It’s still basically the cost, quality, time triangle.
Energy efficiency is only one aspect of costs. Infrastructure is a much bigger aspect of the cost. Roads are expensive, rail is expensive, airports are expensive.
In major cities, existing light rail/subway is awesome, New York, Athens, Tokyo, get everywhere. Los Angeles, meh, it’s getting better. San Deigo, improving. Orange County, non-existent.
More importantly, the interconnects between the three counties in what is essentially one giant metroplex are basically non-existent too. LA light rail works good for getting downtown and sort of to the LAX office areas, otherwise, not much near any of the stops except near the expo line.
Train travel from say Santa Ana to San Diego or Santa Barbara, expensive. Current mileage reimbursements puts driving pretty much on par with the cheapest ticket. More than one person and driving is far cheaper.
I’ve repeatedly tried to plan short day/weekend trips to near region areas and it’s just not practical with train. Too expensive, too slow, too inflexible.
I wish the five county area would get their collective sh*t together and create a regular running connector that essentially express trains from the Santa Fe staion in San Deigo to Irvine/Santa Ana to LA Union and build out their infrastructure to support off of that model. Once in LA Union you can hit the light rail, dash buses and get around. Santa Fe has some options.
I still can’t put together a decent trip from Santa Ana to the San Deigo Zoo.
It’s sad to say, but LA seems to be doing the best job of it.
