Comment by Mister_Snuggles | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Mister_Snuggles | Hacker News Reader

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Mister_Snuggles

I used to regularly travel from Edmonton to Calgary for work. When you add up the extra time required for flying, it's about a three hour trip (45 minutes in the air, the rest is getting to the airport, checking in, etc). Coincidentally, it's also about a three hour drive.

My reasons for driving vs flying were usually to do with how long I'd be there. If I was going for one day then flying was preferable since falling asleep on the way home isn't a big deal. If I was going for multiple days then driving was preferable so that I'd have a car and be able to go places after finishing at the office. Flying was preferable in winter in case the roads were in bad shape. Driving was preferable on Fridays so that I could visit friends afterwards and come back the next day. Flying was preferable during the Calgary Stampede to avoid having to deal with the excess traffic in Calgary (plus WestJet did a cowboy-themed safety lecture during Stampede which was kind of neat).

The Red Arrow bus line from Edmonton to Calgary is the best of both worlds. Pick-up/Drop-offs from city core to city core as well as other stops along the way, Free wifi and beverages on the bus, decent seats for working during the stress free commute.

I only travelled on Red Arrow once, but not for work, and it was really nice. I can't recall why I never used it for work though.

In general though flying is much safer than highway driving. If one wanted to minimize risk, one would always fly.

Flying is actually much more dangerous than driving. The risk is to destroy the environment that sustains life on earth. This does not even compare with the risk of a car or plane accident.

I believe it might be better for the environnement to share a full plane than be alone in your car, for equal distances.

Quotation needed. All studies show the impact of flying as being much higher than driving, even when shared.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_avia...

> in 2018, CO2 emissions averaged 88 grams of CO2 per revenue passenger per km.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_tran...

> In Europe, the European Commission enforced that from 2015 all new cars registered shall not emit more than an average of 0.130 kg of CO2 per kilometre (kg CO2/km). The target is that by 2021 the average emissions for all new cars is 0.095 kg of CO2 per kilometre.

0.088 < 0.095

That said, the 88 grams figure might not be accurate for short flights. But we'd still be in the same order of magnitude as a car

I think you are comparing unrelated things. The average car ride is thousands of times shorter than the average flight, and transports more than one person. You cannot just compare the average emissions of cars and planes and make the conclusion that it makes sense to choose a plane over a car to reduce your carbon footprint.

And even when you make this comparison with sensible data, the car still wins: https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint

when comparing driving to flying between destinations, it's highly likely that the flight will have a shorter duration.

The big wrinkle in this comparison is that planes burn most of their energy in the ascent to cruising speed/altitude. Energy consumption per mile is likely to be much higher on a short hop flight where cruising altitude is never reached than a 12 hour transoceanic flight.

On the other hand short-haul flights don't climb to as high of altitudes. They only climb about 2/3rds as high. But then again the air is thicker so cruising is less efficient. Oh gosh, for want of data.

You have to assume that airlines have chosen a decent compromise here. Every wasted joule of energy translates to a higher fuel cost and a lower profit margin.

If also air distance calculated as the crow flies vs actual car km the numbers will be more air travel favirable

If you are alone in your car, flying and driving are in the same ballpark when it comes to emissions.

Trains are much, much lower. Especially considering that in France, most lines are electrified and 70% of production is nuclear.

The difference in relative risk is high, but the absolute risk of dying in a car is still pretty low if you're sober, wearing a seatbelt, and not speeding. Oh, and apparently if you're not driving in the U.S. Geez, didn't realize we're such crappy drivers here.

https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/motor-vehicle-safety/index.ht...

It's really easy to get a license in the US and cops focus on looking for speeders over other forms of dangerous driving.

It's mostly not that people in the US drive worse, it's that people in the US drive more. Similar risk multiplied by more miles leads to more fatalities.

Sadly that isn't the case: The actual fatalities and accidents per billion km driven is higher in the US than many other industrialized countries, so it's not about more km/miles being driven in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

Are they also reluctant to wear seat belts?

Seat belt usage is about the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat_belt_use_rates_by_country

In terms of fatalities per billion km the US is between Belgium and New Zealand. Not really up there with Somalia.

And the ranking there is kind of misleading because the types of countries that collect fatalities per unit distance at all are the ones that tend to do really well on it. We don't have the data for Russia or China but guesstimating based on accidents per 100k vehicles, it's bad.

Whereas e.g. Germany does really well. But fatalities per unit distance for the US isn't even twice the number in Germany, whereas in terms of fatalities per 100k population, the US is 335% of Germany. Consistent with the bulk of the difference being explained in terms of more miles traveled.

Several things will need to change for that number to be lower. Licenses needs to be much more difficult to obtain, and a lot easier to lose. There are things allowed on American roads that could cost you your license in countries with lower numbers. Cars should have higher safety standards.

Basically a lot of people wouldn't be able to drive anymore.

I'd be curious to know what exactly makes the difference so pronounced.

My pet theory is that people don't know how dangerous their actions are _and_ feel entitled to break laws they deem useless. About 4 times out of 5 when somebody nearly hits me blowing through a stop sign and crosswalk they'll stop and apologize profusely, indicating they probably didn't intend to put me in harm's way. That's not a huge dataset though (at most a few times per week), and it doesn't say anything about tailgating or other forms of dangerous driving.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Siberian_Railway

Snow isn't an obstacle to trains (unless you don't want trains to be a reality).

The trans siberian railway isn't high speed. There are plans to make some of it high speed but the only article I could find was from 2018 and at that time it was still only in the early planning stages and expected to cost billions of USD [0].

[0] https://www.railway-technology.com/features/moscow-kazan-hig....

(Edited to fix an autocorrect correction from my phone)

>trans siberian railway

>edmonton to calgary

I think think there's a slight difference between the things we're comparing

It certainly makes things more difficult. You need to clear tracks, build shelters where there is avalanche risk.

Check out the rail to Bergen, in Norway. Shot in 4K.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atyvdC15HFA

Not sure if an electric rail-line would be an easy sell in Alberta.

A quick search on Google tells me that train goes at 160 km/h. Not exactly high speed. It looks like they don't run into too many problems with weather related cancelations or delays though [0].

[0] https://www.globalrailwayreview.com/article/74614/norway-rai...

Amtrak generally averages about half that, so it seems pretty good.

The Edmonton to Calgary route is straight, flat, and has a mostly sparsely populated path. I'd hope that high speed rail under those conditions could do significantly better.

I also looked up Amtrak's speeds and found a report from 2016 saying that over half of their trains had a top speed of 160 km/h or greater.

> I also looked up Amtrak's speeds and found a report from 2016 saying that over half of their trains had a top speed of 160 km/h or greater.

This sentence can be interpreted in multiple ways. Maybe they mean that half of their trains could theoretically ride at 160 kph, but that doesn’t mean that they ever actually reach such speeds on their routes. Or, maybe, that half of their trains reach 160 kph on some fraction of their route, maybe very small one.

What I would be more interested in is their average speed according to schedule, weighted by the frequency of trains on a given segment, and same average but for actual ride times, including delays etc.

Most of Amtrak's routes are likely to be on the NEC, where the top speed is I believe 140 mph (~200 km/h). Outside the NEC, the newest of the diesel fleet can probably reach 100mph (or 160 km/h), but the actual routes are unlikely to support that kind of speed with any amount of routine. Instead, the effective speed limit (again outside NEC) is going to be closer to ~60-70mph.

Amtrak mostly runs 1950s train service or worse. Don't use them as an example of anything.

High speed trains in snow are indeed more difficult as the speed creates under pressure between the ground and the train. So much that even stones have to be remove otherwise they hit the train all the time.

This under pressure sucks up the snow and plasters it to the train.

In Germany at least ICE train speed is reduced (despite their name ;-) if there is snow on the track.

Calgary/Edmonton seem to get about 2x as much snow as Bergen (~48" vs ~24"). Also, temperature fall much lower in Alberta than in Norway...

There are plenty of high-speed services (up to 350 km/h) in northern China, Korea, Japan and Russia, all of which have severe winters and (on the west coast of Japan) some of highest snowfalls on the planet.

It’s been discussed but always seemed questionable to me. That corridor has <3M people living in it and is isolated from another other major city in Canada.

I can’t see building a high speed rail would be worth it for the volume of people going back and forth.

I remember traveling by train, from Calgary to Edmonton, on return trips for the weekend. It was great fun, relaxing, with good food. Hard to beat that by driving in crazy weekend traffic. Or driving to the airport at each end, security theatre, cramped sitting, long walks, tired and hungry, at each end. (Train stations were down town, and at the ends of the city. Very convenient.)

there are no good reasons why we spend so much time on the airports on funny useless procedures.

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