San Diegans: Would You Take A 3 Hour Train To Bay Area?

Posted February 25, 2009 * Comments(2)

The topic of public transportation and the proposed high-speed train comes up often whenever Alex is around. I voted against it, but I actually would take a 3 hour train from San Diego to the Bay area that cost the same or less than the plane because practically speaking with security and such the plane ends up taking 3 hours anyway, and train time is actually productive while plane time is wasted.

What do you think? Would you realistically ever take the train, or always opt for the plane?

2 Comments so far

  1. Chris Radcliff on February 25th, 2009

    Yes, I’d definitely prefer the train if the trip was only 3-4 hours.

    Two reasons: scenery and space. Well, they’re really just one reason: entertaining a child. A train has 100x more space to run around than a plane does, and scenery means that much less to bring with you for entertainment purposes.

  2. Jaime on February 25th, 2009

    If the train took me directly to downtown SF, I would definitely choose the train over a plane. My legs are always squished on a plane, and there’s no joy in air travel any more. I’d rather have the extra room on a train, be able to read or use my laptop the whole time, and end up right where I want to be.

    Right now I have to drive 50 minutes south to the airport, pay for parking, go through security, wait for my flight, fly to SF, take a shuttle to the rental car area (or BART), and get into the city. Whether a high speed train would be worth it would depend almost entirely on how many of those steps I could replace. If I could drive half as far to a train depot with free parking, stretch out on the way north, and then end up in downtown without having to rent a car or wait for BART, I’m in.

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