I get your drift and there are definitely routes where that will always be the case. You can’t run trains from central or eastern Europe to Portugal competitively with airplanes, never. Same goes for islands like Malta, Corsica etc. But an important part of the equation is still also how heavily travelled a route is, and somewhat if that is year round the case or mainly (short) seasonal demand. Airplanes are more like busses, it’s easy to shift them around to meet a seasonal demand. But trains move a lot more people at once. A TGV can transport up to 550-600 people at once, 2 trains coupled that’s more than 1000 people at once. The ICE4 gets to above 800 people at once. Most main aircraft types are 250-300 people capacity. The flight itself is fast, but the entire travel often is not, because the train brings you to a city center while many airports are 20 or more km outside the cities and because of regulations (the airports are way stricter controlled) causing long waiting times. And the main reason of all, even if the airplane is faster and always will be: the climate impact. Tho railway is for sure not zero impact, airplanes according to most stuff I’ve read is still way way worse impact so making trains more attractive on year-round very often travelled medium distance routes still pays off. It should, for example, not be okay that the airplane is faster and cheaper between Amsterdam and Berlin. Yeah, it’s a bit more than 600 km, but it is a very often travelled route, year round, the geography and population density in between is very fit for high speed, the amount of stops in between could be very manageable (4 or 5), while it connects 2 very big population centers. But because of lack of investment on such a main route, it currently takes 6 hours by train. By airplane including check-in, security, being there early, etc it’s like 3,5 hours. It’s a really fine example of where train could become a lot more competitive with strategic investments with in the end a lower climate impact and lower dependency on imported fossil fuels (large electric planes are still a pipedream for now). Speed isn’t everything, it’s on many routes also just the lack of coordination between different national railways’ schedules making it a headache by train currently.

Yes true but the range of how far train can be preferable above plane can be expanded if network better run on a European level and some big strategic investments (not that different from what France did in the 80’s and 90’s) on quite a few very often travelled routes. Amsterdam-Berlin is an easy example, but there are many like that. Currently on many routes the plane>train is like ~300 km, while on many that could become 600-700km with either high speed tracks or more sleeper train options or better connections. On some big routes the train>plane is up to 700-800 km already.

Make it a Europe ticket.

You do need that if you’re for example traveling from Amsterdam to Berlin, Copenhagen, Gothenburg etc, the kind of travel this article and post are about. Amsterdam to Berlin takes 7,5 hours, at least, by train that’s ridiculously slow for just 650 km. About 1/4 of that is in NL, runs through a part of NL which is not at all as densily populated as the Randstad is.

Dutch have good national trains but are also part of the reason for poor trains on European level. The Dutch have built next to nothing high speed tracks, NS also don’t invest in night trains.

There’s add-ons in Firefox for it

Most countries will be raising taxes on fuel even more and in general it will become less available fast: gas stations, mechanics who know how to fix the ICE old timers etc. it will become a hobby thing (like old timers today already). Certain niches will keep ICE way longer (heavy construction vehicles etc) but it will suddenly become quite rare in 20 or 30 years to see a regular old ICE driven by a regular person doing regular things like commuting or so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinational_Eurodistrict_of_Basel?wprov=sfla1

Skyscrapers =/= big city. Basel is a very well known city in western Europe (France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands…). Known for it’s beautiful old town, trams, many museums. It’s the cultural capital of Switzerland. Also with people who never went there. As for “not big”, it’s just not the case, it spreads out into Lörrach, Rheinfelden, Saint-Louis, lots and lots of people from FR and DE work in Basel, go visit it regularly etc. The commuter attraction reaches easily into Freiburg and Mulhouse, with thousands going there daily to earn a way higher Swiss paycheck. The wider urban area goes towards 900.000 people! Compared to polish cities too it’s not that small. It’s only the old town and the river area that gives that vibe (stayed out of the wars, nothing was destroyed…). Really the lack of skyscrapers is a very unreliable way to judge how “big” a city is! Basel by the way houses the tallest buildings of Switzerland! Roche towers. High rise is just very uncommon in Switzerland, but they get high density living with regular apartment buildings. I really don’t understand where your “Basel is a small provincial town” impression is rooted.

Depending where you’re from this might be a perception issue. Cities in Europe are generally smallish on modern city world scale. 200.000-500.000 inhabitants, with just a few larger city exceptions per country. There’s just a LOT of those medium-large cities and they are often all rather near to each other. How a “city” is defined can differ a lot, many urban areas consisting of many entangled and interdependent cities are technically still all their own (historic) “city”. Look at the Ruhr area for example, the Randstad, Flemish Diamond, …

It’s quite a theoretical approach. Antwerp has a lot of 30 kmh streets, but you shouldn’t expect cars to actually follow the rules in many of them. Same with many bicycle streets: it’s not allowed, but you’ll be overtaken A LOT by cars in those streets…

I only once encountered it in Czechia near Plzen with 2 lanes. Think it took me 5 minutes before I could/dared. Can’t imagine it with 3. Crazy dangerous situation. Stay safe!

Tho not preferable, there’s cases where it can work. The roundabout layout still provides a better (easier) entry to the crossroads, the traffic lights can create a “cadence”. Technically not a roundabout anymore, it does use some of it’s qualities.

Anyhow, pedestrian crossings on 2 lanes right before any kind of intersection without any lights is way more dangerous than a roundabout with lights.

Pedestrian crossing without traffic lights at a 2 lane roundabout entry? That’s just murderous design.

War sucks. Drones are really messed up, everyone permanently watched, day and night nowhere to hide, every lawnmower-sound in the distance might be the last you ever hear. And it’s not even autonomous swarm drones yet…

Housing is definitely very very expensive in Basel too. But a bit less problematic because of border spillover into Lörrach, Saint-Louis, …

EU already absorbed Switzerland in this pic despite them not wanting it, so there’s that.

2020 is from the seventies and only 1 season. 2021 is from 2000s and ran 5 seasons.

It’s a niche where AI helps because there’s just decades of so many forums and videos full of how to do stuff in excel and with AI you get the right answer quicker with less noise around it. I use ai assistance for excel formulas all the time, works pretty good for that.

“object of a threat in which nuclear weapons are used”. Just the threat of using nuclear is enough for assistance… The vague part is mainly what “assistance” might be. That what is “assistance” part is very vague in NATO too.