Doesn’t need a plane a lot more human and nonhuman resources to transport a person than a train or bus?
In: Economics
No, airplanes are not as resource intensive as trains or buses. For one, a plane moves 10 times faster than a bus and 5 times faster than a train. You have to pay the operators and service people 10-20% as much as a result. In addition, planes travel through the air, which has no maintenance cost. Roads and rails require significant maintenance, which is paid for with user fees that are passed on to travelers, and gigantic costs to install.
That’s the cost hole in Green New Deal suggestions that air travel be replaced with train travel. All those tracks are going to have to be built on land somebody owns. Buying that land and building that track capacity to replace air with trains in a country the size of the US will take more money than the government can collect in taxes, even if it didn’t do anything else.
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