There are other costs associated with living in the suburbs than just the cost of a car. There is also commute time, which - if your time isn't valuable to you - need not be a problem but for many people this wasted time is a real issue.
I'm in the Netherlands, where I spend some extra money to get a 1st class ticket (because that has the room to work on a laptop), and I nearly always have a seat in that. I guess during rush hour about a fifth of the rest has to stand, true.
Even if you have to stand now and then, you can use an ereader.
Some of the commuter rail systems in the US do have class-based systems. Heavy rail (rapid transit aka "the subway") does not, but that's more about the particularities of how heavy rail works.
We tolerate different pricing for various classes of seats in concerts, trains, buses, airplanes, pretty much everything imaginable. I don't see why commuter rail would be any different.
Heavy rail is a taxpayer-funded government service, provided by governments with particularly liberal electorates (large dense cities). One of its key selling points, among certain constituents, is as an equalizer: getting the rich out their Audis and into the same miserable conditions as everyone else.
I think most people who can't afford first class on airlines do resent it, but since airlines aren't state-owned and, more importantly, it's always been there (not a new proposal), there's not much they can do.
Look at the popular outrage about scalping. People absolutely feel that you shouldn't be able to buy your way into a good seat, and instead ought to be lucky/first.
> provided by governments with particularly liberal electorates [...] One of its key selling points, among certain constituents, is as an equalizer: getting the rich out their Audis and into the same miserable conditions as everyone else.
It's hard to take what you're saying seriously when you're so clearly biased towards one end of the political spectrum.
The actual truth is much less political. Cities like New York City are way too dense for everyone to drive a personal vehicle, full stop, your non sequitur about Audis notwithstanding. Mass transit is the only transportation method that scales to handle a population the size of a large, dense city. Individual vehicle transportation does not. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, whether you're driving an Audi or a beater; if you're trying to drive to your job in the heart of Manhattan from the suburbs it's going to take you hours. Mass transit is the better choice for almost everyone.
I guess it depends on what you mean by productivity, but I can read a book while standing, I can read and respond to emails, and I can actually zone out and relax.
In a car, I have to be on moderately high alert the entire time I'm driving, especially in traffic.
Even the mediocre VTA light rail in Silicon Valley has people standing during rush hour. although that is exacerbated by the California reluctance to sit right next to someone. Here when half the seats are sat in the rest of the people stand unless it is a big group like a field trip.
You can't complain about standing if there are still seats available though ...
Also, you don't see that here in NYC. People are gonna sit down if there's space available. Unless it's next to a crazy homeless person, but I've only ever experienced that on heavy rail, not commuter rail.
Look at anywhere around London or Paris, for example; plenty of routes are crush loaded at rush hour. Heck, Tokyo is famous for some lines having people to push people further into each car.
The delineations at play here for those who don't know, in order of scale, are light rail (typically at-grade), heavy rail/rapid transit/subway/metro (all the same thing), commuter rail, then regional/long-distance rail.
Every time I've ever taken MTA Metro-North there's been more than enough seats available. It's one of the systems I was going to mention as having seats for passengers. There isn't even enough room in those trains for twice as many people to stand as have seats; it's basically an all-seating arrangement with an aisle for reaching the seats down the middle. Are you sure about your examples?
Edit: And it's the exact same for the Long Island Railroad, which is the other major commuter rail system run by the MTA. They have a third system, the Staten Island Railway, but I've never taken it and thus can't comment.
I guess I'm talking about connectivity for outlying urban and inner suburban neighborhoods ("the subway") more than regional rail systems like LIRR or, in Chicago's case, Metra.
It may actually be a good strategy to live even further from the city if it lets you switch from a crowded urban transit system to a more spacious suburban one.
Commuter rail tends to be more expensive than heavy rail too.
It's a good question though (let's put aside costs for now): How much more time would you be willing to spend on commuter rail over heavy rail if it means getting a seat? I'm not sure. I think I'd rather be seated for 40 minutes than standing for thirty, but at an hour, I might just prefer the shorter trip. You can still easily listen to podcasts on crowded heavy rail, or get good at holding a Kindle in one hand.
In smaller cities, it takes less time to get downtown from the suburbs than it does to get across downtown on foot or even a bike. (Buses there move at walking speed in the average case, or bicycle speed in the best case, but only come every half hour or so).
The differential in costs between living in the city core versus in the suburbs is much different for such cities, however. It may well be reversed entirely, as in many small cities that don't suffer from bad traffic, living in newer suburbs is more desirable than living in a potentially decaying urban core.
