[HN Gopher] French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic fli...
___________________________________________________________________
French lawmakers approve a ban on short domestic flights
Author : finphil
Score : 119 points
Date : 2021-04-11 15:26 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Maybe they should ask themselves _why_ someone would take a
| flight instead of a 2.5 hour train ride?
|
| There's really no reason a human would try to fly instead of take
| a train, if the trains were functioning at high efficiency.
| Flying sucks. And yet...
| avian wrote:
| > There's really no reason a human would try to fly instead of
| take a train.
|
| My anecdote:
|
| Some time ago I did a lot of business trips around Europe. All
| business travel was organized by a subcontractor. They
| sometimes wanted to route me through a crazy amount of short
| airplane hops to get me to the destination. Sometimes even when
| a direct flight was available they couldn't put me on it
| because they didn't have a contract with the operator or
| something like that.
|
| For some reason they strongly favored air travel and fell back
| on other means of transport only when there was absolutely no
| way to get there by air.
|
| One some occassions I was supposed to do 4 or 5 500 km short
| hops, which would mean a whole wasted day of basically waiting
| at airports and boarding airplanes. In such cases I just said
| no, paid out of my own pocket for a train ticket or took my own
| car. And then spent next 3 months doing paperwork to get travel
| expenses reimbursed.
| baud147258 wrote:
| all the domestic flights in questions have also high-speed
| train alternatives
| medium_burrito wrote:
| Because light rail/bus to airport is cheap, and $25 fares are
| cheap. And the trains are expensive.
|
| Now, why is flying so cheap vs a train? The whole the US
| government essentially gives away 737s at a loss to employ
| people might be one part of it? Nobody is giving away free
| trains that I know of.
| ur-whale wrote:
| > why is flying so cheap vs a train?
|
| In France, the answer is simple: the train company is
| basically a monopoly (owned via a very thin veil by the
| state).
|
| They are therefore, like all entities not subjected to
| competition: - expensive -
| unreliable - low quality of service overall
| (atrocious food, disgustingly dirty bathrooms, in-seat power
| supply almost never works, internet non-nexistant).
| xur17 wrote:
| > The whole the US government essentially gives away 737s at
| a loss to employ people might be one part of it?
|
| Do you have more information on this? Is the US government
| subsidizing aircraft manufacturing or something?
| flavius29663 wrote:
| Trains are heavily subsidized in Europe. E.g. Germany paid 17
| billions in a single year
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies#Europe
|
| How many 737s would that buy, per year? around 40-50? This is
| Germany alone, the rest of Europe is just the same
| allendoerfer wrote:
| Deutsche Bahn has a (quasi) monopoly on German long-
| distance trains and is state owned. It has to operate some
| connections at a loss. It also maintains the railways.
|
| German streets a build by the state, not by Volkswagen or
| Mercedes Benz. Airports are owned by local governments and
| often a loss-leader, sometimes epic disasters (with the
| exception of Fraport).
|
| It is extremely hard to compare trains and argue about
| whether they are competitive or subsidized.
| hourislate wrote:
| >The whole the US government essentially gives away 737s at a
| loss
|
| Did you mean Boeing?
|
| I imagine flying is cheaper because the cost associated with
| the Rail Infrastructure is much higher than with the open sky
| and aircraft.
| iwwr wrote:
| And yet, the train could be more expensive
| Sharlin wrote:
| France has one of the best and fastest train systems in the
| world. There's really no reason for people to fly, but they
| still do.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Clearly there's a reason if they're doing it! People are
| asking what that reason is.
| realusername wrote:
| The only answer is price in France, that's it. Time-wise
| that's about the same, trains are very fast and planes have
| a longer travel from the city center so that's even it out.
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| Any source on this or it's just your assumption that
| trains are faster and more reliable? I doubt that would
| be the case in France especially when it comes to trains.
| realusername wrote:
| If you're thinking about strikes, airplanes also have
| their fair share of strikes in France.
| ur-whale wrote:
| Faster yes.
|
| Reliable certainly not.
|
| On time even worse.
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| Assuming the train workers aren't on strike, as they are wont
| to do at least once per year.
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| No it does not.if it is faster to fly most people will choose
| to fly.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Not if the speed comes with a price tag that properly
| accounts for externalities. Cheap flights are a market
| failure, plain and simple. Besides, on short flights the
| relative overhead of getting to/from the airport, and
| spending time on the airport waiting, is especially high,
| whereas with trains the overhead is minimal.
| missedthecue wrote:
| The amount of carbon emitted on domestic flights in
| France has about 10EUR in carbon cost per seat. I believe
| you are attributing too much to it
| SilasX wrote:
| Then the solution would be to price the externality, not
| to ban things one by one.
| ancarda wrote:
| >Cheap flights are a market failure
|
| Could you explain this? I'm struggling to understand how
| something becoming very cheap can be considered an
| (economic) failure? Isn't that something the market
| optimizes for?
|
| EDIT: Perhaps you mean expensive rail is a market
| failure?
| Sharlin wrote:
| The same way as cheap gas is a market failure.
| Externalities are not properly paid for (or they're paid
| by the public rather than the parties of the
| transaction). To be fair, things like jet fuel being VAT
| free is a policy failure rather than market failure.
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| What does it even mean to account for externalities?
|
| The relative time on the airport is not high.You can
| literally come to the airport just a few minutes before
| your departure (and many people in fact do this). Also
| most airports are in my opinion much better organized
| than train stations.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Well, the most topical externality right now is CO2
| emissions, of course. Airlines don't have to pay for
| their emission rights - indeed, jet fuel is artificially
| cheap because it's VAT free because of reasons.
| byroot wrote:
| It's not always a rational choice. Among other things, there's
| some social status associated to flying compared to taking a
| train. So the professionals tend to take the plane even when
| it's neither cheaper, nor faster, nor more reliable.
| guilamu wrote:
| In France, it mostly comes down to a price issue. On one hand,
| flights are massively subsidized and can be extremely cheap. On
| the other hand, train is not subsidized at all and can be
| pretty pricey.
|
| Recently though, things are changing and making a Paris - Nice
| by train is becoming somewhat financially doable.
| missedthecue wrote:
| French rail receives 13 billion euros annually in subsidies
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_subsidies
| wut42 wrote:
| And yet it is very very more expensive (and unreliable)
| than plane.
| simias wrote:
| The plane industry is heavily subsidized and manages to get
| (IMO absurdly) low prices for some rides, and there are some
| situations where it's more convenient to take a plane than the
| train (for instance if you arrive from a long distance plane
| trip and are already at the airport).
|
| French trains, especially the high speed ones, are very
| comfortable and "high efficiency". They can be pretty expensive
| however.
| missedthecue wrote:
| European rail is also highly subsidized, on the order of tens
| of billions of euro annually, per country.
| bombcar wrote:
| The most common reason to take a short domestic flight is that
| you just arrived on a longer international flight - hub and
| spoke. Fly into LA and the fly to San Diego kinda thing.
|
| This may actually INCREASE emissions as now there will me
| smaller "direct" flights from out of country instead of them
| all going through major hubs.
| keiferski wrote:
| Most major airports in France have train connections built-
| in.
| ur-whale wrote:
| LOL, you clearly haven't had to travel CDG <=> center of
| Paris by train very often.
|
| What you say is true (there is a train), but the quality of
| service is so bad (strikes, trains late or overcrowded,
| broken ticket machines, broken escalators, PITA to go from
| gate to train terminal) that most people who can afford it
| would rather be stuck in freeway jams in a taxi than
| consider taking the train.
| keiferski wrote:
| I was replying to the above comment's reference to
| connections. It is fairly easy to fly into Paris and take
| a train to Lyon, for example, without having to go into
| Paris proper first.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I'll assume this is just for commercially available tickets,
| right?
|
| If you're important enough to charter, you won't be forced to
| slum it on the train, right?
| hyakosm wrote:
| It's only for commercial tickets from one city to another.
| Short flights will still exist in correspondance of a bigger
| flight.
| valuearb wrote:
| Is this also an attempt to shore up the train system finances,
| and reduce the money it's hemorrhaging?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| There is no reason to fly short distance if you want to go from
| city center to city center. However, if you're already arriving
| or leaving on a long distance flight, the whole overhead of
| getting to/from/through the airport disappears and those 1.5
| hours start making a difference.
|
| I think forcing companies to advertise more honest flight
| durations and prices could make a huge difference. If the airline
| tells you that you need to be at the airport 90 minutes before
| the flight, add it to the flight time. Require airlines to
| prominently show total time and cost from city center to city
| center with luggage.
|
| If you're comparing a 59 EUR, 2.5 hour train ticket with a 29
| EUR, 1 hour flight, the choice seems obvious, even though the
| flight will likely cost you more time and money in the end.
|
| UX matters, and I believe this would be a very powerful nudge. I
| bet many people would take the train if the flight had to be
| advertised as "typically 3.5 hours, 82 EUR from city center to
| city center (fine print: 29 EUR flight, 29 EUR baggage fee unless
| you fly with hand baggage only, 12 EUR ticket to the airport, 12
| EUR ticket from the airport at the destination; 1 hour flight
| duration, 45 minutes for getting from airport entrance to the
| gate, 20 minutes boarding, 30 minutes to get to the airport with
| an average 7 minute wait, 10 min to get out of the airport, 30
| minutes to get from the airport with an average 8 minute wait)"
| ajross wrote:
| > There is no reason to fly short distance if you want to go
| from city center to city center.
|
| In France. In nations like the US (outside the DC-to-Boston
| corridor anyway) without a well-designed and -maintained rail
| infastructure, 1-2 hour flights are routine and not really
| replaceable with other options. Infrastructure investment pays
| off for decades and decades, and Europe has done really well
| here.
|
| > However, if you're already arriving or leaving on a long
| distance flight, the whole overhead of getting to/from/through
| the airport disappears
|
| That's an infrastructure problem too, though! There's no reason
| rail service directly to and from airports can't be integrated
| with the system. It's true in many places already, though I
| know nothing about France.
| xfitm3 wrote:
| If you have a disability changing modes of transportation
| mid-trip is an extreme hardship. I suffered an injury and
| needed a wheelchair for about a year while I still had to
| travel for work three times.
|
| You have no idea how hard basic things can be until you're
| incapable of doing them on your own.
| nradov wrote:
| Changing transportation modes is also quite difficult for
| parents with small children. Especially if they have to
| haul multiple car seats for the flight.
| kazen44 wrote:
| flying with a toddler in and of itself is already hell on
| earth, both for the parents, toddler and everyone stuck
| in the metal tube for the duration of the flight.
|
| train journies are also far more practical if you have a
| toddler or small children considering trains are a very
| relaxed atmosphere.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I had reduced mobility for months, many years ago.
|
| Even though I was already aware of just how difficult it
| would be to get around, living through it gave a shocking
| amount of perspective.
|
| Some of the disability accommodations (disability parking)
| were pure bullshit. Elevators and ramps were godsends.
|
| A large, standing shower without steps and room for a stool
| were musts.
|
| A taste of what's to come, when I get older. I don't really
| see any real solution either, other than prepping.
| stordoff wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean about parking. I have a
| disability, and personally, parking is the most important
| adaptation.
| bartread wrote:
| You don't even need to be disabled for this to become a
| serious problem: just take a trip where you need to carry
| more than one large, heavy, or delicate item of luggage.
| Switching modes is easy[0] if you're able-bodied and able
| to travel light. If either or both of those things becomes
| untrue it's a different story.
|
| _[0] Note that switching modes always costs time,
| sometimes significant amounts of time. In some cases it 's
| time you may not have or may not be able to easily find._
| im3w1l wrote:
| Responding to your 2nd point, kind of and kind of not. It's
| not just that air->train is hard, it's also that air->air is
| easy. You don't pay the cost of an additional security check
| or the cost of an additional drive to the airport. Even with
| a train directly connecting to the airport, the flight option
| may come out ahead.
| martinald wrote:
| Sorry, this is totally not true in Europe either. Yes high
| speed rail is great for a few routes (I'm a huge supporter of
| it!). But outside of these key routes flying will always be
| better.
|
| Europe has absolutely enormous levels of flying. The amount
| of city pairs in Europe which are a 1-2hr flight and more
| than 4 hours on trains are very high. Outside of maybe some
| routes in UK/France/Netherlands/Belgium/(western) Germany
| basically flying will always be vastly, vastly quicker going
| between different European countries.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _In nations like the US (outside the DC-to-Boston corridor
| anyway) without a well-designed and -maintained rail
| infastructure,_
|
| The U.S. has the world's best designed and maintained rail
| infrastructure. It's simply that, unlike every other country
| with a national rail network, America's rail system is
| designed for _freight_ traffic, because now _and
| historically_ passenger traffic in America has always been
| such a small portion of trips that it has never been worth
| the investment to prioritize people over goods. If
| transporting people had ever been more profitable than
| transporting cargo, America would have more rail lines
| dedicated to transporting people.
| dieortin wrote:
| > The U.S. has the world's best designed and maintained
| rail infrastructure
|
| I don't think you can really compare the infrastructure
| freight trains use with high speed rail. Designing and
| maintaining a rail network where trains go at up to 350kph
| is a much tougher job.
|
| So, I'd argue the US rail infrastructure isn't even close
| to being one of the best.
| ajross wrote:
| You can't put a 100mph high speed train on a freight line,
| and those freight lines don't cross with other transit
| arteries nor enter the urban cores where people are. What
| you say is true, but other than the fact that they are both
| "trains", it's not the same infrastructure we're
| discussing.
| pyrale wrote:
| > That's an infrastructure problem too, though! There's no
| reason rail service directly to and from airports can't be
| integrated with the system. It's true in many places already,
| though I know nothing about France.
|
| That's an infrastructure feature. Trains are designed to
| serve city centers, and they do it well. Moving high speed
| train infrastructure to airports just for the sake of fliers
| would kill train experience for everyone else. Moving
| airports to city center is an obvious no-go. Duplicating
| train infrastructure for the few connecting trips is probably
| economically unviable.
| retrac wrote:
| What Toronto has done, with a dedicated express to the
| airport on the outskirts to the downtown hub rail station,
| is probably a sensible infrastructure pattern for many
| places. But it was a happy coincidence an early 20th
| century line ran most of the way there already. Otherwise,
| it would have meant laying a line through upper middle
| class suburbs. That's a showstopper, politically, whatever
| the merit might be; rail lines almost never get built in
| areas that are already heavily developed.
| yakireev wrote:
| > Trains are designed to serve city centers, and they do it
| well. Moving high speed train infrastructure to airports
| just for the sake of fliers would kill train experience for
| everyone else.
|
| Would it?
|
| If you ever visit Netherlands, take a note on how well
| Schiphol airport is integrated to the rail network. Its
| underground railway station, Luchthaven Schiphol, is just
| yet another station on the Rotterdam - Den Haag - Amsterdam
| main line, so for many trains (including the high-speed
| Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam line) the airport is just yet
| another stop on their route.
|
| It is the best of both worlds.
| kazen44 wrote:
| I also think you underestimate how close schiphol is to
| most major cities. it is actually becoming a problem
| because the airport has little to no room for expansion.
| also, not all trains going the breda - Rotterdam - the
| Hague -Amsterdam route stop at schiphol airport.
|
| also, the line is sort of infamous for constant delays on
| the schiphol part of the track.
| xalava wrote:
| The US is pretty exceptional in its lack of rails. There is
| also a Seattle-San Diego. Enjoyable as a tourist, but
| probably not suited for business purposes except in the last
| portions.
|
| In France some high speed trains go now directly to airports
| (CDG,LYO). So it is becoming possible to chain a plane and a
| train in a few scenarios.
| pyrale wrote:
| > In France some high speed trains go now directly to
| airports (CDG,LYO).
|
| ... The trains departing from there are mostly low-cost
| trains rather than trains meant to be connecting with
| flights, and people taking them have to move to CDG instead
| of a better location.
|
| It seems to be a service aimed at salvaging the
| infrastructure rather than an actual useful service.
| pochamago wrote:
| It's not really that the US lacks rails, we have the
| largest rail network in the world. The problem for
| passenger rail here is population density. France is three
| and a half times denser, and Japan is nearly 10x. I think
| they would also struggle a bit more to justify rail costs
| if they were as spread out as the US.
| ajross wrote:
| > we have the largest rail network in the world
|
| For freight[1]. Putative high speed rail might go to the
| same places but generally can't share the same tracks
| with 30mph long haul trains. And the big gap is the
| plumbing of rail and transit into the urban cores, which
| in most US cities is highly decayed and in many of the
| newer metropolises was never built at all.
|
| [1] Which is unsurprising, because we have the biggest
| per-capita need for transcontinental land freight
| transport in the world. The US has been perfectly fine at
| building out infrastructure it thinks it needs, it's just
| been making poor choices about what it "needs".
| buzer wrote:
| I don't think the population density alone explains it.
| The part of the Finland that is covered by rails is a bit
| less dense than US, but the overall inter-city train
| usage is about 3x more than national air travel (2019).
| dmurray wrote:
| "Planes take longer to travel city centre to city centre"
| always gets trotted out in these discussions, but it's the
| wrong comparison. People don't all live in the city centre.
| Airports are usually outside the city, but well served by
| motorways and public transport. I wouldn't be surprised if more
| people can reach Charles de Gaulle or Orly within 45 minutes at
| rush hour than can get to Gare de Lyon.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| But then you need a car, and you need to either deal with
| rental/pickup/dropoff, or pay something ridiculous for
| parking.
| jcranmer wrote:
| The US cities with the _best_ transit have poor transit by
| world measures. Sure, most people don 't live in the city
| centers, they live in the suburbs. But for much of Europe,
| suburbia means easy access to high frequency regional rail
| transit systems that gives you easy 45-60 minute access to
| city center at all times of the day. Even in the US, where
| I've lived in cities that had what the US thinks is good
| transit, getting to an intercity rail station has often been
| as easy, if not easier, than getting to the airport, even
| though I'm originating in the suburbs.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > I wouldn't be surprised if more people can reach Charles de
| Gaulle or Orly within 45 minutes at rush hour than can get to
| Gare de Lyon.
|
| Actually, I would. The highways around Orly (A6 and A86) tend
| to be extremely congested during rush hour. Add to it that
| the areas around those airports aren't that densely populated
| and are sufficiently far out so that public transportation
| has to go through Paris if you're not close by, and I don't
| think that more people are able to reach the airports quicker
| than Gare de Lyon or Gare du Nord.
|
| Charles de Gaulle is even further out in the "country" so I
| think there are even less people able to reach that quickly,
| especially via the A1 and A3 which are also congested all the
| time. Then once there, the airport is so huge that just
| getting around it may take you a good 15-20 minutes.
|
| Note that for some destinations south of Paris there are TGVs
| departing from Massy, which is a couple stops away from Orly.
| The same applies for CDG and the north.
|
| Also, Paris is only one end of the journey. On the other
| side, the public transit situation isn't always as great.
| It's either some sort of bus, which takes forever (especially
| during rush hour), or some taxi which may be somewhat quicker
| than the bus but will cost an arm and a leg.
| Mister_Snuggles wrote:
| I used to regularly travel from Edmonton to Calgary for work.
| When you add up the extra time required for flying, it's about
| a three hour trip (45 minutes in the air, the rest is getting
| to the airport, checking in, etc). Coincidentally, it's also
| about a three hour drive.
|
| My reasons for driving vs flying were usually to do with how
| long I'd be there. If I was going for one day then flying was
| preferable since falling asleep on the way home isn't a big
| deal. If I was going for multiple days then driving was
| preferable so that I'd have a car and be able to go places
| after finishing at the office. Flying was preferable in winter
| in case the roads were in bad shape. Driving was preferable on
| Fridays so that I could visit friends afterwards and come back
| the next day. Flying was preferable during the Calgary Stampede
| to avoid having to deal with the excess traffic in Calgary
| (plus WestJet did a cowboy-themed safety lecture during
| Stampede which was kind of neat).
| publicola1990 wrote:
| In general though flying is much safer than highway driving.
| If one wanted to minimize risk, one would always fly.
| lovasoa wrote:
| Flying is actually much more dangerous than driving. The
| risk is to destroy the environment that sustains life on
| earth. This does not even compare with the risk of a car or
| plane accident.
| varajelle wrote:
| I believe it might be better for the environnement to
| share a full plane than be alone in your car, for equal
| distances.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Quotation needed. All studies show the impact of flying
| as being much higher than driving, even when shared.
| varajelle wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_a
| via...
|
| > in 2018, CO2 emissions averaged 88 grams of CO2 per
| revenue passenger per km.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_t
| ran...
|
| > In Europe, the European Commission enforced that from
| 2015 all new cars registered shall not emit more than an
| average of 0.130 kg of CO2 per kilometre (kg CO2/km). The
| target is that by 2021 the average emissions for all new
| cars is 0.095 kg of CO2 per kilometre.
|
| 0.088 < 0.095
|
| That said, the 88 grams figure might not be accurate for
| short flights. But we'd still be in the same order of
| magnitude as a car
| GuB-42 wrote:
| If you are alone in your car, flying and driving are in
| the same ballpark when it comes to emissions.
|
| Trains are much, much lower. Especially considering that
| in France, most lines are electrified and 70% of
| production is nuclear.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Incidentally I think Calgary and Edmonton would be an ideal
| pair of cities to have some kind of high speed rail between.
| Would be a great alternative to air travel.
| fredophile wrote:
| I'd agree in terms of distance and traffic between the two
| cities. However, the long, relatively severe winters would
| probably add some complications to high speed rail.
| wirrbel wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway
|
| Snow isn't an obstacle to trains (unless you don't want
| trains to be a reality).
| inter_netuser wrote:
| Check out the rail to Bergen, in Norway. Shot in 4K.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atyvdC15HFA
| option wrote:
| there are no good reasons why we spend so much time on the
| airports on funny useless procedures.
| bertil wrote:
| I like your idea of forcing sites selling airline tickets to be
| honest about their cost and delays, but... after the fiasco of
| cookie-warning pop-ups, that's a particularly promising can of
| worms.
|
| > if you're already arriving or leaving on a long distance
| flight, the whole overhead of getting to/from/through the
| airport disappears
|
| About connecting flights: most major French airports have a
| high-speed train (TGV) station for that reason. They typically
| have fewer trains than central stations, but they have good
| connections to nearby cities with small regional airports.
| marcandre wrote:
| The website fromrome2rio includes transfer times, wait times
| and costs too.
| Befterriager wrote:
| > However, if you're already arriving or leaving on a long
| distance flight, the whole overhead of getting to/from/through
| the airport disappears and those 1.5 hours start making a
| difference.
|
| There is a workaround for this. For long distance flight, take
| a company where the international/local connection takes place
| outside France: KLM through Amsterdam, Lufthansa through german
| airports, Brussels Airlines through Brussels...
|
| This is already what I always do when I have to make a long
| distance flight because Paris Charles de Gaulle airport is
| horrendous and Air France is prone to mass cancellations when
| there is a strike.
|
| But this is doable because I live in Toulouse which has bad
| train infrastructure but is well connected to the rest of
| Europe by plane.
| ipqk wrote:
| Just put a large tax if the short, domestic flight isn't a
| connecting flight.
|
| Short, domestic flight by itself: 100EUR
|
| Short, domestic flight part of an international itinerary:
| +30EUR
|
| It'll mostly work itself out.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| What would stop people from doing split tickets?
| lentil_soup wrote:
| If you split it you'd pay more, no?
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Yeah, I don't know how that never occurred to me.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| The above idea specifically discourages split tickets
| (buying one ticket for each leg). You'd end up with an
| extra 70EUR fee if you buy the two tickets separately. So
| unless buying a multi-leg tickets adds more than 70EUR to
| the total price it's not worth the trouble.
| [deleted]
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Just tax CO2 emissions to a sufficient level and let the
| market sort itself out.
| kevindong wrote:
| If you use Google Flights, you can specify the number carry-
| on/checked bags you want and Google will include the pricing
| info in its rankings of flights which is handy.
|
| I don't agree that airlines (or really any travel provider)
| should be required to include travel time to/from city centers
| though because not everyone is going to go into city centers.
| However, that'd be an interesting feature to implement: a
| feature that lets users specify their actual destination to get
| a fuller picture of travel time.
| Sharlin wrote:
| And flights costing 29 EUR are simply a market (and policy)
| failure. In no reasonable sustainably operating economy would
| we ever have gotten into a situation of flights being cheaper
| than train trips.
| kevindong wrote:
| Counterexample: in Summer 2019, I took a one way flight from
| Rome to Lisbon via Ryanair for $57.40 USD / ~EUR48.77
| (current conversion rates, my receipt was denominated in
| USD).
|
| That's a 1,160 miles / 1,870 km / ~2.75 hour flight (distance
| is as the crow flies). A train cannot compete with that. Not
| that a reasonable train itinerary between Lisbon and Rome
| exists.
|
| For May 2021 [0], I'm seeing several roundtrip itineraries
| between Lisbon and Rome for USD$31 / EUR26 on Ryanair. I
| think the fact that such a low-priced flight can exist is
| actually a triumph of capitalism.
|
| [0]: https://www.google.com/travel/flights/s/a5Ea
| verall wrote:
| It would be more of a triumph if those $30 flights were not
| using leaded fuel, or if there was at least some lead
| pollution task to encourage people to take different
| transit options until the airline industry figures it out.
|
| I think, it was much less of a problem, when many less
| planes were flying.
|
| -- Correction in the comment, Jet-A has no lead. Cursory
| research suggests its nasty products are mostly organics
| rather than heavy metals, which is much less bad. Thanks!
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15093276/
| coryrc wrote:
| I don't believe Ryanair flies any piston planes and,
| thus, does not use any leaded fuel.
| anodari wrote:
| I understood that the ban was only for flights within
| France.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Every retailer will tell you that cutting prices (or even
| accepting a small loss) on goods or services that don't
| make a big profit brings in customers whose happiness with
| finding a bargain is a more effective advertisement than
| any the business can issue itself.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Yes, the sort of "triumph" that got us into this
| catastrophically unsustainable situation. Flights are _not_
| cheap. It 's just that the hidden costs are paid by all of
| us, including yet unborn humans. This cannot continue.
| Retric wrote:
| Work out the fuel costs per passenger mile and that's a
| subsidized ticket. Now, airlines often have a surplus of
| seats on a route and will sell some of them at a nominal
| loss over flying empty seats, but they couldn't operate the
| route if everyone was paying that.
| dsnr wrote:
| > And flights costing 29 EUR are simply a market failure
|
| That's actually the market working as intended. In the case
| of flights you have competition which drives the price down,
| in the case of trains you mostly have a monopoly of the
| national operator which increases prices each year (DB,
| Germany). Train prices are prohibitively high, and when I
| face the choice I always end up driving vs taking the train
| (the price advantage grows larger with the number of people
| travelling).
| gpvos wrote:
| No. It is externalities not properly being accounted for in
| the cost.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| The basic problem is that the market does a poor job of
| accounting for externalities, so indirect costs (pollution,
| subsidies) are dumped across whole populations over a long
| period, thus becoming effectively invisible, while profits
| are scrupulously accounted for and distributed to a far
| smaller group of recipients.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Train prices are prohibitively high
|
| They didn't need to be, the problem is that Deutsche Bahn
| is expected to be profitable since two decades (as a result
| of the failed attempts to privatize it) - and that
| _includes the cost of physical infrastructure_ , which is
| enormous.
|
| An airport however is cheap to build (okay, jokes like the
| BER aside) and operate, not to mention subsidies for
| regional airports whereas the EU has been pushing for de-
| subsidizing and liberalization of the railways for decades
| now.
| makapuf wrote:
| Sometimes those 29EUR are just the emerged part if the
| iceberg, with local airports subsidies which distorts said
| market.
| makapuf wrote:
| If you look at this article[0], the subsidies can be
| 100EUR per passenger [0]
| https://www.lechotouristique.com/article/il-y-a-trop-d-
| aerop... (french)
| plantain wrote:
| Flights don't pay VAT, for some unfathomably baffling reason.
| Train tickets do.
|
| It's not just a market failure, it's been engineered this
| way.
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| Railway systems usually dont play well with capitalism as
| there is very little competition (given that infrastructure
| and the train operator is usually a state owned company).
|
| Aviation is simply much more efficient.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Knowing the history of railroads, this comment is truly
| spit-take worthy. Railroads are my go-to example for what
| the "model" capitalistic industry looks like. Historically,
| the investment boom/bust cycles were driven in large part
| by railroad mania--most railroads in the 19th century were
| funded by public stock offerings to raise the capital to
| build them, producing and popping investment bubbles with
| almost decadal frequency.
|
| At least in the US, there was surprisingly little public
| subsidy of railroads. The big exception is in the west,
| where many lines were financed in part by land grants, but
| this is not true all of lines (the Great Northern Railroad,
| for example, had no land grants)--and most of the railroads
| in the east has no land that could be granted to them at
| all. Antitrust laws in the US specifically originate from
| regulating the anticompetitive practice and local
| monopolies that railroads had. Indeed, many of those
| practices that motivated the law are now being repeated by
| airlines without a corresponding modern push to regulate
| those practices away.
|
| Actual state ownership of the US is rare, both now and
| historically. The big exceptions are the temporary
| nationalization of the railroads during WWI and the
| assumption of the bankrupt Penn Central assets into Conrail
| (which was divvied up between CSX and NS in 1999). Of
| course, the US may be unusually competitive on the world
| scene for modern railroads, with US/Canada essentially
| three geographic duopolies (BNSF/UP, CP/CN, and CSX/NS).
| kazen44 wrote:
| to give you a bit of history from the European
| perspective.
|
| most railways in Europe have been build by state programs
| to kickstart further industrialisation during the later
| half of the 19th century. prior to rail, the only way to
| transport bulk goods like coal and iron ore efficiently
| was through canalways. rails solved the issue of getting
| the raw goods to the industrial centers where people
| lived to produce goods efficiently. it also allowed for
| rapid expansion of cities and town and made cities and
| town with no access to a waterway far more viable.
|
| privatization of rail only happenend after the cold war,
| and is mostly seen as a failure in most countries.
| Symbiote wrote:
| > Aviation is simply much more efficient.
|
| Efficient, how? It uses much more energy, makes more noise
| and creates more pollution.
|
| The speed has very little to do with the funding model.
| Flights were still faster in the 1970s when many state-
| owned airlines operated, and trains are little different
| when private companies run them (see: several European
| countries).
| bluGill wrote:
| Don't forget about those rails. A lot of energy is locked
| in them, not to mention land. Planes need airports and
| nothing more.
|
| Planes also spend their time where there is less wind
| resistance to deal with.
|
| Trains are still a win, but it isn't as clear as it
| seems.
| closeparen wrote:
| Tying up capital equipment and personnel for much less
| time to serve the same journey. Consider San Francisco to
| Chicago, a route I have done both ways. The flight is 5
| hours, the train ride 50 hours. A 737 is more expensive
| than the California Zephyr trainset, but not by 10x.
|
| I'm not sure what noise has to do with efficiency - I
| doubt that the energy expended on vibrating the air is
| physically or economically significant - but it is worth
| noting that trains are _loud_. Particularly because
| regulations written in blood require that they blow their
| horns three times at every level crossing at all hours.
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| Point-to-point travel is much faster and more efficient
| with planes than with trains.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I largely agree.
|
| One issue with France is that their train system is very Paris-
| centric. Want to go from the Rennes northwest to the Toulouse
| in the southwest? Yeah, you're going to go through Paris in the
| centre of the country.
|
| Same with Bordeaux to Lyon. Takes about the same time driving
| as high-speed rail takes a horseshoe route.
| jcranmer wrote:
| This is caused in large part by the French economy and
| transportation needs largely being Paris-centric--the Paris
| metro is larger than the next 10 largest cities _combined_.
|
| (Admittedly, a Bordeaux-Toulouse-Montpelier-Marseille-Nice
| connection in the south is probably a viable TGV route. But
| at a quick glance, that's probably the only viable non-via-
| Paris route I see.)
| bertil wrote:
| Are there direct flights though?
| thiht wrote:
| I did Rennes-Toulouse multiple times (it was actually the
| example I was going to give in this thread). It's 10 hours
| by train, 2 hours by plane. So as long as there are no
| direct trains, if flying was to be banned, there would be
| no short way to do Rennes-Toulouse anymore.
| ascorbic wrote:
| According to the article, the law is banning routes that
| have a fast train alternative so I'd imagine that's fine.
| hyakosm wrote:
| Interior flights will be banned only in case of a train
| alternative inferior to 2.30h.
|
| > Nous avons choisi [le seuil en train de] 2h30 car 4
| heures, ca vient assecher des territoires souvent
| enclaves comme le grand Massif central... Ce serait
| inique sur le plan de l'equite des territoires" [1]
|
| > We have chosen 2.30h instead of 4h, because of enclaved
| territories like Massif Central. It would have been
| inequal for the territories equity. [approximately
| translated]
|
| [1] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/environnement/conve
| ntion-c...
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| This is kind of an intrinsic problem with transport that
| needs infrastructure along the whole route (i.e. trains and
| cars). You need a minimum amount of travel along a route for
| it to be worth it to construct and maintain that
| infrastructure. The system naturally evolves to a hub-and-
| spoke model.
|
| Planes just need infrastructure at both ends, so it's a lot
| easier to create a point-to-point model.
| gsnedders wrote:
| It's far from just the infrastructure, if you're looking at
| HSR; Bordeaux to Lyon as an aviation route is mostly served
| by E190's, each seating 100 people, whereas a TGV Reseau
| seats 377 (which I believe is the lowest capacity of any
| current TGV). Clearly the train can have the advantage of
| intermediate stops, but you're starting off with much
| higher capacity to fill.
|
| And sure, you could build a very short train, but a lot of
| the efficiencies of rail are built on transporting large
| numbers of people at once.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I'm surprised they're running jets instead of turboprops,
| but maybe fuel efficiency is too high in my mind.
|
| Only Chalair runs a small handful of ATRs.
| gsnedders wrote:
| Air France Hop and easyJet, the two operators of the
| route, only fly jets. In the Hop case, post-pandemic
| they'll be operating ERJs and E-Jets; in the easyJet
| case, they'll be operating A320 family aircraft.
|
| Note that Hop did have various ATR 42/72s until 2019/20,
| when they got rid of their (fairly recent) ATR 72-600s.
| It is perhaps surprising that they now are jet-only, but
| at least pre-pandemic the plan was for them to long-term
| be operating only CRJ1000 and E-190s, both of which are
| notably larger than the largest turboprops on the market.
| I don't know what their average sector length is, but
| it's certainly not implausible that the fuel efficiency
| per passenger isn't that much worse (and easyJet's A320s
| almost certainly beat any turboprop on a per passenger
| basis given their average loadings).
| jankassens wrote:
| You'll end up main connections and smaller ones to reach
| smaller destinations. This doesn't mean it needs a single
| center like Paris. Compare the map to Germany where there
| are roughly 3 parallel fast North-South lines not focused
| on a single center.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| speed_rail_in_Europe#/m...
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| Population in France is much more concentrated around
| Paris than population in Germany is. The Paris metro area
| accounts for 20% of France's population, while you need
| the biggest three metro areas in Germany to get to that
| percentage. Also Germany has double the population
| density, so even the less dense parts have more people.
| robocat wrote:
| > Also Germany has double the population density, so even
| the less dense parts have more people.
|
| That is not causal.
|
| Some countries have a higher population density, but the
| population is mostly concentrated in one area and the low
| density areas are really low density.
|
| I presume there is a standard way to compare density
| distributions between countries.
| [deleted]
| gsnedders wrote:
| > One issue with France is that their train system is very
| Paris-centric.
|
| I mean it's not just the rail network; it's _all_ of France.
| Some of that is unsurprising given a 1/5th of the population
| live in Paris and the surrounding area. A significant amount
| of business travel from outside of Paris resultantly ends up
| being to Paris.
|
| There's definitely an argument that investing in
| infrastructure that isn't centred on Paris may help change
| how Paris-centric the country generally is, but that's a much
| harder sell politically.
|
| (And something like Bordeaux to Lyon needs to cross the
| Massif Central, which will significantly increase the cost of
| construction, which potentially makes it even less likely to
| happen.)
| jkepler wrote:
| << (And something like Bordeaux to Lyon needs to cross the
| Massif Central, which will significantly increase the cost
| of construction, which potentially makes it even less
| likely to happen.) >>
|
| Indeed. Currently by train, Bordeaux to Lyon would either
| go via Paris, or via Toulouse/Montpellier. Building train
| lines across the Massif Central doesn't really make
| economic sense due to the sparse population density.
| toinebeg wrote:
| The lines exists. There is a project of a cooperative
| rail company who want to exploit this route with the
| existing infrastructure.
|
| https://www.railcoop.fr/ (in french)
| kazen44 wrote:
| also, France has been Paris centric since well, forever?
| the French bureaucracy and political system is very
| centralised and has been since the French revolution. this
| directly ties into the idea of the state as an institution
| in French culture in a lot of subtle ways aswell.
| nraynaud wrote:
| remember that now you're supposed to be in the train 20min in
| advance, and connecting across stations in Paris with heavy
| luggage and kids is a shit show (and a non-starter for
| foreigners, they just call a taxi, and as the most visited
| country in the world, this detail should matter)
|
| But I hope it increases the frequency of bullet trains to and
| from CDG TGV, this train station never had a useful train time
| for my airplane. Lyon Airport is very easy to reach by train,
| too bad it has almost no airplane.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| > now you're supposed to be in the train 20min in advance
|
| Oh, why is that? Never heard of it or had to do it anywhere.
| My last train trip starting from France was about 15 years
| ago, though. And most trains have several stops so you
| couldn't possibly be so early except at the initial
| departure, not without slowing down the whole trip
| unacceptably.
| dopidopHN wrote:
| Thanks for getting into the details. The fine prints change
| everything.
| efwfhfasljd wrote:
| UX is also being neglected by train companies, and especially
| _between_ train companies.
|
| I think it would be a great enhancement if we had a European
| booking system that'd provide single-ticket journeys no matter
| which operator, and a Google-Flights-like UX.
|
| Right now, the German DB got me into a mindset of adding an
| extra hour between transits, and assume that the train might
| skip my destination entirely. And if I file a complaint? Well,
| that's already part of the price!
| grishka wrote:
| Moscow and St Petersburg are ~700 km apart. It takes 4 hours by
| high-speed train, 8 hours (a night basically) by low-speed
| train you can sleep in, or about an hour by plane. And none of
| these are optimal. You have to spend those 4 hours awake if
| you're taking the high-speed train, you might get annoying
| neighbors if you take the low-speed one (and some people also
| don't fit into those berths), and all 3 airports in Moscow are
| in the middle of nowhere, so it essentially takes the same 4
| hours if you fly.
|
| And I'm not taking price into account, it varies a lot. I'm
| just ranting that there isn't a good option for this kind of
| distance. Not long enough to fly, but a bit too long for a
| train.
|
| Oh and you're only left with the slow train if you want to
| spend a day, including the evening, in Moscow, and return at
| night.
| netfortius wrote:
| In France I would never consider flying, when I could take the
| TGV. The level of comfort of a 1st class train ticket vs an
| economy airflight (space and positioning of seat) + ability to
| move around + enjoying the scenery + no worries about the airport
| hassles / security checkpoints / luggage check-in and check-out,
| and transportation from airport to the center of the city, always
| made the choice very easy fo me.
| baud147258 wrote:
| Is short domestic flights in France that much of a carbon
| producers? I mean is the measure just a fig leaf or is it a real
| step in the right direction?
|
| Checking French sources, the only lines are apparently between
| Paris and Nantes, Lyon and Bordeaux.
| JBorrow wrote:
| A large proportion of the carbon emissions from flights come
| from takeoff (you have to haul the plane, full of fuel, up
| through the gravitational potential)
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| Essentially all this is is a tax on quality of life. Quality of
| life will decrease for rich nations for nothing as all the
| environmental gains will be offset by emerging economies.
|
| China will continue to build more and its population will also
| continue to consume more.
| multiplegeorges wrote:
| You're right, we should do nothing.
| Thiez wrote:
| Those living in the rich nations can hardly blame the people in
| emerging economies for trying to achieve a similar standard of
| living (well, not without being huge hypocrites). And yes,
| large countries like China will have a large impact. But that
| is going to happen regardless of whether the rich nations make
| a change or not. So why wouldn't we try to reduce our own
| impact? What alternative do you suggest? Do nothing and make
| the problem even worse?
| EdwinLarkin wrote:
| Dont try to force altruism on me.I'd rather retain my
| standards of living.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| >Dont try to force altruism on me.
|
| Don't try to force your pollution on me...
| Thiez wrote:
| In the end preserving the environment helps everyone. We
| all have to live here on this earth, as will our
| descendants (for the foreseeable future at least). Perhaps
| you don't have many years left, and have no children?
| Otherwise your attitude seems rather shortsighted.
|
| It's a good thing most rich countries are democracies where
| the majority actually can force altruism on others, no
| matter how selfish they are.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| What's the point of trimming the edges when the real culprits get
| off lightly? No airlines in this league table of culprits.
|
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/companies-carbon-emissions/
| robocat wrote:
| "each company on this chart deals in fossil fuels". Their
| contribution "is mostly from the combustion of their products".
|
| So you want to blame supply, and not demand (airlines in your
| example). How pointless.
| gsnedders wrote:
| How many of those companies got government-backed loans from
| the French government in 2020?
| mc32 wrote:
| The article doesn't say but I have to think this is about
| commercial flights and not private aviation?
| roamerz wrote:
| I wonder if this was actually the best way to accomplish this.
| From some of the other comments it seems like the reason the
| flights are less expensive is because of airline subsidies. Maybe
| the lawmakers didn't have the powers to affect the subsidies but
| had the power to enact a law? I also wonder if this will have the
| side effect of clogging the trains routes with too many people.
| It's been my experience that when lawmakers bend to
| environmentalists and special interests it always negatively
| affects the common folk who's focus is providing for their
| families or simply surviving and don't wield the necessary
| political influence to make their voices heard.
| saddlerustle wrote:
| In France trains are subsidised _way_ more than flights.
| raverbashing wrote:
| > to abolish domestic flights on routes than can be covered by
| train in under two-and-a-half hours
|
| So yeah, it's a non-issue. If a train takes 2:30 it would have
| been a short flight anyway
| underdeserver wrote:
| I'm not an economist, but wouldn't it have been better to tax the
| carbon emissions?
|
| If you could offset the carbon emissions for 10 EUR, maybe add 12
| EUR to the price of a ticket and use that money to buy carbon
| offsets? That way those who still want it can still fly, and
| we're at net negative emissions.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| It would, but the last time France tried imposing a carbon tax
| there were riots in the streets. This might be the best we can
| hope for.
| hackeraccount wrote:
| As long as no one figures out what's been taken from them.
| bertil wrote:
| The riots were because filling a car tank would get
| expensive. I'm not sure people would not notice, until a
| majority of the population is driving electric.
| williamdclt wrote:
| It was a carbon tax on gas that was going to affect the lower
| classes disproportionately. I don't think we'd see an
| uprising for a carbon tax on intra-national flights, which
| are much more of a business travel mode
| saddlerustle wrote:
| People choose to fly rather than take the train because
| flying is usually _cheaper_. This ban also impacts poor
| people more than rich people.
| dagenleg wrote:
| Poor people don't fly that often
| Befterriager wrote:
| Because their train travels are heavily subsidized. And
| more recently, it became easier to carpool easily for
| long distance trips in France with Blablacar (before the
| pandemy).
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| Carbon offsets are not a structural solution though. Most
| offsets right now reduce emissions elsewhere, where it's either
| cheaper or technologically more feasible. However, eventually
| we'll run out of those, and offsets will actually need to
| capture carbon from the atmosphere. Since there's no feasible
| synthetic carbon sequestration process invented yet,
| practically that means you have to increase biomass, and
| _ensure it remains biomass in perpetuity_. That can only be
| taken so far, at a certain point you 'll run out of space to
| plant forests.
| Qub3d wrote:
| Well, then carbon offsets raise in price as it becomes more
| expensive to offset a given quantity of CO2. This makes
| various schemes relying on purchasing offsets more and more
| expensive, until they become unfeasible or are spending so
| much that really radical advanced techniques can be developed
| or become realistic to implement.
|
| Economics is a _powerful_ tool.
| ddevault wrote:
| >I'm not an economist
|
| The last thing we need is the insights of an economist when it
| comes to solutions to climate change. It's thanks to economists
| that we're still dealing with the problem in the first place!
| gpvos wrote:
| Not sure about that, I think it's more industry lobbyists and
| politicians listening to them. There are lots of economists
| with good ideas about this. A carbon tax or emissions trading
| might well work if they didn't give out exceptions to
| polluting industries for fear of them moving elsewhere.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Human greed isn't a result of economics, it's just what
| economists study. Carbon taxes and carbon capture are
| absolutely the best solutions to climate change.
| haakonhr wrote:
| Let's ban stuff instead of ensuring fair competition and better
| pricing of externalities..
|
| Of interest:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene_tax#Criticism_of_the_...
| ur-whale wrote:
| Not sure which way you lean here.
|
| Are you saying you are on the side of banning stuff, or do you
| think it's a bad idea?
| haakonhr wrote:
| The ban is kind of the equivalent of a quick, hacky fix of
| some bug. It is better than nothing, but in general I'm
| against banning stuff as the problem is that the flights are
| too cheap, partially due to reasons like tax exemption on
| fuel.
| crazygringo wrote:
| EDIT: Thanks to commenters below, looks like my concerns aren't
| valid after all -- CDG has a train station and airlines there
| sell air tickets with a train connection. I didn't know about
| either of those -- seems like France has this figured out in a
| way other places haven't.
|
| (original comment below)
|
| ---
|
| I can appreciate the logic behind a ban on this _for single-hop
| trips_.
|
| But if you're flying into a hub and want to connect to a smaller
| city -- e.g. Paris to Lyon -- switching to a train is _massively_
| inconvenient. You 've got to travel _into_ Paris (an hour?) and
| then take another 2-hour train, after you 're already tired from
| your transcontinental flight.
|
| So... do I have this right that I won't be able to fly from New
| York to Lyon, it just won't exist even though they both have
| airports? I'll have to fly into Paris and add 3 hours to my
| already-long trip and make a totally separate train booking, and
| worry about if lose the train ticket if the flight is delayed?
|
| Or because Paris as a hub is out of the picture, will I just book
| a flight via Brussels (New York -> Brussels -> Lyon) because that
| will still be fine...
|
| ...and _burn a ton more CO2_ because I 'm forced to take a longer
| flight because France banned shorter ones?
| martius wrote:
| There is a TGV station in CDG.
| tom_mellior wrote:
| > _massively_ inconvenient
|
| Combating climate change will cause massive inconvenience.
|
| > So... do I have this right that I won't be able to fly from
| New York to Lyon, it just won't exist even though they both
| have airports? I'll have to fly into Paris and add 3 hours to
| my already-long trip and make a totally separate train booking,
| and worry about if lose the train ticket if the flight is
| delayed?
|
| This is FUD. If you search airfrance.com for flights from New
| York to Lyon, the fastest connection you get is indeed two
| flights connecting at CDG (11 hours total time). The second
| fastest connection (11:30) is also a connection at CDG...
| taking a direct train to Lyon. Such flight+train combinations
| have existed for a _long_ time.
| Befterriager wrote:
| > If you search airfrance.com for flights from New York to
| Lyon, the fastest connection you get is indeed two flights
| connecting at CDG (11 hours total time).
|
| And if you search an aggregator, chances are that Brussels
| Airlines (via Brussels, obviously) is faster. And more
| convenient since you can drop your luggage at your starting
| point.
|
| At that point, one criteria that comes into play is if you
| are living closer to the Lyon train station or to the Lyon
| airport.
| Befterriager wrote:
| > will I just book a flight via Brussels (New York -> Brussels
| -> Lyon) because that will still be fine...
|
| Or Amsterdam flying KLM which is a way better airport than
| Paris Charles de Gaulle anyway (and arguably a better airline
| than Air France). Or any German airport flying Lufthansa.
| kazen44 wrote:
| its kind of funny that air France is considered worse then
| KLM considering they are the same company..
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It would be better to demand syngas use to spur innovation.
| aaron695 wrote:
| How many people does it kill?
|
| People are not using trains for a reason.
|
| If they drive instead that's far less safe. It should kill a fair
| few people.
| dopidopHN wrote:
| To be noted : we have a extensive fast train system. As a user, I
| prefer to take the train. It's faster, more confortable and
| overall less hassle. ( you get from city center to city center,
| no security check; you can move around, use your mobile hotspot
| or the train wifi )
|
| The one use case is going from Paris to Toulouse for instance.
| It's take a day of train. But even Paris-Marseille is less than
| 3h at this point.
|
| Paris, Lyon, Lille; Marseille, Nantes, Strasbourg; Those are our
| << top >> cities and they are all connected with fast trains.
| thiht wrote:
| Rennes-Toulouse is 10 hours by train, because it transits
| through Paris. It's 2 hours by plane.
|
| If you're in Paris, you can go anywhere easily. If you're not
| in Paris, some cities are hard to reach by train.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Looking at timetables, it's actually 7h30 or 6h30 by train
| (I'm seeing two different itineraries, and I'm not sure where
| the hour difference comes from). Even then, the Bordeaux-
| Toulouse link is not full HSR speed, and adds an extra ~2h of
| travel time because of it. When LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse is
| built, that should cut off another 2h to a 4h30 trip.
|
| You might theoretically cut off another 1h if there were a
| more direct Rennes-Bordeaux line, but most of the delay over
| the plane isn't caused by the detour to Paris but by the
| quality of the current rail line to Toulouse.
| Befterriager wrote:
| > When LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse is built
|
| For context for US readers, the California High-Speed Rail
| will probably be completed before the end of the debate on
| the construction of the LGV Bordeaux-Toulouse.
| thiht wrote:
| Maybe it improved since the time I had to do Rennes-
| Toulouse, which is good (although it should be better).
| FWIW the SNCF website still says that the average is 10h30,
| 6h30 being the best.
| baby wrote:
| Add the time it takes to go to the airport, and go through
| security gates, and all of that and you get more like a 5-6h
| flight. Also Rennes toulouse 10h by train? I have a hard time
| believing this.
| raverbashing wrote:
| As per TFA (which apparently nobody read)
|
| > to abolish domestic flights on routes than can be covered
| by train in under two-and-a-half hours
| oleganza wrote:
| This may also seem like a nice cover up for French gov messing up
| economy and having companies go bankrupt / close destinations.
| "Looks, the flights disappeared not because we fucked things up,
| but because we are proactively saving the planet here!"
| ur-whale wrote:
| The law of unintended consequences is going to bite back so hard
| on this one ...
| blue_box wrote:
| I hope they also start doing something about meat consumption.
|
| https://www.cowspiracy.com/facts
| julienreszka wrote:
| How about no
| benja123 wrote:
| Overall I am for this, but I do wonder if most short domestic
| flights are business trips. I can definitely imagine a situation
| where if I was taking frequent day trips for work and that extra
| 30 minutes to an hour is the difference between me seeing me kid
| before they go to sleep or not choosing to take the flights.
| multiplegeorges wrote:
| To me, the best solution to this kind of scenario is video
| calling, which is currently being normalized and will be
| readily accepted going forward.
| benja123 wrote:
| Same, but pre COVID at least lots of people were expected to
| travel even if a video chat could be equally effective.
| bjeds wrote:
| I wonder what the unintended consequences are with this measure.
| Here are some:
|
| 1) I can imagine weird situations where a multi-leg flight could
| be broken up by this ban, especially if you are traveling from
| the middle of nowhere (connected to a smaller airport in France)
| and you are flying to another middle of nowhere place (connected
| by _another_ smaller airport in France). Instead of having one
| flight, you now have two flights with a train trip in the middle,
| which can of course be inconvenient in case the first flight is
| delayed and so on.
|
| 2) Say I live in one of the larger French cities, but not Paris.
| I want to travel to northern Japan, for example. Previously I
| could go to my local airport and transfer in Paris CDG. However
| now there are two other options viable for me because I can no
| longer fly to Paris: I can either take the train to Paris
| (Charles de Gaulle), hauling my checked luggage on the train and
| possible taxis (skis, travel gear, lots of duffels)... Or I can
| just go to my local airport, dump the luggage on that airport,
| and transfer in Frankfurt.
| ip26 wrote:
| I found taking TGV to Paris CDG a pretty good experience.
| baby wrote:
| The experience would be better: you take the train at the train
| station near by your place, then you arrive at the airport
| directly.
| conradfr wrote:
| Apparently the law has an exception for connecting flights but
| I'm not sure it will work in practice.
| wut42 wrote:
| While the reason is honorable, I can't help but think this is an
| attack on poor/middle class people. Traveling by train in France
| is quite expensive, and very annoying some times (I live in a
| lost country-side, and if I want to travel to my parents, it's a
| three to four train ride, taking about 8 to 10 hours). Ok, plane
| wouldn't help in most cases either, but the train offering got a
| lot gutted over the years and it's not going to improve.
| baby wrote:
| I'm French, I was a poor student, so I didn't pay for the
| train. Instead I took car rides (blablacar) or bus rides. Not a
| freaking plane!
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I never really bought this argument. Poor people aren't taking
| regular flights or driving SUV's. Climate change is a problem
| caused by the consumption habits of the wealthy, not the poor.
| j7ake wrote:
| Banning domestic flights won't stop the habits of the
| wealthy; they fly private personal planes. What the ban
| likely will cause is an increase in the cost of travel, which
| hurts middle class people.
| conradfr wrote:
| Poor people will take the Macron coaches instead of the
| disbanded slower trains.
|
| Great progress ...
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