Anons argue in comments
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2025
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What's a train? Is that the thing that somehow goes twice as slow as a car while costing three times as much and being less comfortable?
I kid of course, clearly I am familiar with Amtrak.
The public transit problem tends to come down to "if I have a car it's cheaper and easier to use it" which puts you in an unfortunate hole. Trains need be the clearly better option and they just aren't. Sounds like the UK is also going this way.
A little less than twice as fast as the highest allowed speed on motorways here (200 km/h vs 120 km/h), while being far more comfortable - no need to keep the eyes on the road, more comfortable seat, plenty of space to have a meal if desired, can go to the bathroom at any time without stopping. Also cost approximately $14 one way for the hour journey, which could probably be cheaper. The gas would be maybe around $10 for an equivalent trip if taking an average car on the highway. The real savings materialize in not having to buy and maintain a car, though.
Yes, that is the real savings. Unfortunately, as I said, if you need a car for any reason (most people do) then using public transit other times is cost ineffective. The last mile is still a huge problem. Where I live if I want to go to the next major town center in a massive urban area, i have one bus that goes 2x per hour and costs 2.30$ each way. Or, I drive the 3 miles and spend an incremental 42c each way. Yes, owning the car costs way way way more than that, but I can't affordably do mixed use. Once you have a car, it's too expensive not to use it. (And this is still the case for an old car -- my 15-yo might not get replaced depending on my circumstances, but I bought it 5 jobs ago and it's still cheaper and faster than transit for most of my destinations.
(And yes, back to OP, biking is perfectly fine for such a trip as long as the weather is good and you don't actually need to do anything at your destination. Even then, it's actually a 5 mile bike ride for a 3 mile car trip due to the roads being unsafe here.)