it's not just departures but gaping holes. Look at the route from KC to Florida. Even with their bus connections the routes are insanely long via Virginia!!!???DaveKCMO wrote:there is a direct train (#3/#4) that takes 7 hours, not competitive with flying but faster than driving. if you buy early enough, it's no more expensive than the state-sponsored trains that connect in st. louis. i've converted many people to that train. if you want to still save time, fly there and take the train back. you can use #129/#229 bus to get to/from KCI.
but yeah, we definitely suffer from not enough departures outside of the coasts.
the problem is the current train network largely follows freight routes through the middle of nowhere to connect big cities like airplanes do. It needs to be more hub spoke than it is and which high speed plans are moving towards. the train in MO should connect the 7 biggest cities together in a triangle and spokes as a starting point and then work towards the 25 biggest over time (college towns, suburbs and such). serve the smaller towns in between
that would cover the majority of people in the state with only 25 primary end points.
make the service be a minimum of faster than a car and tie it into other services be it transit, a taxi stop, a bike share station, a car rental spot or such depending on the station.
Look at the Warrensburg amtrak station as an example of this need. now locate the car rental places. now find out if their hours coordinate after you've walked the 10+ blocks from the train to there. There's a big opportunity lost in coordinating services.
what student will take the train to school knowing they have to walk to campus? sure, they can get dropped off or take their bike. what if that doesn't work out? should we strand them?
