Arthur Frommer Online, Riding Our Coattails to DC

Arthur Frommer Online: I just have to return to the news about the additional $1-a-ride (but usually $15) cut-rate bus lines

Are you challenging us, Arthur Frommer?

We write about cheap bus travel. Stick to your travel guides, sir.

[Ed. note - We will keep track of A.F keeping tracking of cheap bus travel]




Arthur Frommer Online: I just have to return to the news about the additional $1-a-ride (but usually $15) cut-rate bus lines


I just have to return to the news about the additional $1-a-ride (but usually $15) cut-rate bus lines
Just as Southwest Airlines, Skybus, Spirit Airlines, and other upstarts have revolutionized the pricing of air transportation in America (as Ryanair and easyJet did in Britain and Europe), we are now witnessing a similar upheaval in ground transportation within the U.S. Although I dealt with this subject yesterday, it's important enough to warrant further discussion today.

First, I neglected to mention yesterday that the new Megabus (www.megabus.com) service from New York will also go to Atlantic City, the difference being that the casino-bound buses will leave from the Port Authority Terminal on 42nd Street rather than from the northwest street corner of West 31st Street and Eighth Avenue (to Buffalo, Toronto, Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Baltimore). And I should also have emphasized, more than I did, that from its hub in Chicago, Megabus also services every Midwest city of note. Added to its service from Los Angeles, Megabus will (as of May 30, the start-up of its New York service) deal with a large percentage of the American population in their routine transportation needs.

In doing so, Megabus joins DC2NY, a hip bus service on which free mineral water and wi-fi service are featured; it joins Bolt Bus (the Greyhound subsidiary that services only New York-to-Boston presently, but will obviously expand to many, many more cities in the coming months); and it joins the several "Chinatown" services (so-called because they drive from one Chinatown to another) like Fung Wah and others.

So here's an excellent alternative to the overly-expensive airplanes and trains to which we've been relegated in the past. Shuttle flights from New York to Boston or Washington, D.C., already cost more than $150 each way, and the cheaper Amtrak services between the same cities will almost always cost as much as $89 each way. (The speedier "Acela" trains charge as much as a shuttle flight.)

So will Americans flock to the new cut-rate buses? It's a matter of psychology. We've been trained to regard inter-city buses as something for the poor; and indeed, if you scan the people in an average bus station, you rarely see lawyers-with-briefcases or graduate students-with-laptops. But that's about to change. The fact that the new cut-rate buses will offer such amenities as power outlets at each seat is a powerful new improvement in transportation and will win many persons over from the higher-priced planes and trains.

Let me also stress that if you make your bookings right away on the new Megabus services, you stand a good chance of snaring a $1 ticket. Yesterday, an associate of mine booked a 50¢ round-trip on Megabus between New York and Philadelphia (for post-May 30 dates). And $1-and-up tickets are presently available on Megabus and Bolt Bus on all the other services they either presently operate or are about to commence.

All you cost-conscious travelers: this is a Mega development! Go to the websites of the bus lines I've named above and begin following the story over the weeks to come. We are on the brink of something big in travel.