Originally Posted by
rickair7777
I'm all for rail in metro areas, it often beats driving, especially if you have to find parking or want to have a frosty refreshment or two. Even in the sprawling suburbs, I think it could work...many folks would prefer a five minute local drive to the train station rather than a 50 drive to work.
If there is parking...
Many Chicagoland Metra station parking lots are filled up within the first hour and several cities have 10-15 year waiting lists for parking spaces (Naperville as an example).
The obvious answer would be to compliment such congested lots with some sort of bus service, but that doesn't play out always in the burbs. Combine that with the fact that many (cough, white) suburbs don't like the fact that public transportation can link undesirables from the city easily into the suburbs.
I think its going to be a long time before we rail happen in a big way in the US. None of the railroad carriers are going to touch passenger rail (hence why Amtrak was created). As far as railroad priority goes, Amtrak has the lowest priority when compared to any other freight on the right of way. I've done Montreal -> NYC and I think we showed up like 3 hours late - which was the norm I was told. I've also done Chicago -> Toronto, arriving hours late. Going to be hard to convince passengers to ignore flying with unpredictable service like that. Seems the only rail line that works is the northeast corridor. Everything else is just bad.