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'…
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!
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.
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.
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).
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. P…
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.
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.
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 hav…
The experience would be better: you take the train at the train station near by your place, then you arrive at the airport directly.
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.
> 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 y…
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.
Changing transportation modes is also quite difficult for parents with small children. Especially if they have to haul multiple car seats for the flight.
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.
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.
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…
> 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.
its kind of funny that air France is considered worse then KLM considering they are the same company..
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.
Changing transportation modes is also quite difficult for parents with small children. Especially if they have to haul multiple car seats for the flight.
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.
> 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 y…
> 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…
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.