If so, how often do you utilize the train/trolley?
What is the ticketing procedure? Printed tickets, reloadable card, digital payment, etc.?
What do you like/dislike about it?
If you don’t use the train/trolley frequently, are there any adjustments or improvements that could be made which would change your mind?
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42 comments
Not one that is useful to me.
The nearest stop is as far away as anything I need day to day and it doesn’t go anywhere I particularly want to go. Even for the brief period where I worked somewhere near a stop, the train was much slower than just driving.
Nope.
There’s one in my city and a new stop about a mile from my house. I know it uses one time and reusable cards, but I have no idea how much they cost because it doesn’t go anywhere I need to go.
Not anymore, but I did when I lived in Illinois. There was a Metra station about a 10 minute walk from my house.
Tickets were electronic, but IIRC they had printed tickets as well. The ride itself was always pleasant. It took about an hour to get into Chicago, which is about how long it would have taken for me to drive. The benefit of taking the train was that I didn’t have to focus on driving or try to find parking.
no public transport in my town, my nearest city has a bus service that is infrequent and not very comprehensive. we have an amtrak station though, I just don’t really ever use it, if I have to go to another city it’s usually cheaper and faster to drive
No. You’ll find that outside of large cities, it doesn’t really exist, and if it does, it’s for tourists.
No, there is no local intracity transit rail system in any city in Indiana.
South Bend International Airport to Chicago is serviced by what I believe to be is the last interurban in the nation operating as commuter rail. The South Shore Line is currently being improved right now so part of the service kicks you off the train and puts you on a bus.
Yes. I use it 2-3 times a week for my commute into the office. I pay for it with an automatic deduction from my pay check pre-tax. That goes onto a prepaid debit card. I have the card saved in the service’s mobile app and pay for a pass each day. Pass is a digital barcode I scan at the terminal.
What I like about it: I get an extra 20 minutes to just sit and relax and unwind before and after work. I don’t have to worry about traffic. It’s almost always running despite bad winter weather. It’s cheaper than gas/parking.
What I don’t like about it: If you are 30 seconds late, you’ve got to wait 15 minutes before your next one. There are shady people, lots of homeless use it which can be pretty smelly.
With that said, my employer just made subsidized parking passes available which makes it cheaper to drive all the way in. Since there is no waiting for a train to show up, it’ll be faster too. Tomorrow is my last day taking a train.
No. We only have a few bus lines in my area. No trains or trolleys of any kind.
I have a train a few minutes from me, but I don’t use it frequently because it doesn’t go anywhere that really helps.
No, there is no train/trolley system in my city and there hasn’t been one for many decades. The only public transportation where I live is the bus system, and I’ve heard that it’s not super efficient.
Most of the US has very little public transport.
In the Boston we do have some, but it’s way less than places like Europe.
I have a regional rail (commuter train) stop about 3 miles from me. These days tickets are either credit cards on board, or an app. In Boston the subway/trolley/bus network uses reloadable cards.
For the most part the system can get where you need to go within Boston and the immediate area. But it’s old and beat to shit. Massachusetts needs to spend a lot of money to fix its many infrastructure problems.
Yes. I am a 5 minute walk from a Metra line. I have $$ payroll deducted that goes onto a commuter card. I have an app for the actual ticket which is paid from the commuter card.
I like having 40 minutes to read, catch up on emails or work a crossword puzzle during my commute. I also despise driving and sitting in heavy traffic. My train line is super busy, so the trains schedule isn’t bad and it runs mostly on time. A coworker of mine is on a different line and has a terrible schedule and frequent delays.
My train ride on an express train is about 40 minutes. On a local, it’s over an hour. Pre-pandemic, we had 3 express trains per hour during rush hour. During the pandemic that moved to 2 expresses. And even though ridership is up, they haven’t increased the frequency of express trains. that’s my biggest complaint.
no
Yes. A few blocks from me. It goes to the most important parts of Portland.
You just pay at the machine and get on. They don’t seem to have ticket checking.
Chicago. Yes. Everything is mobile and the same app is used for bus and regional train.
Technically I’m walking distance to Amtrak but anywhere I’d want to go it’d be cheaper to fly AND I’d have to leave at like 11pm for some reason?
No
No. I live in a stand-alone city of 130k
Yeah, there’s a train in my town, but I never use it, since the bus is so much better and easier to use. You can buy tickets via the ticket machine or on your phone.
Nope. There used to be one a long time ago. My city was home to the first electric streetcar system in the US.
Yes, but it is not useful for me.
ZI live in the suburbs of a midwestern city. My suburb doesn’t have access to a train, but I can drive about 15 minute to s train stop, if I wanted to take it downtown or to the airport.
In the 20 years I lived in this city, I’ve used the train maybe 5 times. It’s just easier to drive.
None of the 3 major cities I’ve lived in (San Jose, Seattle, Raleigh) had light rail that was functional for commuting when I was there. I did use a combination of bus and rail for a time in Seattle, but it was really inconvenient sometimes.
Yes. However it doesn’t go anywhere near my house, only my workplace. As a result, we use it sometimes to get lunch at work. I have a metro card so I just use that to tap into it, I’m not sure how to buy paper tickets.
As far as the dislikes they are two-fold: 1. They don’t go anywhere near to enough places to be used on a regular basis. 2. They don’t have a lot of enforcement of tickets, so homeless are often on the trains and sometimes cause problems.
Yep but the nearest station is across the street from my job, I’ll continue driving
No, we just have buses.
Yeah, it goes into NYC via a number of intermediate stops. I don’t work in the city so I don’t use it very often. Maybe 3-4 times a year.
Tickets can be purchased at kiosks or via an app for one way or as a monthly pass.
I like that it’s available so I don’t have to drive into NY, but it’s slow and not especially reliable.
If it was faster I’d be more interested in using it. I’d even pay more for faster service. Not even more trains, just more express trains that will save me time.
I live in Queens. A 5-10 minute walk to the 7 line.
I don’t have a car so constantly. I am in one of the very few American cities were cars are not necessary and I love it.
Ventra card is on my phone through Apple wallet so I use that to pay. I have commuter benefits through work so it’s taken out before taxes. Without it the CTA is $75 for an unlimited monthly pass.
The L is great and it works for the most part, but can always be better. It doesn’t get the funding other major cities in the world do so it is slow to expand.
I used to live on the far north side of Chicago, almost the end of city limits. The airport wasn’t that far south from me, but was very much to the west. To get there on the L I would have to go completely out of my way to go way far south to transfer to another train to head northwest.
Kind of? There are a couple underground stations for BART, which is a hybrid commuter rail / subway system that runs underground through the denser parts of SF, Oakland, and Berkeley but on elevated tracks farther into the suburbs. When I worked in SF pre-COVID I rode it daily. I got on underground, it went elevated through west Oakland, then subway again under the bay and into SF.
Yep, it’s fairly new, opened in maybe 2016 or 2017? It’s called SMART, Sonoma Marin Regional Transit and it goes between the cities on the 101 corridor in Sonoma and Marin counties. It’s pretty nice. It’s a commuter train and not insanely useful for my needs but I’ve used it to go to San Francisco a number of times. It can’t go all the way to SF because the bay is in the way, but it goes very close to the ferry landing in larkspur and then you can take the ferry into the city.
This definitely has pluses and minuses. It’s absolutely a more time consuming and less flexible way to travel than just driving to SF. (The train is pretty fast but the ferry takes like 45 minutes, as opposed to just driving over the Golden Gate Bridge.) But it’s probably a bit cheaper and then you don’t have to drive and park in the city, both terrible experiences I try to avoid. Both the train ride and the ferry are very scenic, so if you’re not in a hurry it’s a beautiful and chill way to get around.
I’m not sure how to make it more efficient within reality, like it would be great if the train went all the way to the city but it would cost a bazillion dollars to build a tunnel or to add a train line to the bridge. 🤷🏼♀️
No. Not an option. I live at the edge of suburbia, where the pine barrens begin. And I work on the furthest outskirt of a major city. So there really couldn’t be a sustainable public transit option to get me there, unless it was built basically for me and only me.
* Yes, above ground train
* A few times a week
* Reloadable card
* I like that it’s there and runs frequently enough to be a viable form of transport. I dislike the narrow platforms at some of the stations on the line I use, and how exposed to the elements those stations are.
A commuter rail “Near” me? Not really. It’s a 15 minute drive, which to be fair is true about most things for where I live in my town, but it would not work for me anyway as it does not go near my work at all. Plus my drive to work is only about 22-25 minutes anyway…
Interestingly enough there is a freight rail line that is walking distance from my house and I can throw a rock at from the back door of my office.
Nope, sometimes I wish there was one though
I don’t think we have one in my entire state. I live in a village of less than 2K people and I commute to a town of 7K. So, those kind of things would not exist here…
… ironically, I ride my bike and walk my dogs regularly on a rail trail that previously linked several small towns together by rail. Surprisingly, it operated as late as 1995, although passenger service ended in the 1950s.
Th metro is a 25 minute walk I usually take the bus.
There is a light rail line, but it goes nowhere and does nothing.
Yes, the LIRR and the Metro North. Both have digital or paper ticketing options. I use LIRR more often than the MN because I like to take it to the racetrack out in Elmont during the summer racing season. And I’m also going to the north fork next week or a work event.
I only use the metro north once a year to see my parents in Connecticut. LIRR stops about a 15 min walk from my apartment too so it’s convenient.
There was an extensive trolley system in my area but it ceased operation approximately 100 years ago. It was probably pretty amazing back in it’s day. Now only relics of it remain in a few places.
Not in my lifetime. My parents, who are in their 70s, talk about the one that was there when they were kids, before it was removed. There are still some tracks embedded in the roads in certain parts of town. My grandparents used it all of the time when they were young in the 1930s and 40s.