Reply #1: Megabus and Boltbus have been a Godsend to NYC

[markpkessinger]

For the past 30 years, I have lived in NYC. And for the entire thirty years, I have taken trips to my hometown in central Pennsylvania (near State College). Prior to the advent of these companies (as well as the various Chinatown buses), travel options were few and far between. There was a local Pennsylvania company that bought up a bunch of the old Continental Trailways routes, and tried to create a sort of network out of them. The trip from central Pennsylvania to NYC -- a drive that would take four hours tops -- took over six hours, as the bus wound its way mostly on back roads in order to stop at every town and hamlet with a population larger than a few thousand. Traveling from NYC, we would typically stop in Somerville, Clinton, then Phillipsburg (all in NJ), followed in Pennsylvania by stops in Easton, Walnutport, Lehighton, Jim Thorpe, Hazelton, Berwick, Bloomsburg, Danville, Sunbury, Lewisburg, White Deer and then finally Williamsport. And if the misery of the trip weren't enough, it was also expensive. I don't know what the current fare is, but as recently as 10 years ago it was around $54 each way. And the departure times never made any sense for people looking just to get away for the weekend.

Fortunately, over the past several years, various of the Chinatown bus lines, along with Megabus and Boltbus, have begun offering direct, NYC to State College service at least two or three times daily. I used Megabus just this past weekend. It was $32 each way -- I'd be hard pressed to drive it for that price. And it takes 4 hours and 20 minutes (which includes a 20 minute rest stop). There is no standing on line at a bus terminal to get a paper ticket -- you make your reservation online, and all the driver needs to see is your confirmation number (a lot of people just pull up the email confirmation of their reservation on their cell phones and show the driver that). Megabus does an amazing business. When I was waiting in line for the bus this past Friday, I watched bus after bus come in and load to capacity destined for Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse, Binghamton, Hartford, Providence, Richmond, Pittsburgh and State College. The buses are all fairly new and comfortable (within the limits of how comfortable a bus can ever really be), with free Wi-Fi connections for folks' electronic appendages.

There are sometimes some inconveniences involved. For example, on my most recent trip, the bus was an hour and 40 minutes late pulling into New York. The driver said the company had trouble "locating a bus" for him. And of course, since their office staff is so limited, it's not like there's anyplace to call to receive up-to-the-minute information. I tried calling their customer service line to inquire about an ETA for the bus I was waiting for. It was already an hour and 15 minutes late. The customer service rep. said that she hadn't received any reports, so it must have been the case that there was an accident or something somewhere that was tying up the bus. After hearing the driver's explanation (i.e., no available bus to drive), I was inclined to believe him over what customer service had told me. Still, on most occasions when I've used Megabus, they have been on time or reasonably close to it, so I'll put up with the occasional scheduling glitch so long as the prices are so low.