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Comment by cauch | Hacker News Reader

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.

The comment you answer to is still very relevant: it is true that in average using the train is not as disastrous as one could think (so the disadvantages are compensated by the advantage with regard to environment). The fact that it is not advantageous for every one is trivial and not really relevant.

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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.

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?

How do you measure the externalities? In particular, how do you measure the environmental damage of air travel? Note that you must do it, as it is absolutely crucial for your entire argument. Otherwise, it might as well turn out that it is rail travel that’s more environmentally damaging, and we should tax it and promote air travel instead.

My suspicion is that you actually have not given any thought to this, have no idea about the actual cost of the externalities, and you don’t really care about that either. Instead, you just want to push your personal preference for trains over planes, while clothing this as if you were just appealing to objective facts and principles.

Government failures don't exist?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_failure

Let me introduce you to the concept of a strawman argument...

If the market decides the planet/climate goes sideways.

'Better' doesn't make people want to use something if they can save money. The main reason airlines like EasyJet and RyanAir thrive is because they're cheaper, not better.

Traveling by train vs. via one of those planes with minimal legroom and non-relciming seats?

Always better for short haul.

But the prices of trains (or rather: the subsidizing of air travel) make this a non option for many people in Europe. It is literally twice as expensive.

For example, Berlin--Munich. This is a one hour flight. Average price when booking in time is less than $90, I'd say.

By train its over $180. Go figure.

The solution to climate change is actually attacking the problem head on - not just making everyone poor and forcing them to use crappy government services and ultimately switching to communism.

Right now solving the problem means natural gas, nuclear and carbon capture.

I cannot imagine a more authoritarian thing than a market that severely damages the world.

"Presumably if factories that don't employ children were better there should be no need for a law."

A democratic government (like the one they have in France) is also the people.

Seriously. I tried to take a train this summer for my European vacation after landing on my direct flight from the US in lieu of a connection. 12 hours and 3 delayed / canceled trains later we were at our hotel which was a mere 189 miles from where we landed and they were both major cities...

If I would have just hung out in the airport for 4 hours and caught the 50 minute connection it would have been a much more pleasant experience.

Unfortunately public transport and esp. railway transport is not a 100% free market, there are a lot of natural monopolies in this space that need to be regulated. For example what stops Eurostar from pricing their tickets by looking at airline ones (it's what they are apparently doing)? Nothing because Eurostar is a monopolist for some important destination pairs like Paris - London.

This mostly hits people with private jets...

Trains are better in some ways, and they're wayyyyy better than someone traveling by private jet cause they don't want to ride with the bourgeoisie.

Does this efficiency justify this law? https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10311

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