[HN Gopher] France bans air travel that could be done by train i...
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France bans air travel that could be done by train in under 2.5
hours
Author : nixass
Score : 47 points
Date : 2021-04-12 20:31 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| nojokes wrote:
| I would be not surprised if they will rise the train ticket price
| on those routes.
| randyrand wrote:
| corner cases:
|
| - people that live very close to an airport but far (+1hrs) from
| a train station?
|
| - Train stations that don't have a place to park your car
|
| Do all airports have connections to these rail?
| smitty1e wrote:
| And then there isna train strike, followed by a monster traffic
| jam, and then Greta Thunberg getting her "How _dare_ you? " on.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Makes a lot of sense to me. E.g. in India, travelling by air
| between two major cities that is less than 300Kms apart takes
| roughly 4 to 5 hours - 1 hour to travel to the airport (if you
| are lucky) that is often on the outskirts of the city, 1 hour for
| security frisk, check-in and boarding the flight, half an hour to
| 45 minutes of actual flying, half an hour to get out of the
| airport, and another hour (or two) travelling back into the city.
| A train journey between the same cities may take 5-7 hours (or
| 7-9 hours at night) but is often more comfortable, relaxing and
| cheaper because the railway stations are inside the cities and
| getting in and out of the railway stations and trains are much,
| much faster and less stressful.
| marmaduke wrote:
| It sounds also like a win for the French train company "SNCF".
| data_acquired wrote:
| Agreed! Given the number of SNCF strikes the past few years, I
| wouldn't be surprised if this is really a victory for the SNCF
| unions over their Air France counterparts rather than a pro-
| environmental move (which is an off-shoot of the decision).
| ogre_codes wrote:
| It was originally supposed to be domestic flights under 4 hours
| which would be a much bigger area. This feels a bit like a token
| victory.
|
| Consider for a moment, the chances you'd fly if a train trip was
| less than an hour are pretty near zero. Even at 90 minutes, it's
| pretty unlikely you'd fly. Every mile less than exactly 2.5 hours
| makes it less likely you'd fly regardless. So it's essentially
| banning a small number of flights which might take 1.5-2.5 hours
| by train. How many airports are situated that distance apart? Is
| there a lot of domestic traffic between La Mans and Paris? I'm
| not familiar with France, but it really feels like this won't
| affect a whole lot.
| yummypaint wrote:
| It may be more about establishing this kind of regulation as
| the norm so it can be strengthened later. That way changes are
| merely incremental and to an existing system. It may be more
| politically viable to go that route and tie each increase to
| some concrete climate goal.
| m_a_g wrote:
| Surprisingly, this makes a lot of sense. It will help protecting
| the environment tremendously.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Impact of this particular ban is very limited. Connecting
| flights are not affected, neither are some important routes
| (Paris-Marseille) where the TGV takes too long to travel.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Agreed, the knee-jerk reaction to "France regulates [something
| unexpected]" is usually that it's lunatic bureaucrats gone wild
| (in the way that "America deregulates [something unexpected]"
| often is the converse).
|
| Ideally, the regulation wouldn't be so centralized and
| discontinuous: flights that replace 3-hr train trips are still
| harmful to the environment and still have nonzero fungibility
| with train trips, and this legislation doesn't address them at
| all. Relatedly, there could be reasons someone may want to take
| a short-hop flight that provide more utility than a flight over
| the allowable threshold would for someone else, and reflecting
| externalities in the price signal neatly allows this
| decentralized decision-making system to kick into gear.
|
| But the perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good, and this is
| likely a much easier-to-pass alternative to, eg, thorough
| carbon pricing of transportation options. Even though its area
| of effect is small, status quo bias is one of the most powerful
| forces in democratic politics, and it'll probably open the door
| to smarter and more expansive regulation in the future.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Probably adds another hour travel time to anyone flying to Paris
| just to connect to an international flight.
| [deleted]
| radiator wrote:
| Connecting flights won't be affected
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| If so, doesn't that somewhat defeat the point? A plane
| normally has connecting passengers and direct together. Now
| are they just going to fly the route half empty?
| wott wrote:
| > Now are they just going to fly the route half empty?
|
| Flying full but with half the frequency achieves the same
| result.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Still adds an hour.
| akvadrako wrote:
| It doesn't really because connecting flights are only
| useful if the times match up.
|
| So what might end up happening is people avoid connecting
| flights through Paris and instead take a longer route
| which ends up being faster and cheaper (trains are
| expensive).
| trhway wrote:
| i wonder whether it practically kills short haul electric flights
| in France? I mean that new generation of transportation is going
| to be mostly autonomous with heavy reliance on ground based
| infrastructure, and banning it would put the country well behind
| in such tech and infrastructure development.
| jeffbee wrote:
| How can you kill something that does not, never did, and never
| will exist?
| trhway wrote:
| the same way like the Wrights' patent practically killed
| aircraft development in US for almost two decades.
| jeffbee wrote:
| That the American aviation business was somehow set back by
| the Wright Brothers is, I guess, _a_ take.
| trhway wrote:
| >a take.
|
| only in the same way like the evolution is "just a
| theory".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war
|
| "The patent war stalled development of the U.S. aviation
| industry.[7][10][11][8][12] However, this claim has been
| disputed in research.[13] Perhaps as a consequence,
| airplane development in the United States fell so far
| behind Europe[7] that in World War I American pilots were
| forced to fly European combat aircraft,
| instead.[14][15][16][17] After the war began, the U.S.
| Government pressured the aviation industry to form an
| organization to share patents.[7][18]"
| WalterGR wrote:
| Previously:
|
| France to ban some domestic flights where train available due to
| climate measure
| (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/12/france-ban-...)
|
| 43 points | giuliomagnifico | 11 hours ago | 27 comments
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26777551
| greenyoda wrote:
| Also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26770929 (currently
| 244 points, 347 comments)
| [deleted]
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