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The cost of tolls, gas, depreciation per mile, depreciation time, monetary risk of accident, and etc could definitely make driving less economical than taking the train.



Unfortunately car owners tend to ignore depreciation and risks of accidents in their cost estimates, but include comforts like the ability to carry more luggage.


What happens when you get to your destination? Do you suddenly just stop needing a car?


Alternatively, you pay up to $60/night for the privilege of keeping your car underneath your hotel while you walk or ferry or scooter or even uber your way around your destination.

I'm a car owner but it's stupid expensive and if there were a reasonable alternative I'd stop in a heartbeat.


Flying is pretty popular and cars don't generally fit into the cargo hold of airplanes.


They do... ok, you could afford a pretty decent used car (or several months of car rental) for the shipping price: https://www.autoshippers.co.uk/air-freight-car-shipping.htm


From the 1950s to the 1970s there was a regular service transporting cars by air between the UK and various airports in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. It cost about twice as much as the boat from Dover to Calais.

They initially used Bristol Superfreighters, which were replaced by Aviation Traders Carvairs (converted for the purpose from second-hand Douglas DC-4s). The Carvair could carry 5 cars and 22 passengers- the cars were loaded through a door in the nose.

The "air ferry" service was killed by competition from the new RO-RO car ferries (when it started flying, cars still had to be loaded onto cross-Channel ferries by crane) and especially by the hovercraft service which began in 1968- a crossing by hovercraft with a car didn't cost much more than the conventional ferry while being as fast as the plane. The hovercraft, in turn, stopped being viable because of competition from the car-carrying trains through the Channel Tunnel- it stopped running in 2000.


Rumors have it that there are cities which are actually walkable AND have acceptable public transportation!

Imagine!




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