7 ms·

Nowadays I have to arrive 3-4hrs before This is true many places, although I tend to show with a tighter timetable myself. But it's so absurd, so silly. It's

• vanviegen 4y ago
  To me it's absurd that flying such a short distance apparently was an attractive option (to some) until recently.
  • bobthepanda 4y ago
    Usually, most small flights of that type are connections onward. It's usually good for passengers because all other things being equal the security procedures at smaller airports, the traffic etc. is a lot less bad.
    • rglullis 4y ago
      Trains still should be the alternative for these cases. The only exception I can think of where short-haul flights could be accepted is from small islands that need connection to a larger city inland.
  • b112 4y ago
    It's about 450km, which is between 4 and 5 hours, traffic at each city depending.. A propeller plane shines here. If boarding is quick, and there is no customs as it is in country, and you just carry on? You save time, and it's better than 20 to 50 people driving independantly. A plane can also fly straight too, so it can take even 1/3 of the time to get there. Which is why boarding slow downs are so sad.
    • jeromegv 4y ago
      OP likely meant that it is a very sad thing for the environment that we (as a society) privilege air travel instead of train travel for such a short distance and where there’s no need to cross a border. The train brings you in the middle of both city center, directly integrated with transit, you can show up about 10 min before your departure, etc. It’s just the actual rail that is the problem.
      • jhugo 4y ago
        If there's no train, though, the turboprop plane is going to be better for the environment than all those people driving.
        • rglullis 4y ago
          And an intercity bus will beat them both, while also avoiding the issues of getting in and out of the airport and into the city center.
          • jhugo 4y ago
            Mmm, maybe. Average occupancy of buses is usually only around 40%, which probably pushes them above the per-passenger emissions of a modern aircraft, and being typically diesels, they have other emissions than CO2 to worry about. On a personal note, I also hate bus travel with a passion — it's mind-numbingly slow, you have limited ability to move around, it's sometimes too cramped to work, when toilets are available they're tiny and awful, etc. I love train travel and will use trains whenever available, sometimes even for multi-day journeys, but I will take significant detours or even rearrange travel plans to avoid a bus.
            • rglullis 4y ago
              I agree that buses are cramped and that trains are way more comfortable, but I think we can also agree that whatever space you don't have in a bus, it will be even worse on a plane... Also, let's not forget that the experience of traveling by bus got worse mostly because of the popularization of low-cost short-haul flights, and that has killed the market for "premium" bus traveling. If short-haul flights were out of the picture, I wouldn't be surprised if someone started offering bus travel with larger seats (in 2-1 configuration) and even more sleeper buses for night travels [0] [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRTzEJ8znL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRTzEJ8znL0
• rglullis 4y ago
  Wait until you find out about this amazing invention called the train. You can take them at the city center, you stop at the city center, no waiting times, faster, safer and cheaper than driving... In all seriousness though, any country serious about climate change should ban short-haul flights.
  • zeagle 4y ago
    Agere, the train station location in most cities is more convenient than the aurport, although not as good as my experiences in Europe. If you want a good laugh of how to do it wrong, look up 'saskatoon train station' on maps.
  • frosted-flakes 4y ago
    The tracks to Ottawa and Montreal are getting updated. The problem is that Via only owns a small portion of the route and is at the mercies of freight traffic. The new dedicated tracks will solve this. Still not high speed though.
  • b112 4y ago
    Last time I took the train, it was more expensive than driving, and took longer too. And certainly far, far slower than a plane could be, with no hours of pre-flight waiting. More comfortable than a plane, with its cramped seating, for sure. Really, a prop plane is not horrible for the environment, especially compared to cars.
    • rglullis 4y ago
      If you live in an area with poor rail infrastructure, the solution is to improve it.
      • arpa 4y ago
        any fool can do it! brb, building a railway.
      • b112 4y ago
        Why? Yet before we get into that, you should realise what you've done. This whole thread was just about how sad these exessive delays are. Now I have no problem with diverging threads, my initial comment did just that! However, you're definitely talking about "where you think we should be" vs "right now". And right now, you're saying all short hop flights should be banned. Yet as many have indicated here, that is just not feasable in some cases. Even if you believe rail is always better (it isn't, not for all flights compared to all rail), you actually need rail before banning short hops. And as others have indicated, loads of people driving, instead of short prop plane hops, is worse than that plane ride by far! Is your goal to harm the environment? If not, then "just ban it" isn't sensible. You need to plan first. And really, just ban it means you support just banning all cars, the concept is the same, yet this is literally impossible for many, many reasons. For example, banning all cars would mean an end to rural livability, and a further exodus from rural Canada. Canada, whos crops and meat feed massive parts of the world. Are you planning to force people to farm? Make them stay, and work, if they are entirely isolated without cars? Of not that, then is your goal to cause world wars, and death, and destruction, and likely the release of tailored plagues, and nuclear weapons? Because in a world pf starvarion, the knives come out very fast and strong. Yet this is what wide sweeping car bans could mean, as it is already hard to keep farms manned, and profitable, without banning things from a city centric view. Would you also ban short hops for prop planes, from rural areas too? It would be a disaster to put trains everywhere. Literallly bad for the environment, to run a rail line for 50 people a day. A prop plane is far, far more energy efficient, than maintaining all that rail infrastructure for so few people, through hundreds of km of forest. Just the regular chainsaw usage alone, to prune back trees, makes it worse. What are you thinking?? Hurting the environment like this, suggesting policies which end in plague, nuclear war, death, destruction!! Think of the whole cost, or you may kill us all!!