For me it's worse traveling now than it was before.
Airplanes are cheaper and go everywhere at anytime, but they are the exact same airplanes as ever (no major evolution). And airports are chaotic and never has there been more hassle with security as now, and flights are always late.
Traveling by car is getting more dangerous as the highways are full of cars and trucks, gasoline gets more expensive everyday and traffic jams are worse all the time.
Traveling by train, if you live in Germany, is ridiculously expensive (to visit my parents in law, 300 km away, costs 300€ for 2 people if you get the ticket the day before, it costs 60€ gasoline by car...). To get anything cheaper you have to get your tickets in the most inconvenient times. And you have to change 4 times train before you reach your destination.
2 comments:
The way I see it, the problem with transportation is not the lack of technological progress, it´s the increased availability of access.
Highways in Germany are always full because everybody has three cars, and they all can use it. In the 50´s it was probably 1 in 3 germans (and 1 in 30 iberians) that had a car. The rest did not drive, they rode the bus-tram-bike.
Same goes for air travel. One generation ago, it was a priviledge for the rich and most normal people it as an unattainable luxury. Not anymore. Thus goodbye to the empty airport.
The trains are terribly expensive, because they are privatized and the corporation maximizes profit: the tickets are prized at the maximum amount that will still fill up the trains (have you found many empty trains in Germany?).
What I´m getting at is that we are living a the period of maximum mobility in the history of civilization. Everybody and everything can go pretty much to anywhere in the planet at relatively little cost (financially). The energy cost of this lifestyle however is gargantuan, and getting ever more so as the chinese and indians arrive at the party.
The problem is, there is no hope for any technological breakthrough to help us maintain this bussiness as usual, as we face declining energy availability. I´m convinced the world is about to get much, much bigger. Travel costs will increase enormously, and most people will simply not move around as much.
I agree with Astroperit but the point is that the technology stoped, like says Bruno.
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