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I take your point, though I'm not sure taxes are the answer. Very rarely is air travel even close to the cheapest option (in the US here, Europe has low cost ai
by entee 7y ago
I take your point, though I'm not sure taxes are the answer. Very rarely is air travel even close to the cheapest option (in the US here, Europe has low cost airlines that may shift the math). Although I'm pretty well off as compared to the average person, I don't know anyone personally who takes the plane purely on a whim, and I know nobody who prefers to fly when another comparable time option is available. If you were to tax air travel at say 10%, that would likely not change my travel, just make it more expensive. A $200 ticket now costing $220 isn't going to make me not take the flight. If you tax it more, sure I won't take the flight, but then you reduce quality of life given that in many places the alternatives don't exist.
In Europe I usually take the train places. If it's 2-3h away by train it's usually faster to take the train, and it's often (though not always) comparable or cheaper on price. In the US, I virtually never take the train, there simply aren't adequate options. The distances tend to be much larger, and we simply haven't built the infrastructure. We could build it, but that's proven quite hard (see CA high speed rail and efforts to modernize northeast corridor) for both political and practical reasons. NY<->DC I often take the bus, it's cheaper and only a slight time penalty vs. the train.
4/5 people sounds like a big number but those people are much more likely to start eating meat or buy a car at first than to fly. That's a way bigger problem environmentally.
- nicoburns 7y agoIn europe, jet fuel isn't taxed at all (but train/car fuel is) which often makes flying the cheaper option. From london, I can fly to several european cities cheaper than I can get a 2 hour train within the UK. Which is pretty ridiculous.
- entee 7y agoThat's wild, agreed that is out of step. I usually book fairly last minute so I haven't seen those prices personally, but I know they exist. I surely don't believe we should favor air over train.
- iso1210 7y agoTrain fuel is electricity. A train with 500 seats running London to Manchester costs about £4/mile in electricity, of which 20p will be VAT (which I think is reclaimed) - so tax would be about £35, or 7p per passenger. A flight of a 150 seat plane from London to Manchester attracts £3900 in tax.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago> Train fuel is electricity. Not in most of the USA (well, it is electric generated from a diesel hybrid). Electrification over large distances is expensive, the only country to have done that so far are the Chinese (and even then they don’t bother with way out Tibet...yet).
- jacobush 7y agoThe USA is big but not that big. It's about twice as wide as Sweden is tall. Sweden is all electric rail. From the south of Sweden to Rome, is the same distance as Sweden is tall. All of Sweden's rail is electric and most of Europe's too.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoSweden’s population is confined to a narrow corridor, so it’s not like they need many lines of coverage. Likewise, density in Europe is good enough to make electrification worthwhile, while America is way too spread out. An extreme case would be Australia, imagine electrifying the entire route from Melbourne to Darwin.
- iso1210 7y agoThis is the quote: > In europe, jet fuel isn't taxed at all (but train/car fuel is) which often makes flying the cheaper option. From london, I can fly to several european cities cheaper than I can get a 2 hour train within the UK. Which is pretty ridiculous. Australia and America are irellevent. Almost all long distance trips in Europe is electricity
- 7y ago