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Comment by maxweylandt | Hacker News Reader

How is public transport to nearby commuter towns? If it's affordable/convenient/reasonably quick that can help a lot, I suspect. (But am quite ignorant so appreciate correction!)

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Very good, generally. It's affordable by Swiss standards, which is to say expensive for tourists but remarkably good value if you're a resident on a median salary. The cost of the whole-country annual rail pass costs less than a point to point season ticket in the UK, and there is no peak travel. So you should never pay more than 3-4k a year. Most people just get a half price card (often employer subsidised) and/or a local pass which is generally better value unless you're commuting between cities.

Switzerland has the best rail system in the world (IMHO). One app can manage ticketing across all public transit in the entire country, and it is extremely fast and reliable. Lots of people who work in Zürich, for example, commute in from Zug (due to lower taxes in the neighboring canton).

> extremely fast

It's generally called "as fast as necessary", more focused on total journey lenght with the clock-face schedule across the whole country. Other countries certainly have faster trains.

I guess "fast" is what I mean when I think "on time, efficient" (compared to, say, the struggles Deutsche Bahn has had in recent years). There are no bullet trains laterally crossing Switzerland in under an hour, I suppose.

it's nit-picky, but I think the swiss approach of "as fast as necessary, not as fast as possible" is worth separation from "train go fast", especially since it's mostly the later that shows up in comparisions/statistics because it's much easier to calculate.

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