How can we encourage more sustainable transport choices?

I think a lot of people would travel more environmentally friendy, if it were more affordable. But when the train ride to another city costs 4 times as much as the flight... You know what we would all do. Even if we support the idea od sustainablitly, on a student budget or even once working, either time or money is the problem. The EU and member states need to invest in sustainable transport solutions, for public transport as well as e.g. Personal vehicles such as cars, so that it becomes accessible and affordable for the broad public to use them.

I'm working in a public transport company! Trust me the people there have amazing ideas and there are willing to implement them! But the big problem is: they need more money! Politics has to give more money in this topic. It's just that easy

- Creación de cinturones-corredores de verdes con árboles autóctonas de cada país que unan los diferentes países de la UE, creando senderos para hacer a bicileta/caballo.- Fomento de las energías limpias en los medios de transporte: incentivos a la contratación de vehículos eléctricos

If you are traveling across borders in Europe today, you have to search trough various different websites to find information on public transportation. Information which in many cases is not available in english, while it on the same time can be difficult to see trough the discount systems or transport connections between countries. This means that the easy way is to go by plane or car, even though the traveller might be more interested in traveling in the most sustainable way possible. In order to connect Europe across borders it is important to have a platform where any european citizen easily can look trough the alternatives to the traditional polluting forms of transportation. I'm talking about a platform where it will be possible to search for the easiest and cheapest connection between A and B, whether the travel goes across borders or not. The platform could feature for instance train, bus, car sharing, ferries and airline connections, while calculating the price and CO2 foodprint for any chosen transportation form. That way it would be easy to get an overview of all possible alternative routes and how to connect them instead of using the usual mode of transportation. It is important to establish widespread CO2 neutral public transportation across Europe, but what is the point in doing so if the travellers still stick with the easier accessible polluting modes of transportation?

Money is the nerve of war. When people are using their car, they don't pay the climate changes and health problems the society has to suffer from this habit (and will pay in the end). And even people with ecological awareness won't change their daily routine if they don't have to, because humans are naturally lazy. Individual interests are not the same as the common interest. So you have to tax petrol and to propose in exchange cheap common transports, but that means break up a little with the liberal economy promoted by European Union. Guess who is asking for example the privatization of trains transports ?

I believe it is essential to make trade and transport as well as production of goods CO2 neutral and as environmentally friendly as possible - this can be done, for instance, by adding a tax to products depending on how much CO2 was needed to produce something. This money could be used for environmental projects such as reforestation and the extra tax would help to support local products and environmentally - friendly products.A similar tax could be applied to cars that emit a high amount of CO2. Simultaneously, electric cars and means of public transport could be further subsidized.

Besides a change of the dominant views on transport, we need a swift change of the dominant technologies used for transport. Culture does influence technology, but the latter has a great impact on the first - on the way people conceive travelling and the way they move around. Car sharing, for example, is a recent innovation in culture, but it is not as widespread as it should be. We still think very egotistically about transport - "my own car, my individuality, my freedom". Of course, for many people there is no other option, as mentioned in another post here, especially people living in the countryside where there isn't good public transport. In general, public transport could have more presence and be significantly cheaper for regular travellers and for groups, as an incentive to its use. But there is only so much we can reduce in greenhouse gas emissions through efficiency (including through changing cultural habits). I think that electric vehicles are long due. Why are they taking so long to be put on the market on a large scale? Why aren't they getting more fiscal incentives? Besides, and extremely important, as the campaign for Clean Trade argues (http://cleantrade.org/), by buying petrol we are unwillingly funding tyranny in different parts of the World. What are EU institutions doing about this?

We need to have more integrated and subsidised public transport. So many of my friends have cars because they live in smaller towns without access to good public transport and also no safe cycle routes. This is terrible for the environment and their health too. Make transport cheaper and at least nationally owned to ensure routes that are less economically viable for the transport company are still run because it is better for the environment than everyone having cars! Put our planet's future first - not money!

I would prepare a visit to the nearest ecovilla and live with the students for 15 days. It would be a part of a pbl that could start with statistics about the quantity of fish and farm animals we capture or kill every day in our country. Comparison and a list of alternativas could be the next step,right before the ecovilla.