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I was curious about this so had to check. I live in a fairly large city with decent transit options (for the US), and (notably) a high-speed commuter rail syst

I was curious about this so had to check. I live in a fairly large city with decent transit options (for the US), and (notably) a high-speed commuter rail system going into the city. I'm considering moving out of the city in a year or so, and if I do I want to be convenient to a station on that rail system. Using a friend's address in the suburbs as a proxy (who lives near where I might be moving), Google Maps puts the travel time from there to my office at 32 minutes via commuter rail. That's with an 8 minute walk and 11 minute walk on either side, but if you assume a bike ride rather than a walk I'd imagine you can cut each of those down by at least half. The rail line has headways of a little under 15 minutes at rush hour, so that could possibly extend the trip a little bit if your timing's not perfect, but still well under an hour. Of course if you need multiple transfers to get to your destination (and your local transit system doesn't have very short headways) that will increase your travel time substantially. The commuter line I'm thinking of takes you right into the heart of the city where many jobs are though (including my own) so that's not always a concern.

ghaff 5y ago
That's probably an unusually good commuter rail system. I'm about a 10 minute drive from a less frequent commuter rail, so figure 15 minutes out the door until the scheduled train comes. There don't seem to be any express trains running right now so it's over an hour into the city and that's assuming I don't need to catch a subway on the other end--which I would have to do to go to my company's city office. So, for me, at least 90 minutes--and that's for someone fairly far out (it would also take me a good 60 minutes to go in by car with nominal traffic but more like 90 anywhere near rush hour even leaving early) but convenient to a rail line. I actually did this for a time, fortunately not every day but frequently enough. Wouldn't really have been sustainable long term.

ghaff 5y ago

That's probably an unusually good commuter rail system. I'm about a 10 minute drive from a less frequent commuter rail, so figure 15 minutes out the door until the scheduled train comes. There don't seem to be any express trains running right now so it's over an hour into the city and that's assuming I don't need to catch a subway on the other end--which I would have to do to go to my company's city office. So, for me, at least 90 minutes--and that's for someone fairly far out (it would also take me a good 60 minutes to go in by car with nominal traffic but more like 90 anywhere near rush hour even leaving early) but convenient to a rail line. I actually did this for a time, fortunately not every day but frequently enough. Wouldn't really have been sustainable long term.