I think I'll drive the car instead.
"Revived bus industry luring Thanksgiving travelers" by Jason Keyser | Associated Press, November 27, 2013
CHICAGO — As millions of Americans hurtle through the jumble of transportation arteries for Thanksgiving, many are discovering that bus travel may be the cheapest, comfiest, and even coolest way to stay Zen during the nation’s largest annual migration.
After nearly half a century of decline in the bus industry, a new breed of sleek, Wi-Fi-pumping intercity coach is transforming the image of buses as the much-ridiculed travel option of last resort. With free Internet connections, tickets as cheap as $1, and decent legroom, companies such as Megabus.com and BoltBus are luring holiday travelers disenchanted with the hair-pulling rituals of airports and driving.
Let's hope they take care of their vehicles and don't put profits ahead of people.
‘‘I’ve been doing it for a couple of years and it is a nice ride,’’ said theater student Natalie Sienicki, 22, sitting inside a blue double-decker Megabus idling on a street corner near the grand colonnades of Chicago’s Union Station.
Her journey on Monday was not only cheaper than flying, at $56 roundtrip, but also took her all the way to her destination in Ann Arbor, Mich. If she had traveled by air, Sienicki would have had to make a side trip through Detroit.
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The new bus services are capitalizing on generational and technological shifts: Younger urbanites are espousing a car-free lifestyle, and gadget-wielding travelers of all ages increasingly expect to buy tickets online and stay connected for the duration of their trip.
Because they can't afford one with the albatross of student debt around their necks.
‘‘Young people have no great psychological connection with the car,’’ said transportation trends researcher Joseph Schwieterman of DePaul University in Chicago. ‘‘They just want to get from point A to point B, and being able to use their electronic device on the way is a bonus.’’
Honestly, I'm tired of the drop in standard of living being dressed up with perfume and lipstick and being sold to kids as some sort of great thing. Maybe the kids don't realize it, but those who have been around see the agenda at work.
Next time they ask for a ride tell them no.
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The companies are able to offer such cheap seats because their online-only booking systems save them from having to staff ticket offices. Operating from curbsides rather than bus terminals also keeps costs low.
So someone is out a job, huh?
It also helps that the typical 18- to 35-year-old passenger barely remembers the bad old days of bus travel. That image problem endures for older travelers who braved interminable bus trips that launched from seedy downtowns.
‘‘I had visions of ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ but this is nice,’’ 31-year-old Andy Dale joked, referring to the movie in which Dustin Hoffman’s character dies of an illness on a bus journey. But his Michigan-bound Megabus was a lot more comfortable than he’d imagined, Dale said.
Your more likely to be murdered or crash in the bus.
The bus rebirth began around 2006, when Megabus.com, which started in Britain, entered the US market in Chicago. It now operates in 120 cities in North America and hit 30 million customers in September.
Buses are the fastest growing form of intercity travel in the United States, according to a study released this year by DePaul’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development.
The traditional Greyhound service also has rebounded somewhat after decades of cuts. It spun off the BoltBus brand in 2008 to get into the discount game.
BoltBus general manager David Hall says he has been blown away by its success. ‘‘It’s a bit overwhelming, quite frankly,’’ Hall said. ‘‘. . . You get people who haven’t ridden the bus in years, and yet they’re coming down to give us a try because they’ve heard it’s cool.’’
Sorry, readers, I got off a few stops ago.
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I'm sorry, but I'm no longer enjoying the ride.
