I was going to meet someone in Lansing but my car started making weird noises and I don’t trust it that far now.
So I think “Hey I’ll drive to Kalamazoo and take the train!” Well I look up the train schedule. $17 bucks round trip, that’s very a good deal! I’ve never rode a train before it could be fun! Only one problem.
The return trip leaves before the arrival trip even gets there. Apparently the ticket price includes the cost of generating 1.2 jigawatts of current so Doc can give me a ride at 88 MPH in his Delorene. It’s heavy.
Also it includes several hours of waiting in Battle Creek, both ways! What a deal!
Why can’t Michigan have public transportation that works? The state economy is in ruin, gas is obscene, and auto insurance is some of the most expensive in the country. Seriously you guys in Lansing get your act together and help us out.
Well turns out I can take a bus there but I’ll have to walk 100 miles back unless I wanna spend the night. I think inviting myself over for the night would be rude on a first date. I guess I get to decide if the weird noise is a loose exhaust or something that could strand me a 100 miles from home.
I could cancel, but I like this chick, we talk everyday and I’ve had to cancel before. I don’t want to be flaky. I have to work everyday but Saturday every week.
Stupid Michigan has to make everything so fucking hard. Idiots, I really enjoyed 30 mile bike round trips to get to college coupled with not eating somedays last summer. Thanks to your amazingly high unemployment. Lansing lets the state run it’s self into the ground and then it won’t help you.
Wait I take that back. It would have helped me plenty finding a job if I get someone pregnant, but since I choose to be responsible and use condoms Michigan is like “fuck off and die”. Meanwhile anyone in the county who is hiring gets swamped with applicants. Even the fucking Mcdonalds was swamped with applications when it had a position to fill.
If you run out of gas money before you find a job in Indiana you’re marooned. I’m saving every penny I can with my seasonal job, which was also swamped with applications. I worked there last year and they were impressed with my work so I was able to get it again this year.
I guess I should consider student loans, but if something happens and I have to set out a semester (with the life I’m currently having this a very real possiblity) that could really fuck me up.
I’d rather not live on credit if I can avoid it.
tl;dr: This state is nothing vast distances between trashy little jobless towns, and ran by borderline sociopathic idiots.
I’m a little confused. Lansing and Kalamazoo are podunk stops on the Chicago-Pontiac route. Why would you expect return trips at any particular time at stations that are not terminal stations?
According to the 2000 census Kalamazoo county has 238,603 people. Lansing’s urbanized area population is 300,032, and happens to be the capital.
A service of over a half million people podunk is to you?
And how do you explain away amtrak’s apparent belief in time travel?
Yea I guess I’m just a self entitled asshole expecting to get from one large city to another without a flux capacitor.
Since you’re so smart I eagerly await your answers while I try to figure out what’s making that noise in my car.
Amtrak has somewhat limited service. This ain’t Europe, sadly enough. I don’t expect them to cater to me to have schedules that make it convenient for a particular two city route that I plan on taking. I just look at the schedule and see if it fits my plans. If not, well, I make other plans. Of course around here, we’re lucky if the the Los Angeles to Seattle train shows up within 24 hours of its scheduled time. It runs (oh my god!) once a day.
And yeah, Kalamazoo and Lansing are podunk towns. Sacramento is the capital of California and has a population of 475,743. It’s a podunk town. Get over yourself.
Wait, you’re using California as a reference for what’s good for public transit? You’re kidding right?
LA can’t even get it’s act together to install decent a subway system despite massive traffic congestion and smog problems. Does that strike you as wise? Most people in California don’t know what public transit is.
Now Massachusetts and Rhode Island, they had a good system. There was even trains to “podunk” towns like Franklin.
You’re state does not define “podunk” for transportation. You get over yourself.
The purpose of my rant isn’t just against amtrak, even if did start as a rant against their apparently causality violating schedule but against the state public transit in Michigan in general, trains, buses whatever.
Shit like this is why gas is expensive and why we’re sending so much money to the Middle East instead of keeping it right here at home in our own economy.
Also Michigan really needs to get it’s employment problems, insurance costs, and lack affordable available public transit in check. The three problems make for a nasty cocktail.
I never claimed that California was the model for decent public transportation. Some people are trying to improve it and the Metrolink system that had the unfortunate recent accident is a good example of attempts to improve the situation.
The train actually works moderately well if the places you want to go to are close to an Amtrak station. I can walk to the station in Santa Barbara and it’s pretty convenient to go to downtown L.A. I can actually go to Tijuana fairly easily by taking the train to San Diego and then taking the trolley down to the border. That said, you need to have a lot of time and a very flexible schedule as Amtrak makes the airlines look like the trains in France. This is not necessarily Amtrak’s fault as they have to share lines with and give precedence to freight trains.
Unfortunately, the Amtrak Northeast corridor is probably the only truly successful line in the US. I’m hoping that things improve in the future and would love to see high speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco or Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
What I do not like about the Amtrack to and from Michigan is the train is always a couple of hours late getting into Lansing then on the way to Chicago, you sit on the tracks for another hour waiting for a clear track. The trains to Grand Rapids get in at 11 at night in a bad neighborhood. If you take Greyhound the buses are not near the train stations and the scheduels are not compatible. I wanted to go to a funeral in Muskegon, but the bus back from Muskegon to Holland missed the train by 5 minuets and was across town.
Years ago there was a train that went right fom Chicago to Muskegon, it was always on time and the hours were convient for traveling especially with young children. That stopped with the express ways, Now if you drive it you can be stuck in traffic for hours because of an accident or road work.
Unless you’re a commuter Amtrak is essentially useless. Greyhound says they can get you there in about 2.5 hrs in mid-afternoon with a return trip the same length and time of day. If you can’t/won’t drive with your car making funny noises, that’s pretty much your only option that doesn’t consist of “don’t go”. If you don’t want to ride with the future mass-murderers of America there are probably a couple other bus companies that run in the area.
Holy shit, really? That would have been amazingly convenient for me. I occasionally go from my parents’ house in Muskegon to Chicago, and the options are either to take the Amtrak from Holland or to Greyhound it.
I did this about a month ago, and the Amtrak tickets were already sold out by the time I got around to buying one, so I had to take the Greyhound. It wasn’t that bad, but sheesh, a train would have been nicer, and the drive to Holland is sort of an irritating additional step as well.
Also annoying is trying to get from Ann Arbor to Holland. You have to take the train all the way down to Chicago and then back up to Holland.
Living in New York now, I’m astounded whenever I go back to Michigan just had bad mass transit there really is. It would be fantastic to have a train service for quick trips around Muskegon, Grand Rapids, Holland, etc., but I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
Well, like many other ills of our time you can blame lack of funding for the state Amtrak’s in right now–we can afford 10 billion per month for Iraq or 700 billion to bail out badly run finance companies, but not 1.2 billion to keep the trains running. Likewise, if McCain’s elected you can pretty much be sure it’ll stay that way, and will probably get worse.
If you are familiar with Muskegon, then you know what a nice resort town it is, lots of nice beaches etc.; I do not go any more because it is way too inconvenient and the Greyhound is always stuck in traffic they no longer have very good stops along the way and I have not tried to go by Greyhound for many years. I did take a Greyhound from Grand Rapids to Muskegon once but the food in the sandwich machines were so old I got sick and I had to wait for 3 hours to get the bus to Muskegon.
