I live near Salt Lake City and the train infrastructure that exists is well used and pretty well thought out, and we have a pretty big car culture here. Salt La

I live near Salt Lake City and the train infrastructure that exists is well used and pretty well thought out, and we have a pretty big car culture here. Salt Lake City isn't a very big city in terms of population, and it spans a pretty big, flat area, yet the transit system is popular. My extended family lives near Seattle, which has more dense population and higher motivation to use public transport (lots of environmentally conscious people), yet I think most would agree that the train system is inferior to Utah's. I think this is because: - commuter rail doesn't link up very well with the light rail line (airport) - commuter rail only runs morning and afternoon The Trax (light rail) and Frontrunner (commuter) lines, however, are very well connected and both run all day. My main frustration is that the Frontrunner line doesn't run on Sundays, but it has a far more flexible schedule than the Seattle line. If you live anywhere along the Frontrunner/Trax system, you can rely on it to get you to the airport, work, or shopping, provided you don't need to travel late at night. That being said, I think Seattle's total transit system is better than SLC's, but I think that's because there's less of a stigma against riding the bus in Seattle as well as a higher budget (Utahns are very fiscally conservative). I think SLC has done a fantastic job of building a transit system that works for tourists and locals alike. Seattle built two separate systems that works okay for each, but doesn't work together very well. Drivers like flexibility, but the Seattle train system isn't flexible. So, in order to convince people to commute differently, that system needs to be useful for far more than just commuting. I don't want to rely on a commuter rail line of I'll occasionally need to stay late, which would cause me to miss the last train. I also don't want to rely on a system that's inconvenient to work into other plans, like going to the airport at lunch time or doing some shopping on the way home.