> the options significantly diminish if I want to travel from North Bay to South Bay to see my parents, or Jersey to South Brooklyn to visit my inlaws.

This is a fixable problem. I'm still waiting on someone to do it though. NY is mostly interested in corruption from their preferred interests. (which is why they are working on a law to require a conductor on all subways instead of working to eliminate all that extra labor, instead of fixing their system so it is fast and reliable and then covers more area)