I wonder why this is preferable to just taking the train for longer trips? Wouldn't it be nicer to sit back and let someone else do all the driving for however many hundred of you are all going to the same place anyway? Once you get past the long part of the trip you could always rent a car if it's rural or whatever.
The only train I could find that goes anywhere near my mother's house would take approximately 12 hours, with a 5 hour layover in a small town with ~nothing to do. I can drive it in maybe 1.5 hours. That's why.
Is this considered an acceptable situation to you and your community? What does your government representative say when you demand better public transit solutions?
The train would be nice if it was a reasonable alternative, but in the US outside of very specific trips, it's usually at least twice the travel time as a car, door to door, with two drivers and maybe 10-12 hours of daily driving.
And then you've still got to manage ground transportation from wherever the train station is to wherever you want to go.
ACC is nice on freeways around town if traffic isn’t heavy (I like more control when it is). Long distances is where it really shines.
Really the train isn’t viable in most of the US. And then you have no car at the end, probably in a city with bad public transit unless you want to take taxis/Ubers or have friends/family drive you around.
So for long hauls, it tends to be a car or a plane. And that decision is heavily influenced by distance.
Kind of derailing things, but train usefulness varies on area. At least where I live, train journeys are usually more expensive and significantly slower than a comparable flight (maybe similar speed to driving but still more expensive). And for a lot rural areas it's not a viable option
