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Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

> problem comes from Lyon to New York. Now they have to add a connection in Paris from the train station to the airport

It's a solved problem.

Most of France's international airports have TGV (high speed rail) stations with TGV trains every 10-30 minutes.

All this was already considered back in the 60s and 70s when France began embarking on the TGV and Rail Modernization project.

It's a non-issue because the new law exempts connecting flights. All these comments about how dumb the regulators are because they overlooked connecting flights are flamboyant displays of ignorance.

Agreed! Also the fact that this regulation is only for rail commutes that can be done within 2.5 hours or less. So I can still fly from Paris Charles de Gaulle to Toulouse.

It is almost certain that shorter air routes were subsidized by government. No way it was economical. I read somewhere that many smaller airlines have gone bust.

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.

No.

Eurostar services do though (but they are mostly international services).

No TSA in france for trains no. You just show up on the platform and board. Recent TGVs have a gate to get on the platform to ensure you have a ticket, but they don't do anything but scan your ticket.

Adding to comfort: trains don't have a maximum bag size nor liquid limits.

Also the same beyond France in Schengen space when travelling by train.

Example: no security check when taking the train from Paris to Amsterdam.

Fun fact: you have a security check to go from Paris (France) to Calais (France). This is because the train continues in the tunnel to UK.

Also trains in America are very poor. So Americans reaction to trains is expected.

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.

Yes. Thinking about what factors make people choose plane over train and address those would have been better. People will freely choose the better option.

They could've raised the price, and made the flights more rare (say not every day, but every 3 days, or not every 3 days, but once a week etc.).

Unfortunately we're talking about primitive politicians, trying to virtue signal in primitive ways.

I would have preferred to see the shortcomings of train addressed. There has to be some if people prefer flying e.g Make train cheaper, can take long distance train straight from airports, more frequency, can book an itinerary that includes plane and train, airline reward programs apply…

> neglecting inter-modal inefficiencies

The nodes are integrated in France.

Regional rail lines, the TGV, and subways all have shared nodes to allow you to transfer between lines.

As I pointed out in a couple other comments

1. This is a solved problem already - the downsides pointed out were already considered and optimized against in the 1970s-1990s

2. France =/= US. North American public transit experience cannot be applied to that within Europe and Asia.

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