Some places have the main train station, the one with the long distance and high speed trains, basically any services other than regional rapid transport, right in the middle of downtown, amid the skyscrapers. Some place it at the edge of a city, and some are in between, placing it in a semi-dense area. I’ve also seen the area immediately surrounding the train station being a public square or green space, with mid or high rise buildings maybe ten minutes by foot around it. (Or you can be like us in Canada and have your rail service be more of a tourist attraction and fun ride than real public transport, but we won’t talk about that.)

How do we make sense of these placements? What are their advantages and disadvantages? What would you personally prefer? Should we strive to have a lot of the long distance commuters not having to take a connection and be able to walk to their destination and vice versa where most people going out of the city cab walk to the station (as in, station in the middle of the densest part of the city), or should the train station be more far out, with more people being expected to take at least one connection on the city public transit? What do you think?