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France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

euronews.com

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Re: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

#81

Post by osigurdson »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #43
usr1106 wrote: post #28

This seems like making headlines for little real impact. If they did want to do something for the environment and fairer competition between transport modes they should tax aviation fuel and airline tickets. Regardless of distance and destination.

Aviation emissions are 1.9% of global emissions. [0] I certainly don't disagree with a jet fuel tax (which is obscenely tax free in most of the world). However, if we want to be impactful then we need to start building massive storage infrastructure and grow renewable sources so that we can curb down emissions from energy production using coal and gas. Everything else is a drop in a bucket comparatively speaking (eve…

This is one of the problems with hiring non-technical politicians. They have zero background in science and base everything on current trends and analogies. It is a real problem in many western democracies - people who are only capable of getting a political science degree run for office because that is the only job they can get. Capable people end up doing other jobs because politics doesn't pay until you are in a position to corrupt things and capable people usually aren't interested in corruption. Politics needs to pay far more in order to attract capable/competent people.

Re: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

#82

Post by cauch »

bsaul wrote: post #38
helmholtz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is high on inflamatory polemics but lacking in substance. If you'd listed _what_ side effects you do foresee, that would have been a much more interesting comment.

We've had numerous examples now of how pseudo-environmental policies destroyed economies and energy infrastructure in europe (germany becoming super dependant on gaz and coal, and france leaving its nuclear infrastructure to rust), with absolutely 0 effect on climate, (and 0 is a generous number, if anything those policies did worst for climate change than just doing nothin). I believe it is now time for citizen to a…

> We've had numerous examples now of how pseudo-environmental policies destroyed economies and energy infrastructure in europe ... france leaving its nuclear infrastructure to rust

I'm the first one to criticize pseudo-environmental policies, and Germany was indeed a mess due to pseudo-environmental policies. But the state of french nuclear infrastructure is not due to ecologists, it is very stupid to think it is, because it does not make any sense.

The different french government were all way more pro-nuclear than than in other countries, and french nuclear technology was always considered by them as a source of pride. The state of the nuclear infrastructure is a mix of plenty of things: short-term vision from the french politicians (as usual: results of investment take time and they will not be in power when they will come, so what's the point), overconfidence ("we have the best tech, I'm sure it will still be the case in 10 years, let's invest in other stuffs instead"), privatization (the picture would not be as it is today if EDF was not struggling economically because of the shoe-horned privatization that forced them to sell at loss), loss of know-how, ...

One example of how ridiculous it is to blame it on ecologists is when we talk about running nuclear plants. Their situation is very dire. Yet, how can it be the results of ecologists? If they were able to influence the decisions regarding the power plant, they would close it, not pass laws that say "let's decrease checks, let stuffs get corroded, let make the worker condition even worse". Obviously, if the ecologists were able to influence things that led to the situation of running power plants, they would have done things totally differently in order to reach their goal way faster.

Re: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

#83

Post by kkfx »

mojuba wrote: post #16

I understand the criticism but to be fair high speed trains are better in many cases: Paris - Lyon by airplane: 1h15 plus travel to and from airport, plus security, boarding etc Paris - Lyon by train: 2h30, city center to city center, no security checks. This might actually be faster! Personally when traveling between London and Paris I choose the high speed train. It's usually more expensive but just the fact it rem…

Meanwhile the entire world, France included for Nice-Paris, study flying taxis and "cars"... Oh, but such moves are not made to push some cohort of peoples out of traveling while pushing others to do so...

https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-...

https://siecledigital.fr/2021/10/28/laeroport-de-nice-souhai...

Re: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

#84

Post by lzooz »

mojuba wrote: post #16

I understand the criticism but to be fair high speed trains are better in many cases: Paris - Lyon by airplane: 1h15 plus travel to and from airport, plus security, boarding etc Paris - Lyon by train: 2h30, city center to city center, no security checks. This might actually be faster! Personally when traveling between London and Paris I choose the high speed train. It's usually more expensive but just the fact it rem…

If it was better for you then the government wouldn't have to force you to do it.

Re: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

#85

Post by cauch »

osigurdson wrote: post #77
cauch wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws should not be decided just based on what is good for you in particular, but in considering what is the most efficient in average. Sure, you may have an easy access to the airport outside the city centre, but people in the city centre, which constitute a bigger number, have a worst access. And people who are not in the city centre but on the other side also have a worst access to the airport than the city centre.…

Presumably if trains truly were better, there should be no need for a law. Perhaps they should focus their efforts on making trains an obviously superior service.

What do you mean by "better"? Planes are faster and more convenient, but they are polluting more, which has long term negative impact. If you want to know what is "better", you need to put everything in the balance. And the weight of each thing will also depend on subjective opinion (is it better to see 5 old people die 5 year earlier than otherwise or see 10% less investment from foreign investors?).

Also, this should not be decided by the "market", because the market is crap as evaluating mid- or long-term consequences.

Re: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

#86

Post by fmajid »

mojuba wrote: post #35
alistairSH wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is train so much more expensive? Surely jets that cost $100s of millions, supported by massive airports, are more expensive? Seems like the market distortions are subsidies to airlines of some sort.

I suspect in case of the Eurostar high speed train they simply follow the airline ticket pricing for the same destinations and add their "convenience tax" on top of it, usually around £50. Saying this because I've noticed that their prices fluctuate together with airline ones, and they fluctuate wildly.

Yes, despite being state-owned, Eurostar operates like a classic price-maximizing monopoly. Thalys is much cheaper, I wonder what will happen now the two are merging. Hopefully Renfe will launch its competing service soon on the London to Paris route.

Re: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

#87

Post by osigurdson »

cauch wrote: post #85
osigurdson wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably if trains truly were better, there should be no need for a law. Perhaps they should focus their efforts on making trains an obviously superior service.

What do you mean by "better"? Planes are faster and more convenient, but they are polluting more, which has long term negative impact. If you want to know what is "better", you need to put everything in the balance. And the weight of each thing will also depend on subjective opinion (is it better to see 5 old people die 5 year earlier than otherwise or see 10% less investment from foreign investors?). Also, this shou…

If you don't think "the market" (aka people) should get to decide then you have probably have some authoritarian leanings. My argument is make the train service better so people want to use it instead of forcing them to do so.

Re: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

#88

Post by BaseballPhysics »

osigurdson wrote: post #87
cauch wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "better"? Planes are faster and more convenient, but they are polluting more, which has long term negative impact. If you want to know what is "better", you need to put everything in the balance. And the weight of each thing will also depend on subjective opinion (is it better to see 5 old people die 5 year earlier than otherwise or see 10% less investment from foreign investors?). Also, this shou…

If you don't think "the market" (aka people) should get to decide then you have probably have some authoritarian leanings. My argument is make the train service better so people want to use it instead of forcing them to do so.

Surely you're aware of the market distortions that are a result of negative externalities. Markets aren't perfect and recognizing that governments exist to correct market distortions is hardly authoritarian.

In this case France could alternatively levy a hefty tax so that your air travel costs fully reflect the environmental damage it causes. Would that be your preference?

Re: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

#89

Post by freddealmeida »

I find this disconcerting. 1) everyone has different reasons for taking flights over trains. Markets should decide the economics of it. Government shouldnt. 2) There is no clear impact thesis on carbon on the environment of France. It is probably close to zero. If not negligible. 3). Not for you but for them. I dont see elites, powerful politicians taking the train. All the reasons will be given. Teams need to move, security, time constraints, nearness to the airport etc. 4) private jets while being attacked in France will never be banned. In fact because of this ban on flights I would expect an increase in private use/lease/ownership. 5) These kind of measures hurt the poor. When you have no competing options, prices go up.

Re: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel

#90

Post by varispeed »

jeltz wrote: post #13
varispeed wrote: post #2

We are all in this together* *except the rich So this is another measure to widen the gap between the rich and the pleb - when the pleb's travel gets restricted further, the rich can enjoy private jet hopping undisturbed - which gives them advantage over the pleb as they can get to places even quicker. If we are serious about climate, then there should be no exceptions for the rich, in fact they should be leading by…

Pretty dishonest to write that about France, one of the few countries which seems intent on cracking down on private jets.

> seems intent

They do nothing. Words have no bearing if they are not backed by actions. There was no excuse why they shouldn't ban short private jet trips too.

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