До вокзала лучше доехать на метро, а не на машине.

До requires the genitive case, so вокзал becomes вокзала.

In this sentence, до вокзала means to the station / as far as the station. With the verb доехать, this is a very common pattern:

• доехать до + genitive = to get all the way to / reach

So:

• вокзал → dictionary form
• до вокзала → to the station

Доехать is perfective, and it focuses on reaching the destination.

Compare:

• ехать = to be going, to travel, to go by vehicle
• доехать = to get to, to make it to, to reach by transport

In this sentence, the idea is not just traveling, but successfully getting to the station, so доехать fits well.

Also, after лучше in advice about a specific situation, Russian often uses the perfective infinitive:

• лучше доехать = it’s better to go/get there
• this sounds like advice for this trip

Yes, you could, but the nuance changes a little.

• лучше доехать на метро = it’s better to get there by metro
• лучше ехать на метро = it’s better to go by metro

The version with доехать sounds a bit more focused on the result: reaching the station.
The version with ехать is a little broader and may sound less goal-focused.

In many everyday situations, both are understandable, but доехать до вокзала is very natural because the station is a clear destination.

Russian often leaves the subject unstated when giving general advice.

So До вокзала лучше доехать на метро literally feels like:

• To the station, it’s better to get there by metro

In natural English, we usually supply a subject like you, but Russian does not need one here.

If you want to make it explicit, you could say:

• Вам лучше доехать на метро... = You’d better go by metro...
• Нам лучше доехать на метро... = We’d better go by metro...

Without вам / нам / тебе, it sounds like general advice.

Russian often uses на + prepositional case to express travel by a means of transport.

Examples:

• на метро = by metro
• на машине = by car
• на автобусе = by bus
• на поезде = by train

A small detail:

• метро is indeclinable, so it stays метро
• машина changes to машине in the prepositional case

So:

• машина → на машине

This is just a standard Russian pattern for many kinds of transport.

А не introduces a contrast: rather than / and not / instead of.

So:

• на метро, а не на машине = by metro, not by car

The conjunction а often contrasts two alternatives:

• чай, а не кофе = tea, not coffee
• дома, а не на работе = at home, not at work

Here it emphasizes that metro is the better option, car is the rejected option.

Usually, до вокзала is better here.

Why?

• до вокзала = all the way to the station
• к вокзалу = toward the station / up to the station area

With доехать, Russian normally uses до + genitive to mean reach the destination:

• доехать до вокзала
• доехать до центра
• доехать до дома

So к вокзалу is possible in other contexts, but with доехать and a clear endpoint, до вокзала is the standard choice.

Because а is a coordinating conjunction, and Russian normally puts a comma before it when it links contrasting parts of a sentence.

Here the sentence contrasts two options:

• на метро
• не на машине

So the comma before а is standard punctuation.

Yes. Russian word order is flexible, and changing it usually changes emphasis, not the basic meaning.

For example:

• До вокзала лучше доехать на метро, а не на машине.
• Лучше доехать до вокзала на метро, а не на машине.
• На метро лучше доехать до вокзала, а не на машине.

All of these can work.

The original version puts до вокзала first, which frames the sentence around the destination: as for getting to the station...

These are two different patterns with different verbs.

• поехать на вокзал = to set off / go to the station
• доехать до вокзала = to get to / reach the station

So:

• поехать focuses more on starting the trip
• доехать focuses more on arriving at the destination

That is why:

• на вокзал often goes with verbs like ехать / поехать
• до вокзала often goes with доехать

Both can refer to the station, but they highlight different parts of the journey.