this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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San Francisco has a pretty good bus/trolley system. There might be other cities with decent busses but I’m unaware of them.
Some major cities like New York, Boston, Philly, Chicago have acceptable subways, and commuter rails. You can probably get a daily train from one city to the next. Example: you can take a train from Boston to NY once a day - it’s fairly ok, and probably preferable than driving for most people.
Most cities have busses that suck, and literally zero trains and subways.
Most Europeans don’t realize how big the US is, and how much of it is quite rural. It doesn’t make sense to build a rail to service the few dozen families in east bumfuck nowhere.
Getting a license to drive is, generally speaking, pretty easy from most states. Usually just a written test and a road test where you just have to drive around the block without breaking any rules.
Some city dwellers survive without cars, but they are kind of stuck in the city. When they want to get out, they’ll rent a car for the day.
Boston to NY is more like hourly - Amtrak has a lot of trains going on the line from Boston to/from DC (DC also has a very good transit system for the US at least from what I've heard).
The problem with those trains is that they're expensive and slower - the Amtrak northeast regional costs $75-300 (depending on the date and time, as Amtrak is a company and charges more around holidays and during peak travel hours 🙃) each way from NY to Boston and takes ~4-4.5 hours. Driving can take 3.5-4 if you plan around rush hours in both cities.
Yup - I was thinking the fast train, which isn’t fast at all compared to the rest of the world. I think that one is only once or twice a day - could be wrong though. Price aside, it’s not a terrible experience.
I’d rather dig my eyes out with a dull spoon than take the others. Snail’s pace and stops every 5 min.
The Acela (faster one) is also several times a day now, but it's more like every 2-3 hours instead of 1
Ah, good to know!