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from the walking-will-be-mandatory-soon dept.
It's official: France bans short haul domestic flights in favour of train travel:
France has been given the green light to ban short haul domestic flights.
The European Commission has approved the move which will abolish flights between cities that are linked by a train journey of less than 2.5 hours.
[...] France is also cracking down on the use of private jets for short journeys in a bid to make transport greener and fairer for the population.
Transport minister Clément Beaune said the country could no longer tolerate the super rich using private planes while the public are making cutbacks to deal with the energy crisis and climate change.
[...] The ban on short-haul flights will be valid for three years, after which it must be reassessed by the Commission.
"[This] is a major step forward in the policy of reducing greenhouse gas emissions," transport minister Beaune said in a press release.
[...] Sarah Fayolle, Greenpeace France transport campaign manager, told Euronews that there were both "negative and positive aspects" to the European Commission's decision given that only three routes are affected.
"It's going in the right direction, but the initial measure is one that's (not very) ambitious. We must go even further," she said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 12 2022, @08:05PM
> Who owns that road again?
Not sure in this particular case, but around here (Western NY) there have been a bunch of short private roads put in by developers. The state rules allow them to use a narrower (cheaper) road and ownership stays with the HOA (home owners association). That typically works OK until the road needs to be repaved. At that point the HOA frequently goes bankrupt and the city/town/township is more-or-less required to take it over. Then it's a headache because, for example, these narrow twisty (aesthetics, eh) roads are not a good match for normal snow plows.
While there has been a legislative initiative to get rid of this developer loophole, the developers lobby hard to keep it. There may be a size limit, certainly the larger ones, area developments, include streets built to normal standards and after completion these are deeded to the local government for maintenance.