the LIRR is great (if a little pricey) but the downside is you have to be in Long Island
you can watch the train get more and more right wing the further you get from the city
and as soon as you leave brooklyn/queens you'll need a car to get anywhere else
Nassau is the spawning pit of Levittown, and Suffolk just cranked it up to 11.
The MBTA Commuter Rail lines in Boston defintitely count, IMO. You can commute from Providence to Boston (and from TF Green Airport to Logan Airport through only trains and BRT). If NH ever pulls it's head out of its ass, the proposed Nashua and Manchester expansions will also happen.
Also, during the summer, they run trains from South Station to Hyannis down the Cape, and the stop is like two blocks from where the Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket ferries dock.
Show
Biggest issue with them right now is the lack of a connection between North and South Stations. Before they fucked up the Green Line Expansion, I would have told you the North-South connection (which would also enable the Acela to go north of Boston) was probably going to get approved and started within the next 10 years, and it still might anyways. The MBTA leadership basically needs to be purged first, though.
Yeah I cam here to say that the MBTA isn't too bad. I don't like how if I want to go from like, Newburyport (not where I live I'm not self-doxxing lol) to Worcester I have to do the annoying transition from North Station to South Station but its not bad.
I was in awe of the system in boston compared to chicago.
Maybe it works fine as an intercity rail system but as a commuter or regional rail system it's so bad.
-
The rolling stock is filthy and ancient
-
Some of the "stations" look more like bus stops
-
It's expensive
-
It's not electrified (even the routes on the northeast corridor)
-
It's slow spending most of it's time accelerating or decelerating
Maybe it's just my line/route to work that's so bad (reverse commuting) but I really hate it and it makes me miss Metro North
I can't speak for all zones, but Zone 2 is about on par and maybe even a little cheaper than what an equivalent LIRR or Metro North fare/monthly pass would cost. Also, I haven't ridden all MTA and MBTA commuter rail lines, but I have found that MBTA stations tend to at least have the platforms covered more often than the MTA does. There's a lot LIRR and Metro North stations where they have no cover on the platform at all. No argument on the average MBTA train being of crappier quality, though.
-
the tristate area is honestly like a different country transit-wise. dope shit.
SEPTA's regional rail isn't half bad. not in the level of NYC mind you, but still decent enough
Death to America
It's not bad. Just needed more high density and walkable infrastructure around it. The Main Line rail stations are relatively accessible (though so many of the neighborhoods immediately off Rt30 is just suburban sprawl), as are Manayunk-Norristown Line, but a lot of stops along the Norristown High Speed Line between the bookends are just stupid: Train station surrounded by single-family housing with no sidewalks beyond the parking lot.
I used to commute on Caltrain. It's pretty good at connecting SF and SJ, is about to be electrified, and is supposed to increase frequency when that happens to become more of a transit service rather than just commuter rail.
If you exclude the suburb lines (which aren't THAT bad), Chicago's train lines are top tier and improving all the time. Really good commuter lines and I think a model for how other US cities should function. A bit more expansion of the sururban lines and better interlinking outside of downtown would make Chicago's trains world class I think.
The two largest criticisms of the LIRR (and Metro-North) are frequency and price. The commuter rail lines around New York should be running every 15 minutes per branch, all forming together to provide a fast and very frequent service in the city. It should be like the RER in Paris or good S-bahn systems in Germany. The commuter rail should also cost as much as the subway within the city, it's far too expensive. Seriously, look at commuter rail systems in cities less than half the size of New York and the systems are just so much better. This standard of frequent service (maybe less frequent on rural branches) should be the standard for commuter rail in North America. For cities that are starting to get it right, look to San Francisco, Denver, Toronto, and Salt Lake City. San Francisco and Toronto are both electrifying their lines for more frequent service and Denver already has service every 15 minutes to the airport with fully electrified lines.
maybe Metra if you're feeling extremely generous
get there 15 min early because if you miss that train there will not be another one for two hours on average. it's a complete fucking joke, especially considering how big the chicago metroplex is
CTA is alright. could be better, but metra is not even in the ballpark
TBF when talking about commuter rail, you might as well forget anything outside of the tri-state exists.
I like the Coaster that connects all the San Diego suburbs with that city and Los Angeles: https://gonctd.com/services/coaster-commuter-rail/
Good regular service with a seaside view, none of the freight train priority-linked delays that I had in Chicago.
I was visiting relatives in Orange County last Thanksgiving and we went to go visit San Diego, but the line was still washed out so we had to take Flixbus :(
Coaster is pretty neat, I've got a friend who uses it to get to university.
The LIRR is so goddamn close to being an amazing train line beyond commuting. For people with a decent paying job and either live near the station and/or own a car, it's a great way to get to work in the city. It runs 24/7 and just had an extension to grand central. However, it's because expensive and there's no north/south service on long island itself msot ppl just stick to car only mode.
Based on nothing except the short hand legacy of long island, I imagine this has something to do with segregation followed by redlining and then whatever neo-redlining has been going on in the 21st century.
All it'd need are like fucking shuttles or something to and from the stations or god forbid north/south trains and 1000% less racism. Plus of course, the downfall of the west
One thing they do right, ironically, is make the stations so convenient to park and ride that many choose to do that over driving the whole way into the city.
Its weird, normally parking lots are bad, right? They make it easy to drive places and use up land, but in this microcosm, these parking lots do more to reduce car dependency than a few crappy bus lines. You don't need to worry about not getting a spot or parking passes, you just show up and pay for an expensive ticket and you're on your way.
iirc (bc i got the hell outta there). The station in my home town has paid parking in addition to being able to park on the street nearby relatively easily. Sure it's convenient, however, it's not convenient enough to make a theoretical trip by car from Penn station to Amityville take 2hrs (a roughly 39 mile trip) due to traffic during rush hours.
sorry i think i'm just grinding my personal axe here
No its far from optimal, its a reasonable axe to grind. Its sad that this is basically the best the US can do, but its also cool to experience the best the US can do compared to how the rest of the country lives. Being near the LIRR means you know far more people who welcome a rail commute into their lives, despite the cost and delays.
Based on nothing except the short hand legacy of long island, I imagine this has something to do with segregation followed by redlining and then whatever neo-redlining has been going on in the 21st century.
Why do redlining when you can just keep doing de facto segregation.
https://projects.newsday.com/long-island/segregation-real-estate-history/#nd-promo
you're right - I had even read most of that article too awhile ago. I just completely forgot about it (the article) at the time of the comment
One of the only places in the US where I have lived on different portions of different commuter transit lines and had the same, consistently good experience with each line. To the point where I would actively choose to use the train over driving even when parking was available at the destination. Definitely miss it.
It's so unnecessarily expensive, especially the passes. I drained by bank account commuting from my parents' place in the Hudson Valley to school. Living in a commuter town was death. 0/10 don't recommend.
