271–280 of 345 posts
I'm so happy with having a car again.
Traveling short, local trips via public transport most places in Europe is getting very economical, while I feel traveling distances outside those local zones is getting prohibitively expensive compared to air travel. I used to be able to get from my home in western France to Amsterdam via trains for much less than flying or driving, whereas last fall I priced train tickets and it was going to run me over 350€ round…
The EU seems hell bent on turning Europe in England for some reason.
France and Spain believes that High-Speed rail is basically an airline. They miss basic stuff like one line should connect to the other, and are bad in terms of connecting high speed rail the rest of the infrastructure.
German has political problem building out a rational designed overall network and is vastly under-funding lots of rail infrastructure projects that are total non-brainers. But because its all politics with little planning.
I am extremely pissed that Switzerland build a huge tunnel threw a mountain, only for Italy and Germany to basically do nothing. Everybody expected Italy to be behind, but Germany is still not done its part.
Switzerland on the other hand basically doesn't believe in high speed rail at all and that is kind of a problem if we ever want a real European high speed network that doesn't suck. Thankful some people are pushing for such a line. We basically need a line Genf-St.Gallen, and Basel to Lugano. And then connect those to the high speed lines of the nations around us.
Britain in the meanwhile is actually building high speed rail, but constantly trying to cut it down, and at the same time they are not connecting their net with Europe because of stupid immigration policies.
Belgium has the slowest high speed rail ever.
Netherlands and Germany can't seem to figure out basic East-West connections.
We have long way to go in Europe to actual get high speed rail correct.
It’s a fantastic step forward, making commuting with public transport much more affordable for many. But another nice thing about the 9€ ticket was that it got rid of all other tickets for occasional users, too. If you’re using public transport just a few times each month, 49€ is too high, and you will still have to deal with 4x tickets short tickets, AB/BC/ABC zones, day tickets and whatnot. Which is unfortunate, as…
Sadly, this will likely not provide much incentives for infrastructure improvements. Local commuter trains around here have deteriorated substantially over the past decades. The trains have become dirty and unreliable. More passengers will only stress the infrastructure more, so it will become even less attractive. Maybe it would be wiser to spur the competition between various commuting alternatives such as shared c…
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it indeed is hardly possible. See: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/
I just realized (from this site) how minimal railway system is in Greece and South Italy.
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You are right about biodiesel. Most energydense crops that we grow are used for meat production and generates a shitlod of greenhouse gases on the way. Less meat consumption would mean more crops could be used for biodiesel
and bio diesel production is worse for the climate than fossil diesel, because of the amount of agricultural work that needs to be done
My wife had a daily 45km rail+2km bus trip to work which was 200€ per month. That's massive savings for many people who choose not to drive with cars. Her colleagues drive to work with cars for 2 km trips and ask her whether she does not own a car (we do). Taking the train is a) cheaper b) more relaxed (can read) c) better for the environment d) it's even faster in her case The €49 ticket could give public transporta…
I use public transport to go to work. But it's not really convenient. It takes me about 45 minutes to get there. And that's if everything goes well. Half an hour of that is walking (to and from bus stops) and waiting (you should be several minutes early because busses sometimes leave early themselves, but most of the time they are late). So there's not much reading that can be done. Also, try reading while you're wai…
When I lived in Rome I cycled everywhere. I was the 2nd fastest on the road for my 13-14km / 35min commute, but it takes time & effort to get fit. Public transport varied from 50 to 100 mins and private car was typically about 45 mins.
The only faster means were motorbikes & mopeds.
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In most cases it is unrealistically difficult to beat the convenience and speed of private cars. If you are in a very dense urban environments, maybe. Otherwise, no. That's why making public transport very cheap or even free does not make everyone let their cars at home.
I disagree and it’s quite wrong for many European countries, for instance. The whole idea is that public transport would be preferable in terms of time, comfort and cost. It can be done, there is no technical challenge whatsoever, it’s all politics. In many cases traffic is so bad that cars are just as bad. But the key thing is to sacrifice / build lanes exclusive to public transport (busses) because those lanes effe…
And yes this is a technical and practicability challenge on top of being prohibitively expensive to run.
That appears to be outdated or wrong information. The first date was supposed to be the 1st of January, but it has been pushed to the 1st of May since not all questions regarding the financials had been cleared.
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You are right about biodiesel. Most energydense crops that we grow are used for meat production and generates a shitlod of greenhouse gases on the way. Less meat consumption would mean more crops could be used for biodiesel
and bio diesel production is worse for the climate than fossil diesel, because of the amount of agricultural work that needs to be done