A Bus Boards in Brooklyn

Like plenty of other 20-somethings in New York with limited disposable income (after accounting for craft beers and other dalliances), I tend to take the bus when I travel out of the city. It's a little slow and subject to occasionally absurd traffic delays, but it's also cheap. My last minute bookings to Boston run around $20-25 per person, each way - and that's on the expensive side. Compared to $100 each way on Amtrak, there isn't much of a choice.

And for the most part, lines like Megabus or Bolt aren't that bad. I can remember taking early Chinatown buses and Greyhounds to NYC nearly a decade ago, and they were decidedly miserable experiences. It might be cramped and habitually late, but the ride on Megabus itself is hardly terrible. The bad part of the ride has everything to do with getting to and from the bus in New York. 

Over the years, curbside boarding locations have migrated, from the ultra-convenient (Penn Station) to the passable (PA Terminal - not as accessible from NJ or Long Island and a longer ride from Brooklyn, but more subway lines), to the hellish current location outside the Javits Center. For a Manhattanite, the new location is an inconvenience, but if you are coming from Brooklyn or Queens, the added trek to 11th Avenue is virtually a deterrent to riding. The original location outside Penn put locations from Jersey City to Jamaica within 30 minutes of the departure point. Today, only a handful of subway stations outside of Manhattan can claim to be so close.

30-minute accessibility from Penn Station. Credit: Mapnificent New York.

30-minute accessibility from Megabus' current stop.

I like saving money, but having to travel for 45 minutes to reach the least convenient form of travel - and one that requires a long walk or bus transfer to get to - can be a trying experience. Quite frankly, there's no reason for service to and from New York to work like this. Cities such as DC and Boston have companies that pick up and drop off outside of their downtown terminals. New York was made for just such a service. Brooklyn in particular is home to virtually every subway line - and every trunk line except the 7 - as well as LIRR and East River Ferry service. In short, it would be an attractive place to add supplemental (or competing) intercity service with curbside pickup/drop-off.

Imagine being able to pick up the bus to Boston, DC, or Philadelphia from a curbside stop near Atlantic Terminal. You would have easy access to Brooklyn and Manhattan on the 2, 3, 4, 5, B, C, D, G, N, Q, and R trains, and to Jamaica on the LIRR. It's not a route that would be as popular with "traditional" tourists interested in seeing Midtown, but Brooklyn has grown into a destination in its own right, and such a stop would place most of the borough's 2.6 million people within convenient range of the bus.

30-minute accessibility from Atlantic Terminal.

Just as the outer boroughs deserve better transit options from the MTA and our city government, we also deserve a shot at better intercity options. Adding service from Brooklyn's most transit-oriented areas - a difficult, but not impossible proposition - would give large portions of the borough access to cost effective travel without subjecting them to an unreasonable commute to or from the bus. And in the end, that means more passengers - and more profit - for the operators. Seems like such a good business idea I almost don't want to give it away.