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Comment by 6stringmerc | Hacker News Reader

It’s quite impressive how financially penalizing automobile use like in London - sure you can drive as long as you lop off a testicle for His Majesty - and they also have a significant train system.

Eventually the math will work its way to the point where Nations will have to admit their Airlines are the biggest polluters in their purview and it will be hard conversation.

Frankly there’s a very easy avenue to significantly address two issues:

Emissions and Global Pilot Shortages

In 2024 if passenger aviation went down by 25% in the United States the GDP would improve by a statistically noticeable amount.

I should write an article about this…3rd generation aviator (no license due to handicap)

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It has always fascinated me how incredibly car-dependent the UK is, given how small, densely populated and flat it is. The UK seems to have the perfect conditions for getting rid of the automobile entirely, but in reality public transport in the UK (at least outside of London, but sometimes even there) falls short, even compared to much larger and more scarcely populated nations.

Plenty of people here don't need cars. Granted they're mostly people in the cities and large towns. I'm almost 40 and don't know how to drive. Buses and trains can get me everywhere I want to be.

One third of British households have no car.

The USA has 908 vehicles per 1000 people; the UK just 600.

>One third of British households have no car.

I'd like to believe that but judging by my neighbours I'm struggling to.

Depends where you live - I'm in London, and probably 1/10th of my friends have a car, at most.

It seems it’s 21% (in 2021).

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-travel-sur...

I can understand people not owning a car, but not learning to drive seems short sighted. Driving is a life skill like swimming.

I'm also 40, and I've driven so little that I might well have saved money by spending the cost of learning and getting certified on taxis and public transport for the same trips.

No idea how far we really are from a no-steering-wheel-needed car, so this may or may not remain true as the years continue to pass, but now I live in Berlin and (non-express) public transport nationwide is only €49/month and is good enough to rely on — I've even seen people literally take a kitchen sink with them on the tram.

> getting rid of the automobile entirely

Saying "entirely", or "all" or "every" or "always" always results in the pile of replies you see where people come up with counterexamples.

But the UK was built without the car; we had thousands of years of pre-modern economy, and the peak of the Empire was entirely done by rail and ship. That serves as an existence proof for ways of life in which many people do not permanently own a car.

Car dependency was a choice of the 1960s and the Beeching era.

The only good examples inside of Europe of countries where you can get by train to almost everywhere, in time, are very far and few between.

Switzerland is of course in there, maybe Netherlands, maybe Belgium, not sure about Denmark, certainly not France nor Germany. Rail transport outside of Paris which does not involve the TGV is absolutely crap, meaning expensive (unless you purchase your tickets 3 months in advance or some crazy stuff like that) and it doesn’t get you to where you want, unless you want to get from Paris to one of the big other big French cities, but in that case you’d take the TGV anyway.

My claim is not that public transport is perfect everywhere else in Europe, only that the preconditions for good public transport are much better in the UK than in most other countries, such as France or Germany, yet it isn't vastly superior. In my personal experience, public transport in the UK is definitely worse than in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark, but I would argue it's worse than in Germany, France and even Sweden. Mind you, I don't restrict this to trains, buses make more sense in scarcely populated areas and their reliability tends to be highly affected by local politics.

The UK does have good public transport. It just doesn't have amazing public transport. I would disagree public transport in Germany is better. Deutsche Bahn trains are notorious for being late.

> Deutsche Bahn trains are notorious for being late.

Statements like this don't make sense unless you take into account cultural differences in what "late" means.

In Germany people think that a 5-10 minute delay is unacceptable. In the UK trains are so frequently late and cancelled that when a train is 5-10 mins late, it's considered on time.

No that's not true. UK punctuality figures are based on actual lateness, not perceived lateness. If a train is more than 15 minutes late in the UK you're entitled to compensation on a sliding scale up to one hour when you're entitled to a full refund of your ticket.

I don't know about that, I take trains in the UK a lot, and the _vast_ majority arrive exactly when expected.

Ekeryone complains about their local system. What does the data show?

That 34.8% of long-distance trains were late in 2022. [0]

[0] https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2022/fileadmin/pdf/dufe_2022.p...

Spain's rail system was great during my (admittedly very short) visit.

> The UK seems to have the perfect conditions for getting rid of the automobile entirely

How do you get your dog to the vet?

Or, we're going away to a country cottage for christmas. How do we get all our stuff there?

> How do you get your dog to the vet?

A taxi? I don't know how uber or whatever work, but you can just ask for a taxi to take your dog somewhere

This gets “rid of the automobile entirely,” how, exactly?

If niche situations like those are the only ones this person needs a car for, it might be better for them to rent a car for situations like those, rather than keep and maintain a vehicle full time. Still reducing car use by a lot even if it's not getting rid of it "entirely".

I agree - car hire/share/rent works out great for these "one offs", but it's worth noting that these "niche situations" can happen pretty often, and it's entirely at odds with "getting rid of the automobile entirely".

At a certain point you'd have to think to yourself, I have "niche situations" every week, maybe I actually do need to have my own car. And that's not the "niche situation" OC was describing.

Maybe eventually, but afaik aviation is something like 4% of emissions currently. A lot, but not our biggest concern. Probably also not the area where you get the biggest CO2 reduction per money invested.

Your figure is accurate for the global scale. In the USA it's also around 3%.

In the UK, it's 8% though: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/28/scientists-...

This is right in percentage terms - but also worth noting that the UK produces 4.7 tonnes of co2 per capita vs USA's 14.4 metric tons per capita.

i.e. taking your 8% and 3% figures along with the tonnes of co2 above would mean in raw CO2 terms, the USA is producing more tonnes of aviation carbon per capita (i.e. per person) than the UK.

The UK would be at 2.6% if it consumed 'other carbon' at USA rates (i.e. 14.4 metric tons per capita), but it is 8% because it consumed 4.7 tonnes per capita.

The USA excludes international aviation emissions while the UK includes them in their figure (the only country to do so). Domestic UK aviation emissions are tiny.

What domestic flights even are there? The only ones I'm aware of are Belfast to assorted cities in England.

There's over 182 domestic routes flown in the UK (Heathrow - Edinburgh is the most popular one): https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/domestic-flights-in-the...

I know at least Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh all connect to London.

I've flown to Newquay as well.

Loads of people fly from London/Birmingham to Edinburgh/Glasgow and visa-versa (it's often cheaper and faster than the train).

Then obviously NI as you mentioned.

I've flown Newcastle to Southampton (and back) a few times.

The interesting thing is that even in the USA only 50% of people fly in any one year.

> Eventually the math will work its way to the point where Nations will have to admit their Airlines are the biggest polluters in their purview and it will be hard conversation.

If we're at that point, then we'll have already won the battle against emissions. Aviation is tiny compared to land transport, sea transport, heating, manufacturing, etc. For aviation to become the biggest polluter, we'll need all the above to reduce emissions by 90+%.

>In 2024 if passenger aviation went down by 25% in the United States the GDP would improve by a statistically noticeable amount.

How does that make any sense? You propose to generate more economic activity by... reducing the amount of economic activity occuring?

A lot of what people fly for could be done as a phone call, or so many claim. That would return the cost of the trip to something else.

Income's circular. Airline related employees etc would have less. While others get the substitution. But where's the net increase?

Those employees would need to get a new, more productive job

Services get cheaper so we consume more of them. See Jevon's paradox.

> Eventually the math will work its way to the point where Nations will have to admit their Airlines are the biggest polluters in their purview and it will be hard conversation.

I can’t see how this would ever happen. Passenger aviation is ~2% of global carbon emissions. There is no climate model that relies on cutting passenger aviation to meet its targets.

Domestic aviation is 2% of global emissions. The Paris Accords didn't require any country to accept responsibility for emissions from international flights and only the UK does so (and only beginning in 2023).

Funny I drove in london a couple of weeks ago just fine. Stayed in a hotel near docklands, later drove to the British library and parked there for a few hours.

Yes there was a financial sting from parking, last I checked NCP wasn’t owned by the government though.

Even if I had gone into the very centre of london the cost of parking far outweighs the cost of the congestion charge.

Most people driving in the ULEZ and congestion charge zones arent paying for parking.

Although the ULEZ only charges a vanishingly small number of vehicles, and the congestion charge only affects the most central part of the city.

Driving in most of London is no more expensive than other UK cities.

And the vast majority of vehicles are ulez exempt. Doesn’t stop those in the outer boroughs whining about how the commies are coming for their teslas though.

And someone is paying for that parking, land isn’t free.

The UK is surrounded by water, and ships are a comparatively slow means of transportation.

There is a train to europe and can get you there in ~60 mins.

The Eurostar is great and I've taken it quite a few times. But realistically, it is way too expensive right now to seriously compete with flying for most people. It is typically 2x-3x as expensive as flying from Heathrow/Gatwick to CDG, for example. That really adds up if you are traveling with multiple people. We really need more services and more competition.

There is a new operator offering a service, I think it starts in 2025.

> There is a train to europe and can get you there in ~60 mins.

...from London. Most of the country, and a large majority of the population, isn't in London.

And nor will those 60 minutes take you through all of Europe.

You seem overly focused on London.

> And nor will those 60 minutes take you through all of Europe.

Because mainland Europe is larger than the uk?

> You seem overly focused on London.

Not really. I live a long way from London and haven't been there for many years. I do, however, know how things work in this country.

Nitpick: you're already in Europe even before getting on that train.

But we know what you mean... :)

High bandwidth though.

Speed is somewhat irrelevant here as what matters is how many ships per day they can process.

>Speed is somewhat irrelevant here

No, it's not, because people. I really don't see a future where anyone gives up civil aviation for the climate. More likely a combination of electrification, biofuel, and hydrogen will be the solution.

It's already happening with TEN-T on the continent. Even though slower, travel by train in generally city centre to city centre and much less hassle, so where feasible can supplant aviation.

What does civil aviation have to do with the bulk transport of goods by massive container and bulk carrier ships?

Ship journey time is irrevelant to volume | tonnage moved as the limiting factors are port capacity and water approach limitations.

A ship journey is a long pipe, you can pop 6 ships a day in one end and have 6 ships a day arriving at the other end.

Kind of irrelevant to reducing aviation emissions, given that people only pay for air freight when speed is a priority.

Doubtful they will just switch to SAF and pass on the cost.

Not enough plant oils to make sufficient quantities of SAF so somehow we need to synthesise it from atmospheric CO2

The airline industry looks like the least likely to decarbonise to me. I'm extremely sceptical about any messaging from them that purports to indicate they have any intention in that direction.

Definitely not penalising enough.

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