France bans flights between cities linked by trains

https://twitter.com/CBeaune/status/1660884781519847426

by jeffbee • 3 years ago

67 111 3 years ago

eesmith2• 3 years ago

See also the discussion about this on HN 6 month ago, at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33846689 linking to https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/12/02/is-france-banning-... .

josephcsible11• 3 years ago

It's sad when otherwise mostly-free countries do things like this. If you don't understand why this is bad, imagine if the people in charge had the opposite preferences and instead banned going by train between cities linked by commercial flights.

jeffbee7• 3 years ago

That didn't make obvious sense to me. It makes as much sense as "It's bad to regulate cigarettes. Imagine what would happen if the government regulated apples."

josephcsible11• 3 years ago

But cigarettes and apples aren't substitutes for each other. A better analogy would be a country banning emacs and mandating vi, or vice versa.

simmerup2• 3 years ago

It's probably related to this context: https://www.sciencealert.com/france-prepares-for-4-c-rise-we...

France's national conversation seems to be increasingly realising that we're heading towards a difficult future and pre-empting it.

Anglo societies seem to find this much harder to reckon with.

jeffbee7• 3 years ago

Anglo societies seem to find this much harder to reckon with.

It's because of our astonishingly bad common law system. The worst thing that England gave to the world.

rhaway84773• 3 years ago

Also, the idea that Anglo countries, especially the US, aren’t interventionist is beyond hilarious.

Take the housing market, for example. The entire thing is nothing but a massive U.S. subsidy towards homeownership. Subsidies by the govt insuring 30 year fixed mortgages, while lots of carve outs in the tax code to promote housing, actual, literal intervention in the market over the past century to bail out homeowners, and companies whose failures would wreck the homeownership market, subsidized funding for infrastructure to keep those homes livable, etc.

Semaphor2• 3 years ago

I have no strong opinion either way, but your comment sounds a bit like "imagine they made saving lives illegal instead of murdering people" and then expecting us to agree with you.

josephcsible11• 3 years ago

My whole point is it's not like that. Saving lives is unambiguously good and murdering people is unambiguously bad. Planes and trains are similar and accomplish the same thing, and neither is inherently good or bad.

DirkH3• 3 years ago

It's not a preference though is it? Isn't this a data and evidence-based decision based on what policy-makers believe is bad for environmental and economical reasons?

Imagine if all evidence pointed to train travel between cities being much worse than air travel. Then yes, banning the trains could be the right call.

jrpt3• 3 years ago

Instead of banning things you don't like, pass a carbon tax then to account for externalities. As a bonus, it could be revenue neutral so that your average person actually ends up ahead (while frequent fliers or polluting industries end up paying more).

michael1999• 3 years ago

Wait until you learn about GSM.

thiht• 3 years ago

This is not just a matter of preference though. Nothing to do with freedom either, I know Americans have trouble defining this notion but don’t be ridiculous.

rsynnott2• 3 years ago

And imagine if people with the opposite preferences, instead of banning smoking in restaurants, made it MANDATORY!

This isn't really a great argument. "Good regulation is bad actually, because if the opposite of the good regulation was done, that would be bad" isn't particularly coherent. This isn't a preference thing.

BulgarianIdiot2• 3 years ago

So now it's faster to take a longer flight and travel back to your real destination by cab.

Or take two connecting flights passing through a city not connected by train from the two endpoints.

You know some people will do that. Enforcing policies in spirit is not as easy as banning things in letter. That's always the issue.

Also what happens to medical patients, say after surgery? Travel by train? That would've probably killed my grandmother. Only time she travelled by airplane in her life by the way.

josephcsible11• 3 years ago

Also what happens to medical patients, say after surgery? Travel by train? That would've probably killed my grandmother. Only time she travelled by airplane in her life by the way.

Indeed, and this rule is so ham-fisted that there basically can't even be exceptions, since there wouldn't be enough of them to make a flight economical to fly.

Freak_NL• 3 years ago

It's not like travel by car is outlawed. You can't travel by air anywhere unless you happen to live right next to an airport; there is always travel to and from the airport.

If a medical condition mysteriously doesn't allow for train travel, but going by car and plane is fine (odd), than travelling for 400km by car is fine too. Most people live quite a distance from the nearest commercial airport in any case (200km in my case, and that's in the tiny Netherlands).

LorenPechtel2• 3 years ago

What medical condition precludes trains but permits planes??

alephnerd5• 3 years ago

Not really. If I want to travel from Paris to Lyon (300mi - like San Jose to Los Angeles) via TGV, it take 2 hours. A flight would take a similar amount of time.

If I want to travel from Paris to Marseille (500mi - like San Jose to San Diego) via TGV, it takes 3.5 hours.

When factoring flight prices and time to commute to the airport, it evens out. The only way you're trying a €40-50 flight ticket from Paris to Marseille is driving an additional 1.5 hours north of Paris to BVA, at which point the entire travel time is the same as TGV, with the added downside of dealing with Ryanair.

France is the perfect size to leverage rail transit nationally.

Edit:

Why the salty downvotes? Transit in France is different from Transit in the US.

balaji13• 3 years ago

Trains can be a lot more comfortable also, like seat space. Just curious. Is there a TSA (long messy security checks at airports) equivalent for trains in France?

No reason to downvote your comment btw.

thereisnospork• 3 years ago

The issue is that you are neglecting inter-modal inefficiencies. It's (with rare exception) far more time efficient and less hassle to change planes in than it is to change to a train at a physically distinct location.

Also at a higher level view, the intercity flights presumably existed because some rational actors found them to be the best choice for their situation -- it shouldn't be a surprise that people are pissed off about being regulated into sub-optimality.

LorenPechtel2• 3 years ago

The one negative case I see here is it's forcing multi-mode transport for connector flights.

Lyon to Paris, I agree with you that the train trumps the plane. The problem comes from Lyon to New York. Now they have to add a connection in Paris from the train station to the airport as well as have multiple tickets which always risks a misconnection.

toomuchtodo3• 3 years ago

I'm unsure if there is a more optimal solution. If you make exceptions, people would abuse them. If you made it cost more, people would argue it's only a rule for the poor. There will be edge cases, and they are unfortunate, to be sure.

Could you make train travel more comfortable and convenient for folks with medical circumstances? If so, how? If not, why not?

josephcsible11• 3 years ago

I'm unsure if there is a more optimal solution.

Not doing this at all, and letting everyone continue to be allowed to fly regardless of wealth or medical conditions?

Could you make train travel more comfortable and convenient for folks with medical circumstances? If so, how? If not, why not?

I'd guess that maglev instead of conventional rail would probably do it.

underdeserver• 3 years ago

According to the tweet, the ban is only for destinations where the travel time by train is less than 2.5 hours. I doubt flights save more than that with security and time buffers.

alephnerd5• 3 years ago

Exactly this!

arlort2• 3 years ago

Travel by train?

Yes?

eesmith2• 3 years ago

So now it's faster to take a longer flight and travel back to your real destination by cab.

Unlikely. You've got to beat 2½ hours (the original citizens’ assembly recommendation was 4 hours) by train. There can't be that much area where it's faster to fly over 2½ out and backtrack.

The best example I could find was Paris-Orly to Lyon, at 2½ hours by train (airpor to center of town). It's 3½ by connecting flight, according to Google Flights.

The alternative is to fly to Geneva (1 hour 10 min) then drive (1 hour 50 min), so at least three hours, assuming you could get a taxi right when the plane arrives.

And that's weighted in favor of the flight. If you leave from Paris-Gare de Lyon instead of the airport, it's only 2 hours to Lyon.

You know some people will do that.

Laws are adjusted and even improved based on experience.

what happens to medical patients, say after surgery? Travel by train?

I am glad that her recovery went well. I don't know the French exceptions for medical issues, but France has an excellent health care system, so I'm surprised she would be discharged so quickly if doing so would almost certainly endanger her life.

Is this something you are comfortable discussing further? Or, based on your user name, was it in Bulgaria, where the trains and medical system are rather different than France? If so, perhaps your experience isn't so easily transferable?

I've also heard it the other ways around - a diver with decompression sickness who wasn't allowed to fly and had to take the train.

pier253• 3 years ago

Also what happens to medical patients, say after surgery?

Flying is probably worse since you don't have much space. Also you have to walk a lot more in airports vs train stations, security checks, etc.

unmole• 3 years ago

Flying is probably worse since you don't have much space.

Because people really want to place about after a major surgery?

Also you have to walk a lot more in airports

Have you heard of wheelchairs?

rsynnott2• 3 years ago

Travel by train? That would've probably killed my grandmother.

I'm... having difficulty imagining how travel by train could _possibly_ be more strenuous than travel by plane; anyone who's going to be killed by a train will be killed by a plane far quicker. Assuming you're talking about commercial flights; if you're talking medevac, that wouldn't be impacted by these rule changes.

vlod• 3 years ago

I wonder if the government will follow these rules or it's just for regular people. It would be hypocritical otherwise.

(Maybe it says that in TFA, but unfortunately I can't speak French).

stragies• 3 years ago

One responder inquires about the "Le Touquet" destination, which is less than 2.5 hours from Paris. And according to Google, a bunch of goverment officials live there.

But the law only seems to talk about Lyon, Nantes, Bordeaux et Paris-Olry

themoonisachees4• 3 years ago

The law isn't just about these destinations, the summary just lists them as examples of routes that are getting cancelled.

908B64B197• 3 years ago

What's interesting is that trains are government-operated in France but airlines aren't. With this regulation, this effectively removed the only competitors to the state-operated monopoly.

It was always puzzling to me how operating expensive, fuel hungry airplanes could be cheaper and faster for the consumer than fast electric trains. But that's due to the intense competitive landscape in Europe for carriers (where any company from any European country can operate in any other country. Think Singapore Airline operating JFK-LAX). Now the state monopoly effectively regulated away competition.

They don't need to offer a better, faster product. Guaranteed consumers.

I wonder if the government will follow these rules or it's just for regular people.

The Président de la République is notorious for never taking the train, instead flying on a private wide-body A330. These laws are just for regular people.

jonp888• 3 years ago

SNCF is not a monopoly any more. European regulations also prevent this(although admittedly the French government delayed implementing them as long as the possibly could).

There is already competition on the Paris - Lyon - Milan route, and more will follow.

themoonisachees4• 3 years ago

Lack of market incentives isn't the only reason SNCF tickets are so expensive. A large part is that airline tickets are cheaper because airlines nickel and dime costumers while underpaying staff (for example, only paying them for time in the air when they spend time working on the ground).

SNCF also technically operates at a loss. Despite posting 2.4B euros of profit in 2022, they only paid for 3B of their 10B investments, the rest paid by the state.

Regardless, this legislation is not about promoting state-backed trains, it is about that air travel is an ecological disaster especially when the train is available. The only gripe i have with it is that some of these trips are currently more expensive via train than via air, which sucks for the consumers. People making these trips by plane often are not consumers though, they are corporations. In france, nobody in the bottom 60% of income would even consider taking the plane for pretty much any of the routes being cancelled. Some routes make sense (for example, Lyon -> Bordeaux still requires going through paris by train) but these are more than 2h30, so will still be operating.

photochemsyn2• 3 years ago

They really should have two exceptions, one for electric airplanes and the other for planes fueled entirely with atmospheric CO2-sourced fuels (CO2 + H2O -> renewable energy -> jet fuel). Neither of those options are all that economically viable just yet, however.

nradov• 3 years ago

The government shouldn't pick winners in terms of specific technologies. They have a terrible track record for doing that and usually fail to anticipate innovations. Plus we end up with a whole new department of highly paid government bureaucrats writing and enforcing rules without doing anything productive.

If we want lower CO2 emissions then just tax those and let the free market sort out specific solutions.

photochemsyn2• 3 years ago

A ban on coal-fired Stanley Steamers makes a lot of sense, from the perspective that governments should promote transport technologies that reduce smog and other air pollution. Extending this to diesel trucks (affiliated with a lot of childhood asthma) - assuming you have electric trucks available is reasonable.

jeffbee7• 3 years ago

There should also be an exemption for magic carpets, since those exist to the same extent.

turbo_fart• 3 years ago

Magic carpets don't need to be exempted since they wouldn't fit into any category

Ancalagon• 3 years ago

Boiled down to one exception: carbon neutral flights.

jfengel• 3 years ago

Except that you need to make it clear that it's actually carbon neutral. There are numerous ways to pretend to be carbon neutral without actually accomplishing anything, like "carbon offsets".

(I don't mean to completely discount the notion of carbon offsets. If you spent money to build solar panels sequestering carbon, then yeah, at least in theory you could genuinely offset your carbon. But right now there are too many dubious ways to count an "offset".)

So yeah, it would be better to give people the single rule and let innovation find ways to use it. But if it's just accounting innovation, and not actual technological innovation, it's worse than just dictating specifics.

pier253• 3 years ago

While I agree it's better to travel by train, the way to implement this should have been with carbon taxing.

Most people wouldn't fly if the ticket price was like 2x compared to the train.

wyager3• 3 years ago

The negative externalities of a plane ticket absolutely do not double the cost of a plane ticket. They are not significant - certainly smaller than the taxes already levied on flights.

What this tells you is that flights, as they exist, are a net positive even including negative carbon externalities. Neither banning these flights nor making them absurdly expensive is a net benefit for society.

When we consider the marginal negative environmental externality compared to rail travel, it is even smaller or perhaps negative.

pier253• 3 years ago

The negative externalities of a plane ticket absolutely do not double the cost of a plane ticket

I'm sure you will reconsider in a couple of years once the effects of emissions are more obvious.

ravi-delia3• 3 years ago

I doubt very much that the marginal external costs of plane travel is lower than train travel! It's possible that the net value is still worth it (depending on how much people value convenience), but objectively the marginal cost of one more person riding a plane is [externality of flight]/[capacity of flight]. One train trip over the same route has 10x the denominator, and considering that the power comes from the grid not much worse of a numerator, if indeed it is not lower. Does a train really consume that much power?

gamblor956• 3 years ago

It's not even close. Each air passenger on a fuel-powered plane generates the equivalent environmental externalities of an entire electric train...or more.

Market pricing is not an indicator of the cost of externalities; it is an indicator of the cost of internalities. They're called "externalities" precisely because they're not represented in the price curve.

jtsiskin• 3 years ago

Source for magnitude of negative externalities?

aatharuv• 3 years ago

I presume there always are people always flying in from overseas into one of the larger airports and catching a connecting flight domestically. It'll become annoying if they suddenly have to grab their bags, go to the train station and catch a connecting train.

Even if there are exceptions, the flights just might become unprofitable and go away.

keiferski3• 3 years ago

Most of the major airports in France have train stations built-in. For example, you can fly to Paris airport then take a train directly to Lyon; no need to go into the center of Paris first. It’s really not much different from changing flights.

renaudg4• 3 years ago

Paris CDG and Lyon LYS are the only airports in France I can think of with a built-in mainline train station. And the schedules are much less convenient than those in city-centre stations.

rasz• 3 years ago

Some time ago (10 years?) it was cheaper for me to fly to Norway and back to Poland than take a 300km train ride.

Eddy_Viscosity2• 3 years ago

Private jets too?

utucuro• 3 years ago

Just guessing: no.

renaudg4• 3 years ago

The sad part is that this move is hailed as a major win but really is a drop in the ocean.

I've read somewhere that Germany closing its last nuclear power plant will raise Europe's CO2 emissions by more than all of the country's air travel emissions in a year.

France bans flights between cities linked by trains

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