Very odd to count the private vehicle to public transit as a transfer on the same level as public transit to public transit transfer. Once this is pointed out the observation is almost banal.
If there’s a failure on the other end, you’re not exactly near work, and you’re much further away from your home now. Part of dealing with public transit on a regular basis is dealing with it failing: bus came 5 minutes early and you missed it and the next one is 25 minutes away; bus gets taken out of service; bus is too crowded to take new passengers; somebody jumps in front of a train. Whatever it is, you’re now subject to depending on a system that has failed you. There’s some psychological comfort in being able to just go home.
And unlike with the office, there’s less pressure to get home on time at a time when you would normally be out anyway. You just call in and make the walk back if you have to, or maybe get on the bus back if one is available.
Honestly, if we could make routes served by buses more reliable, this would all be much less of an issue.
Suburban Americans, with exceptions, consider the "origin" of a trip on public transit not where they originate from, but where they get out of their car, because the sparse urban transit systems and job locations are oriented around extending car capabilities. It is easier and less stressful for an American to drive part of a commute and ride one train than to drive none of it and risk missing an infrequently operating transfer that strands them far from home.
Suburban Europeans, with exceptions, do not do this, because their denser urban transit systems and job locations are built around foot or transit access. It is easier and less stressful for a European to ride the train all the way because, even if a transfer is required, it is more likely to occur closer to home and with a more frequently operating service.
So, transit proposals in the United States that propose solutions based on European models without recognizing this American trait – often deeply rooted in experiences over years of bad transfer experiences in places that have transit, and operating against a cultural car-friendly bias in places that don't – are less likely to succeed.
Or, as the article puts it:
> To the extent that this relates to American commuter rail reforms, it’s about coverage within the city: multiple city stations, good (free, frequent) connections to local urban rail, high frequency all day to encourage urban travel (a train within the city that runs every half an hour might as well not run).
It's just about how a car leg compares to a train leg or a bus leg. Of course the car-to-train transfer will seem relatively frictionless compared to the other options. It's the easiest of them. That the car leg is first when leaving in the morning is more about the circumstances of suburban commuting than the transfer point's distance from home/dest. Of course the car leg is closer to home, your car is at home. If you already lived in the city with better train access you wouldn't even be using a car.
On top of that, usually the whole idea of using a car is to make it a car+train commute, rather than a bus+train commute. Usually these distant car+train commuters aren't taking a bus as the last step, because then they would probably just drive the whole way (instead of bus+train+bus just do car). And they wouldn't take a bus as the first step because that was the whole point of using the car, and the only place than can use the car as part of a multi-mode commute anyways.
It really weakens the claim that it's about the transfer being closer to home that determines the decision.
America is too spread out, and where public transit exists, it’s unreliable or significantly slower than travel by car.
There are only a few exceptions in the US.
This is a very common talking point, but it's not _as_ true as people think, depending on state. California, for instance, has a population density similar to France, though almost infinitely worse public transport _infrastructure_. The infra problem is likely more of a factory than the density thing, at least in the US's more populous states.
What doesn't work is the bad service we get. Cars are expensive, but better than what passes for transit so of course we drive.
IMHO what the California High Speed Rail got wrong was their ambitious attempt to build the main line from SF to LA where they should have stated in the North by connecting San Francisco, Sacramento, and Stockton and/or in the south by linking LA with San Diego. These corridors are going to be more used by commuters and it’s usage would drive the will to connect them.
If only CA could build fast for reasonable prices. Their inability to do either gives transit haters plenty of ammo to show transit shouldn't be built. And if transit keeps doing things like second ave subway and cahrs the haters are right.