It’s not about cost, it’s about access. Essentially, the airlines which hold slots are attempting to hoard the capacity to keep their competitors out. The use it-or-lose-it rules are meant to ensure that airlines which don’t need the slots either lose them or return them.

Since the start of the pandemic, some airlines have been hauling freight on passenger aircraft, and a few have even converted the main decks of some of their aircraft to transport even more cargo. But the markets where that works are limited.

Great, repeating another outlet’s article without doing any research.

How ‘bout setting up a Cosmos watch party first? “You see, Carl Sagan is the nicest, smartest person who ever lived, and we believe in god exactly the same amount.”

Also, a watch-through of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy BBC TV series. If you’re feeling saltier.

Salt is fine for the mid-Atlantic, it doesn’t get below 0F.

the nightmare cult of car ownership

Yes, but you can still test whether we’re training people better by looking at the reduction in the drunk driving death rate versus the reduction in the overall vehicular death rate. Still shows progress.

Carapult?

More like the automotive equivalent of playing Russian roulette with a full clip.

And yet... drunk driving deaths have fallen precipitously in the decades since it became socially unacceptable and the laws were changed - down over 50% since 1982 despite more than doubling vehicle miles traveled. Certainly we aren’t there yet, and progress seems to have stalled in recent years, but it’s not like we…

Maintenance nightmare, I would think. Those things are constantly at least partially broken, and that's in parking lots. They're just not built to take constant high-speed traffic.

Exactly - those are called four-quadrant gates because, well, they block all four quadrants of the crossing.

Of course there are.

Yes. In my cold heart, I say keep the train moving and clean it up later. It's not like the people in the car are going to get better.

Indeed. They also have better-maintained roads and four-quadrant crossing gates.

And our terrible driving license standards.

That sounds like blaming the victim to me... We should immediately limit all train speeds to 15 MPH #15isenough #visionzero #pleasepleaserecognizesarcasm

I got the impression that it was like the A Team: If you have a problem, if no other drink can help, and if you can find it....maybe you can buy Rich Energy.

That’s totally what I read it as, anyway.

“I don’t think it’ll ever take off as a means of powering personal transportation in any meaningful capacity.”