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Comment by morsma | Hacker News Reader

As a European living in the states. Trains and buses are not a substitute for a car, not even in Europe.

In general, no, but generalizing can miss important local markets. I live in London and trains and busses do me fine. I honestly can't remember the last time I got into a car here; certainly years rather than months.

Big-city issues like parking and congestion charging can tip the scales quite a bit, with much better public transport than the rest of the country to compensate.

Trains also do not have to completely supplant cars to make a difference. If people take the train to work and use their cars to run errands around town it's still an improvement over driving everywhere.

How many Americans drive to and from an office in a city center at the same predictable hours every single day? We're certainly underutilizing trains.

That's only helpful if they mostly share the same route; if it's a star topology, trains won't help.

That's why usually there are multiple lines that converge on a central station.

+ circle lines that connect the spokes.

Even shared bus services can made into something desirable with the right marketing and investment. The large tech companies provide luxuary coach services with WiFi to their workers and the people riding them are seemingly very happy with the services.

I mean, let's be honest here: a lot of people don't want to ride the bus because they associate it with poor people and don't want to share a vehicle with them. There's a lot of legacies of America's social problems getting tangled up with this question.

I lived in Europe for a long time too. Trains are not a complete solution but they do solve a lot of the problems and are underused in the US.

Long distance train rides are incredibly expensive in the US.

I mean even moderate-distance train rides aren't cheap. Look at the price of a single ticket from the outer zones of the commuter rail systems into the city

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