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Comment by baby | Hacker News Reader

The Caltrain sucks though because taking a car is so much more fast/practical. I must have taken it once in 5y because it's just so far out in the city and not easy to access (and then super slow).

People in Europe take trains because it's a better alternative than driving!

Make subways land right in the train station in SF, then make the train faster, then you have something useful.

On the other hand I agree with the premise of the article. If you have high mobility in a state, the state will become reacher. Doesn't make sense to wait for national trains to be a thing, make sure people can easily move across your state without having to rely on having a car.

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You must be riding a different Caltrain, unless I'm on my motorcycle it's always faster to get anywhere in SF via Caltrain + bike from the peninsula during commute hours, it's not even close.

reading is tougher though

absolutely, i love caltrain and i ride it all the time precisely because it's time i can actually use to do whatever i want

The big value to me as a BART/Caltrain rider was the ability to avoid traffic and avoid parking hassles within SF. In SOMA, at least, street parking is mostly metered 4 hours max, and private parking is $30-60/day.

The electric trains are a bit faster, but still slower than something like BART.

My main issues with Caltrain are the cost (public transit shouldn’t be more expensive than driving) and the schedule: depending on the station, missing a train can mean waiting 30-60 minutes.

also the Peninsula isn’t really built around trains. I still have to drive 5-10 minutes just to get to the station, then wait, then ride at that point it’s easier to just drive the whole way. If I lived within walking distance, I might use the train way more.

Last mile connectivity is my issue as well! I live near a VTA light rail stop but taking that almost doubles my trip time to SF.

Yeah my plan is to try Waymo as the last mile. Just idea right now but it sounds like a reasonable alternative to driving.

There are significant difference between driving a car on the 101 and taking Caltrain. Given the option of a) being stuck driving in traffic for an hour long commute and b) reading on a train for an hour, I'll always take the reading.

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