I used to commute from south of Baltimore to north of Baltimore. My home was five blocks from the light rail station and my work was a couple blocks in the light rail station.
I drove everyday and hadn’t even tried to take the light rail because I already have a car and insurance and why pay another $5 a day too get to and from work.
My car had a mechanical problem and I didn’t have time to fix it so I decided I would go ahead and take the light rail until work slowed down a little and I had time.
My car ride was right around 35 to 45 minutes. It took me about 10 minutes to walk to the light rail station The train could come anywhere between immediate and 20 minutes out the Baltimore light rail does not run on a set schedule. The train took about 30 minutes to get from my house to the center of town, At which point I had to switch to another train which could then take anywhere between zero and 15 minutes. That train then took about 35 minutes to get to work. Then I had to walk another couple of blocks which took on average about another 10 minutes They were long blocks.
So instead of losing an hour to an hour and a half everyday I was losing somewhere closer to 3-4 hours. Then on days where there was actually a problem, It might take 4 hours one way, or, God forbid there was a baseball or football game starting or stopping around the time I needed to come through.
Even where we have public transportation, we barely put forth enough effort to make it viable.
Embrace trams, the worst of all worlds
No, trams are amazing. They’re trains but on bus-stop scale. Perfect for transport across the core of a city
Maybe I’m just bitter that my city doesn’t have a proper metro. I’m still fairly grateful though. My home town had no public transportation at all.
Trams are the best! I’ll go out of my way to take a tram over a bus any day
They are just so much smoother
I used to commute from south of Baltimore to north of Baltimore. My home was five blocks from the light rail station and my work was a couple blocks in the light rail station.
I drove everyday and hadn’t even tried to take the light rail because I already have a car and insurance and why pay another $5 a day too get to and from work.
My car had a mechanical problem and I didn’t have time to fix it so I decided I would go ahead and take the light rail until work slowed down a little and I had time.
My car ride was right around 35 to 45 minutes. It took me about 10 minutes to walk to the light rail station The train could come anywhere between immediate and 20 minutes out the Baltimore light rail does not run on a set schedule. The train took about 30 minutes to get from my house to the center of town, At which point I had to switch to another train which could then take anywhere between zero and 15 minutes. That train then took about 35 minutes to get to work. Then I had to walk another couple of blocks which took on average about another 10 minutes They were long blocks.
So instead of losing an hour to an hour and a half everyday I was losing somewhere closer to 3-4 hours. Then on days where there was actually a problem, It might take 4 hours one way, or, God forbid there was a baseball or football game starting or stopping around the time I needed to come through.
Even where we have public transportation, we barely put forth enough effort to make it viable.
Lack of schedule coordination is an American thing. Or building suburban train lines which scheduling rarely beats the car.