Megabus to start DC hub

[Scrabbleship]

Article from today's Post. The routes below begin December 15th.:

DC-Richmond-Hampton
DC-Baltimore-Boston
DC-Durham-Charlotte
DC-Harrisburg-Pittsburgh
DC-Buffalo-Toronto
DC-Knoxville


Service to begin on the new VanHool single deckers, but to move to double-deckers (at least on the Boston route) "within the next six months via a Boston Globe article that asks if a 9-hour bus route can survive.

My take: There's enough pent up demand to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Boston out there as it is for simpler, non-Greyhound service. But Hampton over Norfolk and/or Virginia Beach? A Knoxville route that doesn't have an intermediary stops (when Roanoke, Blacksburg and Harrisonburg are right there on or near I-81)? With Buffalo there at least are many Western New York expats and the drive there can be a bit of a pain given the lack of north/south interstates in general.

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Official announcement to be made tomorrow, but the following routes are bookable as of December 15th:


DC-Richmond-Hampton
DC-Baltimore-Boston
DC-Durham-Charlotte
DC-Harrisburg-Pittsburgh
DC-Buffalo-Toronto
DC-Knoxville


My take: There's enough pent up demand to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Boston out there as it is for simpler, non-Greyhound service. But Hampton over Norfolk and/or Virginia Beach? A Knoxville route that doesn't have an intermediary stops (when Roanoke, Blacksburg and Harrisonburg are right there on or near I-81)? With Buffalo there at least are many Western New York expats and the drive there can be a bit of a pain given the lack of north/south interstates in general.

Lack of north/south interstates between DC and Buffalo?  US 15 may not be an interstate officially, but it is perfectly usable, safe, and is only a two lane highway in a few segments.  I generally preferred using US 15 over I-81 to get to Ithaca.  Getting to Buffalo isn't that hard, and are there really that many people from Buffalo in DC, or just people you know from Buffalo? 

[Scrabbleship]

Official announcement to be made tomorrow, but the following routes are bookable as of December 15th:


DC-Richmond-Hampton
DC-Baltimore-Boston
DC-Durham-Charlotte
DC-Harrisburg-Pittsburgh
DC-Buffalo-Toronto
DC-Knoxville


My take: There's enough pent up demand to North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Boston out there as it is for simpler, non-Greyhound service. But Hampton over Norfolk and/or Virginia Beach? A Knoxville route that doesn't have an intermediary stops (when Roanoke, Blacksburg and Harrisonburg are right there on or near I-81)? With Buffalo there at least are many Western New York expats and the drive there can be a bit of a pain given the lack of north/south interstates in general.

Lack of north/south interstates between DC and Buffalo?  US 15 may not be an interstate officially, but it is perfectly usable, safe, and is only a two lane highway in a few segments.  I generally preferred using US 15 over I-81 to get to Ithaca.  Getting to Buffalo isn't that hard, and are there really that many people from Buffalo in DC, or just people you know from Buffalo? 

Off the top of my head, I can think of several Bills/Sabres bars both inside and outside the Beltway, one of which (Jimmy's Old Town Tavern in Herndon) built on a Western New York gimmick. Said bar has also been known to organize huge blocks of Buffalo fans whenever a Buffalo team is in the general area, often to the point of chartering buses to fill the stands with opposing fans. The Caps pair of yearly games against the Sabres have been surefire sellouts dating back to the era of the Capital Centre and have been a point of controversy on both ends (Fan Appreciation Day 2007, when the Caps sucked, being 90% Sabres fans, Buffalo people calling conspiracy when the Sabres games in DC were scheduled near holidays last year).


I will admit to the way a good friend who lives south of Buffalo, right off of US 219, to be a bit convoluted (local roads between I-99 and US 219, minus a stretch on I-80) even though a search on Google Maps with Buffalo as the search point shows this to be 20 minutes "faster" and 30 miles shorter than your route. I really can't think of an all-interstate way between Buffalo and DC that doesn't force one to go a ways out of their way and would love to see what route this might take.

[79MetroExtraMD]

It's already busy at the Old Convention Center lot. I can imagine having to run all those additional services but I don't think that lot can accommodate all of those services alongside BoltBus (unless they can modify the lot into a sort of bus terminal).

[WMATAGMOAGH]

Sometimes the scenic route can be quite interesting.  I'm sure they will find a way to get the buses from one place to another.  I only suggested 15 because I'm familiar with it to get to Ithaca (the "straight line" route from DC to Ithaca, via US 220, is something I did once and wouldn't exactly recommend to anyone, but 15 never had traffic, even on Thanksgiving weekend, and I didn't mind the grade intersections or traffic lights or lack of places to stop north of Williamsport, and for the record, I made it from Chevy Chase to Ithaca in 5 hours via both 15 and 81, so they are certainly competitive with each other).

[Scrabbleship]

Sometimes the scenic route can be quite interesting.  I'm sure they will find a way to get the buses from one place to another.  I only suggested 15 because I'm familiar with it to get to Ithaca (the "straight line" route from DC to Ithaca, via US 220, is something I did once and wouldn't exactly recommend to anyone, but 15 never had traffic, even on Thanksgiving weekend, and I didn't mind the grade intersections or traffic lights or lack of places to stop north of Williamsport, and for the record, I made it from Chevy Chase to Ithaca in 5 hours via both 15 and 81, so they are certainly competitive with each other).

I actually like the scenic route between DC and Buffalo and if the route was truly going non-stop there is only one real portion where local roads MUST be taken (taking I-99 to to I-80 puts one 25 miles off-course). This is a moot point as the Buffalo News article on this says the runs will be either via Harrisburg or Baltimore. Just glancing at Google Maps, the route looks probably something like this:

New York Ave to B-W Parkway
(Harrisburg: B-W Parkway to I-695 to I-83)
(White Marsh: B-W Parkway to I-895 to I-95 to I-695 to I-83)
I-83 to US 15
US 15 to I-86/NY 17
I-86 to I-390
I-390 to NY 408 to NY 63 to I-90 (this saves 20 miles and time over going to 90)

[Flxible]

On the note of Roanoke, I just got word the other night from a reliable source (Bev Fitzpatrick of CC&T) that MegaBus will make a whistle stop at a Park & Ride along I-81, where it would theoretically connect with the Smart Way commuter coach that runs from here to Blacksburg.  This would, of course, make it easier for me to come visit (Yay!), as would the proposed bus bridge from Roanoke to Lynchburg's Amtrak station.  IMO, this is all coming up a dollar short and a day late...if only they could have done all this while the Flxes are still in service.

[Scrabbleship]

On the note of Roanoke, I just got word the other night from a reliable source (Bev Fitzpatrick of CC&T) that MegaBus will make a whistle stop at a Park & Ride along I-81, where it would theoretically connect with the Smart Way commuter coach that runs from here to Blacksburg.

I looked at the schedules for two random weekdays from DC to Knoxville and back and the schedules are already accounting for a 5-minute stop for "Roanoke/Blacksburg" though one can't book tickets to/from there just yet. The stop times there would be as follows:

From DC: Lv 7:40 AM, Ar 12:20 PM; Lv 11:45 AM, Ar 4:20 PM; Lv 9:00 PM, Ar 1:35 AM
To DC: Lv 3:15 AM, Ar 7:30 AM;  Lv 1:35 PM, Ar 6:10 PM; Lv 5:35 PM, Ar 10:10 PM

I'm wondering which park-and-ride they'd do this at: Exit 118A or Exit 140. I can't remember which one has more stuff near it for a food/bathroom break for passengers as from Roanoke to around Raphine I-81 has next to nothing to offer passengers. Maybe if this whistle stops work and the NYC-Amherst service works we could see a Harrisonburg stop and a DC-Charlottesville-Roanoke service someday.

On a Virginia and scheduling tangent, anyone notice that there is a 9-hour gap between departures from Richmond to DC that eliminates any daytrips from Richmond to DC (4:35 AM to 1:45 PM)? Or that it seems like some Philly-White Marsh-DC runs now go down to Richmond?

[Scrabbleship]

Megabus makes Christianburg a bookable destination, the inevitable Roanoke Times article follows.

Wow, HomeRide's been charging monopoly fares for what is minimal service targeted towards a small slice of the population. If this doesn't work, I'll be somewhat shocked given the Tech traffic and all. If this works, I think that DC-Charlottesville-Christianburg or DC-Harrisonburg-Christianburg could work as well if additional runs would be needed.