Mastodawn

@jon i don't buy his argument that Switzerland's dense network is an advantage

a sparse network makes it easier to experiment

we just spent a fortune renovating Breil -> Nice and the fastest trains still take 1h07

reelectrification past pont michel could surely have got that down to 0h50 or better

Ventimiglia -> Limone should be even easier, 2h04, just need to reduce dwell times and speed restrictions 🙃

Jon Worth

@bovine3dom I'd bet the Breil renovation cost more and delivered less speed gain than if someone other than SNCF Réseau had been handling it. (Not that that's your point of course).

But I think the idea that you start with the timetable, and design infra based on that, in the video is correct. Few countries do that.

@jon oh, yeah, the SNCF is one of the biggest blockers to progress in the French rail system, it's definitely a handicap

but the incorrigible optimist in me has to believe that if we asked the SNCF for different things, they would muddle through and expensively deliver something OK

probably extremely controversially i think the second biggest blocker is that French commuters don't pay enough for their season tickets :)

i have a terrible opinion to suit every audience

Dr. Sobek Mar 21

@bovine3dom @jon Are you arguing the Deutschland ticket is too cheap too ?

(Because I pay less for my whole D-ticket nowadays than I paid for a pass on a specific line in France)

@Sobex I wasn't joking when I said I had a terrible opinion to suit every audience

Yes, I think the Deutschlandticket should probably cost €2-3k a year

Its power is in its simplicity

I don't think we should have social tariffs either. Give poor people cash and trust them to spend it on what is best for them rather than thinking we know better than them

Dr. Sobek Mar 21

@bovine3dom @jon Well, if you get a 2k subsidy from the government, and you have to pick between the 2.5k train pass, and driving, you might still drive.

Having subsidies on public transit, and not cars incentivises using public transit.

(Or at least, this sort of get rid of social tarification & heavy subsidies of commuter passes may have serious unintended consequences).

@Sobex all the data I have ever seen for commuters says that pricing is one of the things they care about least

For occasional, long distance, flexible journeys pricing matters much more. Outside of TGVs, France overcharges a lot for these - I think the logic is that people outside the region can't vote and so can be exploited without consequence. A bit like the Swiss halbtax actually

Feth 🎉Mar 21

@bovine3dom the community cost of commuters riding their own car on community paid-for roads is higher, isn't it ?

@ffeth absolutely. we need road user charging. France already does this quite well for motorways but it needs to make more progress in cities. The fuel taxes that triggered the gilet jaune protests were an attempt to move in the right direction, but French politicians were too weak to push them through

Feth 🎉Mar 21

@bovine3dom they were unfairly implemented. We need fairness before environnemental rules can be accepted

@ffeth i am sure the climate will wait patiently for that

Feth 🎉Mar 21

@bovine3dom now we have the far right politics and anti ecologic, anti minorities backlash.
Macron treated the country peoples with contempt, now they act as fools

@ffeth more seriously i am in favour of these things being revenue neutral, especially in a country with taxes (especially stealth taxes) as comically high as France

i like the idea of a central fund that takes all the pigouvian tax revenue and redistributes it equally and unconditionally as a dividend to residents

but fundamentally people who have been externalising costs for their whole lives onto poorer people will be worse off and in France that means they will set fire to stuff