Long Island has a great rail system huh?
It’s so unnecessarily expensive, especially the passes. I drained by bank account commuting from my parents’ place in the Hudson Valley to school. Living in a commuter town was death. 0/10 don’t recommend.
The DC Metro system is commuter rail, and pretty decent (no where near as good as it should be)
maybe Metra if you’re feeling extremely generous
get there 15 min early because if you miss that train there will not be another one for two hours on average. it’s a complete fucking joke, especially considering how big the chicago metroplex is
CTA is alright. could be better, but metra is not even in the ballpark
The two largest criticisms of the LIRR (and Metro-North) are frequency and price. The commuter rail lines around New York should be running every 15 minutes per branch, all forming together to provide a fast and very frequent service in the city. It should be like the RER in Paris or good S-bahn systems in Germany. The commuter rail should also cost as much as the subway within the city, it’s far too expensive. Seriously, look at commuter rail systems in cities less than half the size of New York and the systems are just so much better. This standard of frequent service (maybe less frequent on rural branches) should be the standard for commuter rail in North America. For cities that are starting to get it right, look to San Francisco, Denver, Toronto, and Salt Lake City. San Francisco and Toronto are both electrifying their lines for more frequent service and Denver already has service every 15 minutes to the airport with fully electrified lines.
