A forum called Railroad.net is not going to get a representative sample of mode choice, so "I'm not going to ride the bus" while true, is not actually useful in route planning.
BUS: Without looking (I'll put the answer below) how many annual intercity bus passengers are there compared to how many intercity train (Amtrak) passengers? NOTE: the answer is not "nobody rides the bus" Rather it is that bus is the far larger, nationwide solution, providing both "essential" service to flyover Red State nothingburgs AND serving dense corridors.
CAR (AVs/Autonomous Vehicles) Relevant in this thread: the NY, CT, & MA markets are all the kind where
AVs are going to make traffic worse. CT, with no toll roads, is particularly doomed to see AVs "take as long as they need" to use the "free" roads. I-91/I-84/I-95 (and the CT-15 Wilbur Cross+Merritt) are going to get profoundly sucky, since there are a lot of would-be supercommuters lurking in the leafy burbs.
BUT on the Inland-competitive MassPike, MassPike has the option of dynamic tolling to suppress congestion on the inner Pike (and toll-funded add-a-lane from Worcester-Auburn to Sturbridge). The MassPike will remain a fierce (and politically more popular) competitor to trains, and the SPG-WOR-BOS Bus can go along for the ride for just the price of a 3-axle toll.
AVs are like cheap gas: they'll promote trips "for fun" (this will be deadly to the LDs where thin demand means that the interstates can handle the fun-stimulated trips). I am definitely going to finally do that BOS-CHI-DEN-LA-SF-SEA-MSP-STL-ATL-WAS-BOS trip across America if it means me & the
mishpucha can plan a 10-hour drive each night were we sleep in the back of our 2025 Sienna.
In cities and their exurbs within a 2hr drive, It will CRUSH rush hour traffic as people choose longer commutes and more trips because they'll tell themselves "I'll just work / nap / recreate" on the trip (probably a serious competitive threat for commuter rail, too).
This
does create clear window for more corridor trains like the Greenfielder and Shuttles, and Brightline and like what Anderson is proposing. Call that 2020 to 2035, the AV-apocalypse overlaps nicely with the I-84 rebuild in Hartford. Where the competition is an
un-tolled New England corridor, the train can be faster than the bus for most of the day.
But vs the MassPike, I don't see the train being "worth it" unless it runs at 110mph at least some of the time.
* 2018 was a record year for Amtrak, but also a record year for Bus.
Amtrak 31.7, of which 12M was NEC, 15M was SS, and LD was 4.5M, Meanwhile, Intercity Bus was double that at 60M ~ 65M (source
DePaul U) So while the mode choice on RR.net is about 5-to-1 in favor of rail, in the rest of the USA, it is 2-to-1 in favor of bus. We're about 10x more bus-hostile here than the rest of America and it is good to remember that a "choose rail" consensus for the Inlands is unlikely to be borne out in actual route performance.