flight time is actually closer to 80-90 minutes between the two cities. plus taxi time of 10-20+ minutes at each end… plus dealing with getting to and from the airport, maybe parking, and random tsa shenanigans inside.
That price is certainly not representative of what was actually available when I was booking. There were $99 tickets but only if you wanted to leave at 5AM or arrive after 4PM. If you want to leave between 8-10AM and arrive at a reasonable time, there were no coach options and business class was $200+.
I went and checked JetBlue before posting that and they had $101 flights that were listed at 1h 14m, so that’s what I was basing those numbers on.
Can’t find the Boston->NYC confirmation, but here’s one from around the same time from Penn Station in Providence. This was the cheapest seat available on this train; the cheaper ones were only available if you left before 6AM or after 11AM. This train got in at about 1:30 PM, so 3h 45m from RI.
Let’s also compare that time to the round trip of Boston (back bay) to Worcester (union station) and back using the regualr commuter rail. The amount of time it takes to get from Boston to Worcester via CR, is a plane to New York and back.
Driving vs CR is a crazy difference that no one likes to admit or acknowledge.
It takes literally ¼ the amount to drive to Worcester from greater Boston than it does to take a CR from back bay. But not one will ever say it, they’ll all say we need higher speed trains.
flight time is actually closer to 80-90 minutes between the two cities. plus taxi time of 10-20+ minutes at each end… plus dealing with getting to and from the airport, maybe parking, and random tsa shenanigans inside.
compare that to the actual 3.5 hour acela route that starts at ~ $74, that directly connects midtown manhattan to south station or back bay.
That price is certainly not representative of what was actually available when I was booking. There were $99 tickets but only if you wanted to leave at 5AM or arrive after 4PM. If you want to leave between 8-10AM and arrive at a reasonable time, there were no coach options and business class was $200+.
I went and checked JetBlue before posting that and they had $101 flights that were listed at 1h 14m, so that’s what I was basing those numbers on.
Can’t find the Boston->NYC confirmation, but here’s one from around the same time from Penn Station in Providence. This was the cheapest seat available on this train; the cheaper ones were only available if you left before 6AM or after 11AM. This train got in at about 1:30 PM, so 3h 45m from RI.
Let’s also compare that time to the round trip of Boston (back bay) to Worcester (union station) and back using the regualr commuter rail. The amount of time it takes to get from Boston to Worcester via CR, is a plane to New York and back.
Driving vs CR is a crazy difference that no one likes to admit or acknowledge.
It takes literally ¼ the amount to drive to Worcester from greater Boston than it does to take a CR from back bay. But not one will ever say it, they’ll all say we need higher speed trains.