TL;DR: yes!
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026
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I'm left with a lot of questions though, as the scope of the article is quite limited.
Short-haul flight are banned, so the gains seem obvious. But the article doesn't seem to detail if they're actually substituted by rail. Travellers could also be going by car, search for destinations further away, maybe not go at all.
I guess it's quite hard to find an actual effect from a broader perspective, but if their expectations are true, travellers using rail should have a noticable increase. It's a shame this is missing in the article.
Basically the article is saying that if you scrap a bunch of flights, emissions by aviations go down. Maybe I'm missing the point, but that seems pretty obvious. I'd like to know what the actual broader effect is of these measures taken.
Cars are still roughly an order of magnitude less emitting for the same trip compared to planes so in the worst case it's still a win, as long as it doesn't increase public subsidization of car-centric infrastructure. I think I would personally take rail if I were presented with car or train. I can at least do something while riding the train or even work remotely or something.
did you get that by reading it and now we don't have to or that is your answer after not reading? because I have not.
Yes.
Climate TRACE emissions data suggest the policies did, in fact, deliver their hoped-for emissions reductions.
I'm not reading that!
headlines asking a yes or no question usually means a No.
Here we have the exception though. It's a yes
I hate planes over trains in the EU. I swear trains feel faster because it's central to central too. There's no travelling out to an airport a couple hours before takeoff, sitting around waiting at an airport or on tarmac either. Oh, and actual leg room, comfort, and can easily move around.
What I love the most about train is that you can go to the restaurant car and stretch the legs.
So jealous of the countries that have kept train systems in place
It is a bit of hit or miss in some parts.
Valencia-Madrid? Very fast and good, even with a low cost operator.
Valencia-Barcelona? Not as good, but it still beats the plane.
Valencia-Málaga? You mean Valencia-Madrid-Málaga, plane makes much more sense.
Valencia-Badajoz? Again through Madrid.
Madrid-Badajoz? Fuck you.
Valencia-Málaga? You mean Valencia-Madrid-Málaga, plane makes much more sense.
When I did this I just rented a car. That's it's own kind of hassle but I think it still beat flying.
I wish we had Chinese level public infrastructure, though. Even the proposed plans for EU high speed rail twenty years from now are behind what China already has.
I would like to add the stipulation that intelligently planned uses of electric aircraft can provide unique shorthaul capabilities by charging opportunistically from the grid are a different path and shouldn't be mixed up with fossil fuel aircraft unnecessarily used when trains make more sense.