Spotlight Vol. 7, No. 23: Playing the Ground Game

Twice a month on Friday nights, I stand patiently in line beneath the looming slab of Madison Square Garden on 32nd Street. Endless lines snake around the sidewalk and double-back onto themselves. Like some complex ritual, each new arrival serenades the waiting crowd with "is this the line for Philly?" "Boston!" we reply, and the traveler goes to find another line. Eventually, the bus pulls in and somehow everyone fits on board. Delayed, we finally depart and immediately get stuck in traffic. For less than $20, I'm enjoying another exciting Friday evening of cheap bus travel.

The last several years have seen a sudden profusion of cheap intercity buses along the east coast. Four companies offer $15-20 rides between major cities from DC to Boston, with the established services like Greyhound cutting their prices to match. Departing from unconventional pickup spots rather than the central bus stations, the services share an unofficial atmosphere and relaxed attitudes about departure times and information. Similar to a cheap airline, passengers trade comfort and service for a cheap ticket, though no cheap airline suffers quite so badly from the Friday night crawl along I-95.

My first intercity bus rides were on the "Chinatown buses" - Fung Wah and Lucky Star. Spoken of in reverent terms by European visitors to the U.S., these buses had acquired near-mythical status in my mind as the ultimate cheap way to travel between cities. To the uninitiated, they sound exotic and secretive, impossibly cheap and inaccessible to those who didn't know the protocol. Somewhat disappointingly, my first trip was an anticlimax: buying the ticket was extremely easy and didn't require any secret handshakes or shady deals. The service between east coast Chinatowns is fast (sometimes, alarmingly so) and while the bus is cramped and crowded, for the price this minor hardship seemed reasonable and a better deal than Greyhound. Compared to Amtrak, flying or driving, the bus is cheap and fast, and flexible enough to show up and get onto the next bus. And a bike can be carried for free.

Two newcomers earlier this year doubled the range of services. Placing themselves as the upmarket version of the Chinatown buses, Boltbus and Megabus pick up close by Penn Station and serve the same destinations. According to my well informed fellow passengers, both are owned by major bus operators and are in competition with their established sister companies operating along the same routes. Perhaps in response to negative press coverage of road safety on the Chinatown services, these services try to be better organized and less informal, with a shining new fleet, uniformed drivers and slick websites. On board, the perks extend to wifi and reasonably comfy seats. Although the departing Chinatown buses offer a terrific view of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, free wifi and online booking have enticed me to become a regular on their west-side rivals instead.

I wasn't always a cheap-bus enthusiast. Going intercity by rail is comfortable, almost reinvigorating. There's something very exciting about arriving by train. Strolling from platform to station concourse is not comparable to tumbling down steep bus steps onto a crowded sidewalk.

But the order of magnitude difference in ticket prices drives me and many others to tolerate the long waits and traffic-choked departures. And there are other reasons to prefer the bus over the train: Wifi and at-seat power make it easy to work, write emails or catch up on Facebook. And for a carbon-conscious traveler, bus travel is almost as energy- and emissions-efficient as rail, especially when packed to capacity - and it usually is.

For lovers of rail travel, including myself, the cheapness of the buses poses a major challenge. Train travel should simply be much cheaper than it is between major cities. Compared even to a bus, trains are more efficient at hauling a load of people, and that should translate to lower prices. But the politics and the way we fund transportation end up giving road-based travel an advantage. 

For now, while the road-trip spirit is enticing and Amtrak speedy, I'm sticking to the bus. And now, if you'll excuse me - my journey home is nearly complete, I can see the lights of Times Square down the road ahead. It's time to shut my laptop and get off this bus.