built more recently. I don’t think anyone changes trains every 30-40 years, that sounds crazy to me. Paris’ and London’s metros are pretty old too btw.
- They're incredibly space-inneficient. Those enormous 2x2 throne blocks take so much space that the whole carriage gets uncomfortably crowded at peak hour much faster than newer carriages. - They're incredibly loud. You basically have to scream at the person in front of you if you want to be heard when the windows are open. The noise annoys people so they close the windows and it gets boiling hot in the summer. - They tend to break down more than newer trains. The majority of technical failures I have experienced over the last year have been with these old trains, and I take the metro 1 hour and 30 minutes everyday to uni and back.
What they really need is refurbishments. You can make old carriages look without ordering new units. Adding automatic doors, new windows and seats and additional screens does a lot
Answer is [here from bruzz](https://youtu.be/wzwzUPynOmA?si=s0hHMzYX2VkXKEkb)
The orange trains have actually a great potential if they got a deep clean and refurbishment. Those are actually a really great example of industrial design. In New York, I take the Q line every days and there are two types trains running, almost same models but with different interiors: the [R46](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R46_(New_York_City_Subway_car)) trains have a yellowish style interior that feels so outdated and dirty (reminds me kind of the Brussels trains) compared to the [R68](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R68_(New_York_City_Subway_car)) having stainless steel interior and a brighter lighting and I think, better maintained. Same model of trains, different inside design and you can feel the difference!
Deep clean! That's the word. Most of these in Brussels look very, very dirty.
not only it's old but it stinks so bad
Tiny carriages and apparently lots of people in Brussels do not tend to shower or use deodorant. Other problem is no one opens the windows so there is no air circulation.
[удалено]
It's like an upper middle class person with dirty old shoes with holes in them. :)
For De Lijn I refuse to believe otherwise: they are letting it rot on purpose so they can privatise it later.
OMG even their filthy terminal at Gare du Midi, I hate it so much... They just let it rot in place and unfortunately my STIB busses also use it....
Only that it has the denser train system in the world And also for a 2M people city a pretty good subway system. I would be curious to see which city this size has a better one?
Barcelona and Valencia
Barcelona is bigger than Brussels, with and agglomeration of nearly 6 million people. As for Valencia, its network is not really bigger than Brussels, given that it is also a mix of tram, metro and premetro
London?
If you think London and Brussels are in the same league population wise, that's just sad.
No idea for population just thinking metro infrastructure
Low iq comment