I love the concept of the acela and I have always wanted to ride it but anytime I try to book a ride a few things always put me off.

1. It is sooo expensive. A ticket costs anywhere from 120 to 350 dollars.
2. The travel time is still 4 hours which means the track speed is slow. It’s ~220 mi from Boston to New York. So the travel time should be at most 3 hours.
3. Now if I want to take the acela I have to drive from my home to Boston south station which is 40 minutes away. Or i take the commuter and then the T (Boston metro) which takes 1.5 hours.

It takes 4 hours and a half tank of gas (~$35) to take me and my family to New York City. So there’s literally no reason for me to pay hundreds of dollars to take the train. We usually just park up in a garage in the city and use the subway once we get there and even that ends up being just a fraction of the cost of taking the acela.