France To Ban Some Domestic Flights Where Train Available (theguardian.com) 215
AmiMoJo writes: French MPs have voted to suspend domestic airline flights on routes that can be travelled by direct train in less than two and a half hours, as part of a series of climate and environmental measures. After a heated debate in the Assemblee Nationale at the weekend, the ban, a watered-down version of a key recommendation from President Emmanuel Macron's citizens' climate convention was adopted. It will mean the end of short internal flights from Orly airport, south of Paris, to Nantes and Bordeaux among others, though connecting flights through Charles de Gaulle/Roissy airport, north of the French capital, will continue. The climate commission set up by Macron had originally recommended the scrapping of all flights between French destinations where an alternative direct train journey of less than four hours existed. This was reduced to two and a half hours after strong objections from certain regions and from Air France-KLM, which, like other airlines, has been badly hit by local and international Covid-19 restrictions on travel.
Let me guess (Score:5, Interesting)
Flying cattle class is ordered to take the train to save the environment, but rich fucks still fly private jets, right?
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Probably, but let's be fair here. Trains are more comfortable and practical than flying anyways so it's still a win.
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Re:Let me guess (Score:5, Informative)
They explicitly say they allow flights to CDG for connecting flights.
Also from Canada you can get flights to various French cities including Nice, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, etc. so you don't always have to go through Paris. I guess you have even more choice when going to closer countries.
Re:CDG connections (Score:5, Informative)
CDG has its own railway station with trains from many parts of France stopping there.
I've travelled there directly from London rather than flying.
CDG is also one of the two airports that regularly lost my bags on a transfer. Frankfurt is even worse, especially if your incoming flight is late and you miss the connection.
Going to CDG by train is a far more pleasurable experience than flying in for a connection.
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CDG is weird. The distance between arrivals and departures is just nuts. On one trip, they rushed me through customs and I still missed my connecting flight. On top of that, they forgot to stamp my passport which caused me trouble on the way out.
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CDG has its own railway station with trains from many parts of France stopping there.
It does. But it's North East of Paris, so trains from North-East France, London, Belgium can get there. But from South-Western France, it's something else.
Let's have a look at the affected routes (from TFA): Nantes, Bordeaux and Lyon. Marseilles, Toulouse and Nice are too far so are not affected by the new rule.
From Bordeaux and Nantes, you likely need to switch to another train in central Paris. Total travel time is about 4h.
From Lyon you can get to CDG in 2h using a single train.
So it make sense to still
Re:CDG connections (Score:5, Insightful)
Trains from Bordeaux and the Rhone Valley to Lille all stop at CDG.
I agree that Toulouse and Brittany do present a problem.
That said, eliminating short-haul flights all over Europe is a good thing. It will reduce the carbon emissions for many countries.
I have not flown since 2016. I'm going to a wedding in northern Sweden in September. I'm driving my EV from London. Yes, it will take four days but I get to see parts of Europe that I've never been to before.
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Having to go from the train stations (center of Paris) to the airports (way out on Paris) is a major waste of time (about 2 hours).
What has the centre of Paris got to do with anything? Heck last time I went to CDG by train I didn't get anywhere near to Paris. The airport is heavily serviced directly by the TGV. Also they aren't the first to do this. KLM has been booking people for connections to Brussels via the Thalys so if you get an international flight with KLM to Brussels via Amsterdam you end up on a high speed train for the last leg of your journey automatically.
The result is faster and far more pleasant than wasting time checki
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Yes I agree, but... that is unless you have a connecting flight.
Never, ever, take a connecting flight through CDG with luggage.
Well not unless you are planning to do an insurance scam with said luggage.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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>How are planes actually competing for these shorter journeys?
Traveling from Paris to Nice by train would take about 13 hours. By plane, that's about an hour and a half.
Paris to Nantes, 3 hours by train, 1 hour by plane.
etc. etc. etc.
=Smidge=
Re:Let me guess (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone didn't read the summary, this only applies to flights where the train can get there in two and a half hours or less. By the time you add all the BS at security these days plus boarding etc, your flight is highly unlikely to be any faster.
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Traveling from Paris to Nice by train would take about 13 hours. By plane, that's about an hour and a half.
Really? That's weird.
I took High-Speed Rail from Paris to Venice and it certainly wasn't 13 hours. I looked it up quickly with Google and you are right--but it was a late-night train which ended up spending the night in Lyon. A non-stop train in the morning is about 6 hours.
Re:Let me guess (Score:4, Insightful)
You must have picked the wrong "Nice".
With a TGV it is 6:00h exactly.
However the route is interesting. The train stops in every "prominent/famous" town after Marseille.
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Price. Trains are expensive in France. Although I must admit this is is changing rapidly with additional taxes on CO2 emissions that increase the price of flying (that and airlines that need cash due to the pandemic).
Also, 2 hrs 30 by train takes you pretty far in France (compared to the size of the country). Several high speed rails have opened in the past 3-4 years that dramatically cut the time to travel to some places. For example, Paris to Bordeaux is about 600 km and takes only 2 hrs 10 by train now.
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The law is pretty nonsense. As the trains suffer from the same problem as the planes: a huge deal of traffic is for historical reasons routed via Paris.
Some flights are exceptions, and it seems they keep them "allowed". And depending where you are the routing via Paris is not such a big deal, as it is "somehow half assed" on the way anyway.
But that is luckily changing, new routes are coming up every few years.
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French trains are known to be unreliable
So here's an idea: attack an appropriate neighbour, then after the usual french military victory, trains will go on time!
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And in which century was that?
The last 15 years I had no single French train late or canceled for what ever reason.
Anyway, if you want something reliable, and less expense, for more than one person, use a car!
In France? Or other parts of Europe?
You lost me somewhere with "less expensive" ... ah, you mean a full car is less expensive than 5 train tickets? Sorry, I can not afford to wait for 4 paying passengers in my car. And as we are talking about France: most long distance car routes are toll roads. So: n
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Sorry, I can not afford to wait for 4 paying passengers in my car.
I have 3 kids and I can't remember the last time I left the city limits of the small town I live in with less than 4 people. It always annoys me that our local regional airport has airline tickets priced so that it if there is more than one or two people, it's always cheaper to drive 2 hours to the next town and pay for parking than it is to fly out of my home town with free parking because they add $100 a person to the price of the ticket. $100 is easily justified for a solo flier because of the 2 hour
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but rich fucks still fly private jets, right?
Environmentally, "reverse" Jevons' effect should take care of that: the expensive option is disproportionately less present in the environmental effects than the cheap one.
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I realize that private jets have virtually no impact on the environment, and the barrier to entry ensures that they'll stay that way. But that's not the point: the point is, once again, there's a privileged minority to whom the law doesnt apply and who gets to do as it pleases. That sort of thing contributes to the general feeling of unfairness among the population, and does nothing for social peace.
That will show them (Score:2)
> the point is, once again, there's a privileged minority to whom the law doesnt apply and who gets to do as it pleases.
"We could have saved the planet, we were just trying to make sure filthy rich people are inconvenienced, too, though they don't directly matter (save their lobbyism and bribery). So we didn't save the planet. That will show them."
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Saving the planet doesn't preclude instilling a sense of social justice for the general population. When you build up frustration amongst ordinary citizens who feel they're constantly being picked on, eventually you get civil wars and other lesser nasty societal effects - and those aren't usually very ecological affairs, if you want to stay on that particular ground.
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I think the point is "people flying in their private jets to get together to scold the 99% about how they aren't doing enough to save the environment" isn't a blueprint toward achieving what they claim to want to accomplish.
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I realize that jets have virtually no impact on the environment
FTFY. If you eliminate all flights, you get rid of just 3-5% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Not accounting for the increase in emissions caused by rail / ship traffic that replaces said flights.
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The world wide contribution of flight to CO2 emissions is 2%.
Not 3%, not 5%.
So in this particular case, shifting a few thousand flights per year to trains, has basically ZERO impact.
If they had done it right, they simply had taxed short range flights, to make the tickets more expensive, so people can decide if they take a train or a plane.
While I'm all for CO2 reduction, I'm completely against knee jerk reactions. Unfortunately to many people, in this case MPs are to uneducated to grasp what is important an
Re: Let me guess (Score:2)
So why doesn't the law force car drivers to take the train instead? This is about getting commuters out of the airport and propping up their railroads, the "green thing" is just a happy accident.
No Big Woop. (Score:4, Funny)
Re: No Big Woop. (Score:2, Troll)
This will get people that used to fly these short trips to drive right past the train stations and just drive to their destination, rather than conform to the train schedule and spend time sitting in the station waiting for their train.
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I'm pretty sure planes have a set schedule, too, unless you're hiring a private one.
I don't know how frequent commuter flights depart but trains are often on an hourly schedule, with more frequent service during peak times.
=Smidge=
Re: No Big Woop. (Score:5, Informative)
This will get people that used to fly these short trips to drive right past the train stations and just drive to their destination, rather than conform to the train schedule and spend time sitting in the station waiting for their train.
A 2.5 hour TGV ride is close to 500 miles, which is a 6+ hour drive. Also, you don't have to spend much time waiting for a train. The trains run on time and you don't have to arrive at the station more than 5-10 minutes before departure; you only need enough time to walk to the platform and find your seat.
Unless you have some specific reason for needing your car at the destination, or unless you're concerned about an upcoming strike, taking the train really is much nicer and more time-efficient than driving in France. The trains are so much faster than cars, as well as smoother, safer -- and greener.
Re: No Big Woop. (Score:2)
Is every train TGV?
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Is every train TGV?
No, but these long-distance routes generally have multiple TGVs per day, along with non-express trains that make more stops -- and also generally move quite a bit faster than cars.
If you've never traveled around France by train, you should try it.
Re: No Big Woop. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you were talking about the US... where *any* sort of mass transit, but *especially* rail, is propagandized as pinko gay communism that makes the baby Jesus cry and our rail network is crap because of that... you would be correct.
But the TGV, while not quite up to Shinkansen standards of service, is vastly superior to the Amtrak trash that passes for rail transit here. TGV's only real problem is its "hub and Spock" model; where it can be inconvenient to get to and from certain destinations without having to go through Paris. The Shinkansen, OTOH, is divided into the north half and south half and you need to go through Tokyo to get from one half to the other; but you can go, for example, from Nagoya to Hiroshima without having to go back through the capitol. Regardless; the TGV is still much faster and less of a hassle than driving.
Versus flying? For those shorter trips it's also faster and with less hassle. You have to adhere to the airline's schedule and wait for your plane too, after all. But the train stations are easier to get to in the first place. They're closer to city centers than airports and usually co-located with subway, metro, or other local mass transit hubs. I've also noticed, in both France but especially in Japan, that the trains adhere to their published schedules much more consistently than airlines deign to do. And you don't have to arrive two hours early to be felt up by the local equivalents of the TSA goonsquad for the trains. You just show up at the station, present your ticket or pass, and walk right onto the platform. The only reason to arrive at the station more than ten minutes before you're train departs is if you want to get in some shopping or buy a meal to bring on the train with you.
You wouldn't *need* a law to get me onto a train instead of a plane if we had rail service equivalent to Japan, or even France, here unless I had to go full coast-to-coast. For a quick jaunt down to SoCal or Vegas or up to Portaland or even Seattle? I'd take a Shinkansen or TGV every time.
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When talking about scheduling flexibility, trains generally win out in this department. There are usually more frequent trains than there are planes, and you can generally walk straight into a station and onto the train, whereas for the plane you have to deal with all the check-in and security BS. When you add in the fact that trains tend to go closer to the most popular destinations (inside of cities, instead of on the outskirts like airports) it's a wonder anyone would ever consider a flight when there's
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Googling around, a bit smaller than Texas with more than twice the population. Aside from that, it doesn't have a vast area of semi-arid plains between most cities. Texas has a lot of its population concentrated in a few big cities in the east. Are people flying from Austin to Dallas though? It's only a 3 hour drive*. It's Houston to El Paso that makes you want to fly. That's eleven hours*.
You don't have to ban flights from Houston to Austin either. It's less than 3 hours*.
This whole thing sounds lik
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But the wine, and arguable the food, but most certainly the women are much better in France!
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Probably faster too. (Score:5, Informative)
If Airports in France are anything like in the United States. You can probably get to your location faster by train anyways.
A while back when I use to do a lot of travel for work. I routinely flew from upstate NY to Pittsburgh PA. When things were running smoothly the Time from Entering the Airport to leaving the Airport took about 3 hours. Then an extra hour driving a rental car to my Hotel, near the actual location I needed to work at. So it took 4 hours when everything worked well...
Those days rarely happened. With delays and what not, I need to expect to take about 7-8 hours of travel to get to my location, Once it took me nearly 12 hours.
It would take me about 6-7 hours of driving to get to my hotel from my home office. So in terms of speed, it wasn't worth it. There isn't a high speed train system that connects those points together so a Train isn't an option. But I still took the Plane because the company paid for it, and it was more relaxing than driving for 7 hours. Where I would take a couple 45 minute flights, and then chill at the airport. Knowing what ever happens is out of my hand.
France has a much more complex rail system, where I would expect it would be faster and more comfortable than driving or flying anyways.
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If Airports in France are anything like in the United States. You can probably get to your location faster by train anyways.
I was thinking that. With having to be at the airport an hour beforehand, to mention the much higher chance of a flight being delayed, and the travel time to and from the airports, there's not really much reason to do short flights.
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If Airports in France are anything like in the United States. You can probably get to your location faster by train anyways.
I was thinking that. With having to be at the airport an hour beforehand, to mention the much higher chance of a flight being delayed, and the travel time to and from the airports, there's not really much reason to do short flights.
Which raises the question of why they still have passengers to being with.
I'm fine with this policy if there was some kind of government policy propping up these routes, or if they just accelerated the inevitable. But otherwise I'd prefer an appropriate carbon tax that made the routes infeasible based on cost alone.
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Habits are hard to break.
A lot of people still today want to fancy themselves as some sort of Jet Setter so they feel a bit special having to take the plane to get somewhere.
But also travel by plane seems faster on paper, so a 2 hour train ride, vs a 1 hour flight. Might seem like a good plan on paper.
Europe sense of distance is much smaller than in the United States. So 100km (62 miles) seems like something for an overnight trip, while in America, we may travel that to visit someone for lunch. So for a
Americans will take high speed trains... (Score:2)
Americans will take high speed trains...when we can drive our cars on to them for the "long haul" and drive off at our destination.
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I doubt there are any 200km or shorter flights in Europe unless it is kind of "prestige route" between two capitals like Amsterdam - Luxembourg or Lucembourg - Brussels.
So 100km (62 miles) seems like something for an overnight trip
That does not make really sense, as 100km is like 45 minutes on a highway, and roughly an hour if you have the first and last leg in a bigger town/city.
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But otherwise I'd prefer an appropriate carbon tax that made the routes infeasible based on cost alone.
I don't know. I don't see the logic of making things we don't want into "It's okay if you're rich". If we as a society don't want it, we should just say it's not allowed.
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The reason is because the short haul companies have found ways to offer really cheap tickets that actually undercut the train, and people consider their time to be worthless.
Also connecting flights hide the cost quite effectively. Maybe this will encourage operators to do deals where you get a train ticket and flight instead.
Location (Score:2)
The only difference between train and plane travel is security checkpoints.
And the location:
- Airports tend to be well outside the city, in the middle of nowhere, for both space and noise/pollutions reasons
- Train station are usually in the middle of the city.
And the schedule:
- You have trains every hour, more at peak times, and also have even night trains.
- You have a couple of planes per day at best.
(Well at least in Europe).
You have to drive to/from airport,
...whereas the trains station is just a couple of bus/metro stops away.
Not a 1h by car travel away from the city.
you have to wait for the train,
up to 1 hour maximum. You can be in the tra
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Boarding a train happens to multiple doors simultaneously, making the whole boarding process take dramatically shorter time than on an airplane. Additionally train tickets often include your assigned seat. And I've never seen a train oversold the way airplanes are routinely. As a result I would say your seat is guaranteed on the train, but never on the airplane. As for driving to and from, train stations tend to be right in the center of cities where people already want to go, whereas airports are on the ou
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On the surface, your guess is not a bad guess. I can see why people who think Europe is The Land of Perfect Transport would think that trains are better than planes. After all, France is small, and they have lots of trains, and all airports suck, so for a small country like that with good trains, trains should be better than flying anyway, right? Wrong. As you can guess, if it
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Have you ever actually traveled within France much? Your experience with NE US is not very relevant to France, as should be obvious.
What the fuck are you talking about. CDG is exactly the same shitshow that the GP was talking about in the USA. It's slow and painful as every large international airport is. Arrive 2 hours early and you still run the risk of missing your flight in peak season. The experience is perfectly relevant (as should be obvious) since the rules that cause airports to be slow and painful are international rules, and it's the same shitshow in New York, London, Paris, Sydney, or Beijing. The exception to the rule is sm
Re: Probably faster too. (Score:2)
You left out "virtue signalling"
Train travel is a great option, but when your choice is train or car, the car will likely win more often than train, since driving to your destination means you don't have to arrange transport at destination and can come/go as you please, rather than adhere to train schedule.
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However, airports in France - apart from CGD - are nothing like in the US, there not that far away from the city center, and easily accessible using a train of a bus in under 30 minutes. France is about the size of Texas, there's not much space to put the airports far away from cities. However, French trains are fast. 2 hrs 30 of French TGV would take you from Buffalo to Cincinnati, and I doubt driving would be a viable option in that case.
I like trains, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The national railways in France have always been a hotbed of unionism and inefficiency, even with competition. It's a sort of national tradition there.
In fairness, the service has gotten a lot better in the past two decades. But still, you regularly hear about strikes that literally paralyze the entire country for weeks that are invariably started by the railway unions.
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Trains and fares are regulated in France so it's unlikely that they will get worse because of lack of competition from flights. If anything they will probably get better as passenger numbers increase.
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Reality ought to trump your brief, ill informed noodling in the free market.
France regulates a lot of stuff heavily, especially the trains. And you know what. The trains are really good, especially the TGV. A huge, heavily regulated government project isn't going to suddenly get worse because of free market pixie dust.
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Well, the TGV is a phenomenal network, for one.
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... having competition
There is no competition. Airlines are able to get people to their destination faster and cheaper and will often compete indirectly with trains in an effort to compete with other airlines by offering more direct options for travellers.
Airlines are like Amazon and a Coal fired power plant rolled into one. Their power of being a mandatory part of the purchasing decision allowed them to squeeze out competition and they massively externalise the cost of being the most polluting form of short hop travel.
I predict a lawsuit (Score:3, Interesting)
See the thing is, in France, the national train company - SNCF - is, well, nationalized. The majority shareholder is the state.
In other words, I betcha anything the airlines will sue the government for unfairly driving business towards themselves. And they'd have a pretty good case too I think.
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The French Government also own a very large stake in the national airline.... Air France. Why would Air France sue?
Oh, and this has been happening in Germany. I once connected at Frankfurt for a Lufthansa flight to Koln. That was done by train rather than by aircraft. I'm not sure if this is still operating though.
Internal flights in France with Air France are as bad as internal flights in the USA. Long haul is sort of ok. I've flown with them to Reunion (an island in the Indian Ocean and part of France) an
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Air France was already forced to abandon these flights in exchange of a bailout. The new law is to make sure that other companies will not profit from the void left by Air France as that would have then nullified the effect on CO2 emission.
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I betcha anything the airlines will sue the government
So sue their own owners? This is of course Air France we're talking about.
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Until COVID came along, there were plans for private companies to run private services : Trenitalia is/was in the process of having its ETR 1000 certified on the French rail network. Renfe (the Spanish state-owned operator) already has its AVE class S-100 certified for France (it's a modified TGV after all) and recently applied for slots between Barcelona, Marseille and Lyon, partially running on high speed lines. German train company Flixbus/Flixtrain was also planning a few services on "classic" (non-high
This is reasonable (Score:5, Informative)
Those short flights were not justifiable anyway.
High-speed trains usually go from city centre to city centre, without 30+ min commute to/from each airport or long waiting lines for check-in and security checks. ... the threshold is only 2.5h? .. well, for most of these routes, the train should also be faster (in total, of course).
Just find your platform and carriage and get on board.
Less complicated, less stress and
Re:This is reasonable (Score:4, Insightful)
If they were not justifiable, why does the government have to step in and ban them? If they were so terrible, they wouldn't have made money to stay in business. Obviously people were using those flights and they were useful & profitable to someone or the government wouldn't have gotten jealous.
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In which case people would be choosing the train anyway as the advantages are apparent. However, now you have people flying into de Gaul from outside of France having to trek all the way into the middle of Paris in order to catch a train.
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Nevermind, reading the bbc article it says connecting flights are not affected.
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Nevermind, reading the bbc article it says connecting flights are not affected.
But it doesn't mention if the legislators took into account how much traffic was domestic vs connecting. If there aren't enough passengers headed to the smaller cities then the flights will just be completely cancelled, making it de facto affecting connecting flights.
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> However, now you have people flying into de Gaul from outside of France having to trek all the way into the middle of Paris in order to catch a train.
Charles de Gaulle Airport has a TGV terminal [wikipedia.org], so I'm not sure why anyone would "trek all the way into the middle of Paris" when you can board a train to nearly anywhere in France without ever stepping outside the building...
=Smidge=
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If they are so great, why do people ever take the airlines for those trips?
Are these flights relevant anyways? (Score:2)
On a 3-hour domestic airplane-based journey roughly half of the time is spent with security check and getting to the airport in the first place (which is usually in a remote region). Who would choose this option except the most die-hard aisplane enthusiasts?
Trains are state-owned (Score:2)
Nice way to ensure revenue.
Re:Sounds like a govt.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What governments don't regulate emissions? All have car emission limits, regulations on aircraft emissions, often taxation that accounts for emissions... This is just a logical extension.
The issue is that while the train is a lot cleaner and greener the airlines have found ways to artificially get the price of short haul flights down to a competitive level, mostly by outsourcing the cost of the emissions and using long haul as an excuse to keep things like taxes on aviation fuel low.
By the way, French autoroutes (their fastest roads) often charge you to drive on them.
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The issue is that while the train is a lot cleaner and greener the airlines have found ways to artificially get the price of short haul flights down to a competitive level, mostly by outsourcing the cost of the emissions and using long haul as an excuse to keep things like taxes on aviation fuel low.
What do you mean by outsourcing the cost of emissions?
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The airline does not pay the full cost of those emissions. Much of the cost is paid by other people, unwillingly.
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Yes, emissions and public health are a convenient excuse to micromanage the lives of ordinary people, and to remind any ambitious or extraordinary among them exactly who's boss and whose ring needs to be kissed.
So are stop signs. Whatever.
Re: Sounds like a govt.... (Score:3)
Are all citizens entitled to contribute recommentations? Do they all get a vote on final recommendations included in the report?
All 60 million of them? Or just a few activists taking the mantle of "the people" to add artificial support for their otherwise unpopular, or just plain not popular, position?
If the former, then I suppose I must withdraw my criticism. If the latter (as I suspect it is there, kinda the way astroturf grassroots environmentalism is in the US), then it is 100% kissing the ring.
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Citizen conventions typically consists of randomly selected citizens. This one consists of 150 randomly selected citizens [wikipedia.org] using a statistical procedure (sortition, a variant of stratified sampling) to make it represent the whole.
Re: Sounds like a govt.... (Score:2)
Okay, I withdraw some of my criticism but not all. Specifically, I assert that a random sampling with mandatory participation (which this was not) would yield a representative result, whereas a random sampling with voluntary participation still lends itself to self-selection bias favoring climate zealots.
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The government is paying to keep the trains running, they are also paying to keep the plains flying as well.
So there is an option that is expensive, environmentally unsound, and often uncomfortable and overall nearly as fast. Compared to an other option that still may be expensive, but more environmentally sound, and offers passengers a more conformable ride and gets their at around the same amount of time.
I would think the country would want to make better use of tax money, so stopping an inefficient sys
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So, you're saying in France, that the airlines and trains aren't owned by private entities..that they are owned and run by the government?
Well, that depends on what state you live in if you are talking about the US. Not all states require vehicle inspections and even those that do, many do not require any type of emissions testing.
Ag
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Sounds like a govt with a bit too much power and control over the citizens' ability to make choices for themselves.
I expect people to largely make choices in their rational self-interest, which rarely extends beyond their lifetimes. I expect corporations to largely make choices in their rational self-interest too, usually with shorter lifetimes.
That's fine and there's nothing wrong with that... as long as there's also an opportunity for a body to make choices in rational common-interest for a group of people over much longer time periods too. We do have such bodies, and we call them "governments", and bits of them (part
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...with a bit too much power and control over the citizens' ability to make choices for themselves.
That's good. Citizens don't have capabilities of making good choices for themselves. Hell I feel like coming over and punching you in the face. No doubt you'll quote some "government" law that this would be "assault" but hey we don't like governments do we.
Cayenne8's America: Land of the free to die choking on smog in the unregulated sewer.
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Wow...rated -1 troll?
*SIGH*
I guess there are just more and more people, that for some reason want the government to run their lives and make their decisions for them.
I don't understand it.
When did pride in the "individual" fade so quickly?
Re: Sounds like a govt.... (Score:2)
This will result in increased car ownership, rather than increased train ridership. Trains are slower than planes only slightly faster than cars.
transportation networks. (Score:2)
This will result in increased car ownership,
France is not Germany.(*)
Highway aren't free (nor state owned, or paid by taxes).
They are operated by private companies, which earn money using toll booths.
Travelling across the country usually costs quite a bit and isn't competitive to train or low-cost air travel (unless you pack the car full of passenger).
And during peak hours/travel season/vacation it is horrendously slow due to unending queue in front of the toll booths (could in theory be alleviated by using wireless toll emitters and no-stop tolls. B
Re: (Score:2)
By the time you deal with all the BS at airports these days, it is extremely difficult to find a flight that takes less than two and a half hours (total time, not flight time). So if you have to take a train for two and a half hours, it's exceedingly unlikely that you could get there by plane faster. This is exaggerated even more by the fact that airports tend to be a long way from the places most people want to go, which is usually the center of the city. Whereas trains generally go right into the center o
Direct democracy (Score:2)
An elected government is one mechanism citizens use to make choices for themselves on national issues.
Voting in a direct(*) democracy is another much better one.
Just saying.
As one of the neighbouring country.
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(*) as opposed to just electing the "representatitive" democracy
Re:Economics? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
In France Freight traffic has low priority so mostly runs at night. And trains go up to 380kph routinely.
Here in the US we only run freight trains during commuting hours and lunch. Engineers get paid a bonus for per minute per car stuck waiting on them to cross the road during rush hour.
Re:Economics? (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep in mind that that's 2.5 hours on a TGV [wikipedia.org] . These trains routinely travel at 320 km/h and have reached over 500 km/h, so 2.5 hours means 800 km. That's New York-Detroit.
Re: (Score:2)
2.5 hours from Paris is much of the country. Paris Gare de Lyon to Gare d'Avignon in the south is 2h40 by TGV, or it's just under 700km in a car (7 hours without stops).
I've always figured that up to 4.5 hours by train is the point where you should start considering flying. Then again, flying is often cheaper.
Re: (Score:3)
"It takes the train over five hours to get from Amsterdam to Hamburg"
If you're going from Amsterdam to Hamburg through France, I think I see your problem.
Price difference (Score:2)
Which is more expensive, train or airline?
Saddly in Europe, trains still tend to cost a bit more.
Airline are a cut-throat competitive war. You could sometime book an Easyjet flight at a price lower than the taxi between the city and the airport.
Trains are mostly still either state owned or operated by single private companies. There's very little competition and thus price aren't specifically driven low.
Also France's railway operator suck at making rebates.
(said as a smug Swiss who can just buy a half-fare travel card and get 50% off the whole nati
Re: Economics? (Score:2)
Understand we are one successful terrorist attack on a train away from TSA checkpoints. A plot is uncovered to mix a bomb on a flight, and no one can ever bring outside drinks into airports. One guy puts a bomb in his shoes, and we all walk thru security in our socks.
Re: (Score:2)
TGVs have been a cash cow pretty much since their inception in 1981. They quite literally saved the company. Up until the 2010s, revenue from TGVs pretty much paid for the other loss-making services, freight included. Low cost airlines burst that stream of income. TGV service is still break-even but can no longer pay for other services, that's a main issue right now.
So get your facts straight.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing you said -- which is by the way a gross misrepresentation that isn't worth rebutting -- contradicts anything I said, and certainly doesn't dispute my main conclusion. France needs the money to subsidize their rail, so they banned these flights under the guise of climate protection. It's about money, not climate. It only makes lives harder for people by depriving them of a service they need. It makes travel less convenient for people and deprives some people of jobs, all because the government needs