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.
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.