No, you can only do public transit in rural places inthe Netherlands if you go to a big hub city. If you have to go 3 towns over, you have to take a car, or be prepared to double or triple your travel time.
Linking towns to nearby cities sounds like the job of an interurban (Short one or two car length light rail / trolly that makes one stop per town, traveling the countryside between each at grade and at relatively high speed), but almost nowhere has those anymore.
Even within a city, bus travel is usually much slower than a car. Because you have to wait to get on the bus, and then the bus is making many stops along the way to load and unload. And it probably also isn’t going directly to where you need to go and probably doesn’t stop directly in front of where you live, so you need to add walking/bike riding to the beginning and end of the trip.
I’m a big proponent of bus travel, but let’s not kid ourselves here – choosing the bus can easily make a 30 minute car ride into a 2 hour bus ride overall.
Walking can take you nearly anywhere, but it’s slow
Biking can take you somewhat fewer places and is faster
Driving further restricts your access and improves speed
Buses restrict your access again, but without improving speed. They have other benefits, but if your only concerns are versatility and speed, they aren’t in the natural progression.
Trains, however, can be a lot faster than cars, at the usual cost of going fewer places.
The solution, as it often is, is to use more trains. Also, walking and bike tunnels. Weather is often a reason why I don’t walk or bike.
No, you can only do public transit in rural places inthe Netherlands if you go to a big hub city. If you have to go 3 towns over, you have to take a car, or be prepared to double or triple your travel time.
If you have to go three towns over in rural NL the car may be the best option, but going by bike is a very close second.
The busses in the NL are often mainly for transporting you to and from the city, though some provinces also offer halfway decent local connections.
Linking towns to nearby cities sounds like the job of an interurban (Short one or two car length light rail / trolly that makes one stop per town, traveling the countryside between each at grade and at relatively high speed), but almost nowhere has those anymore.
Even within a city, bus travel is usually much slower than a car. Because you have to wait to get on the bus, and then the bus is making many stops along the way to load and unload. And it probably also isn’t going directly to where you need to go and probably doesn’t stop directly in front of where you live, so you need to add walking/bike riding to the beginning and end of the trip.
I’m a big proponent of bus travel, but let’s not kid ourselves here – choosing the bus can easily make a 30 minute car ride into a 2 hour bus ride overall.
The solution, as it often is, is to use more trains. Also, walking and bike tunnels. Weather is often a reason why I don’t walk or bike.