October 1, 200816 yr One stop between Cincinnati and Chicago is too many? Heck, it only stops for about 10 minutes max. Perhaps you're referring to Greyhound, but I've never seen an issue with cleanliness or safety of the stops. Perhaps the last point holds something, but I'd say they're comparable with the space you have on an airflight. I will say that the amount of leg and overall room you get on an Amtrak train wins hands down. I've never been on Greyhound or Megabus. I travel so much I'm just impatient, want to get from point "a" to point "b" in the least amount of time. In regard to the space, Amtrak economy seats look pretty spacious although I only ride on the Metroliner and Acela trains and the seats are different and have upgraded classes. There's no reason to drive or fly to Chicago for the prices you pay for Megabus. Umm yes there is. TIME! Time is money! Let me try it in a way that Mayday won't consider ignorant. Many on OU who promote public transportation do not feel that time is money. It appears their time is not important to them as they will wait extremely long times to catch trains and buses to get to their destination. I have to agree. I think if we look at the age of the UOians that say they don't mind the bus, the majority will be of the younger set. Folks, with all due respect, that have limited funds and are most likely leisure travelers so the "time" aspect isn't a priority. I think this came up for discussion in the SkyBus thread. Where folks commented that they didn't mind going to a secondary airport and transferring to a second mode of transportation to get to their FINAL destination.
October 1, 200816 yr There's no reason to drive or fly to Chicago for the prices you pay for Megabus. Umm yes there is. TIME! Time is money! Let me try it in a way that Mayday won't consider ignorant. Many on OU who promote public transportation do not feel that time is money. It appears their time is not important to them as they will wait extremely long times to catch trains and buses to get to their destination. its the C-dawg influence!!! Seriously tho, I don't appreciate the ignorant comment. I still don't know how you came to that conclusion, and it appears that you may be bitter about something else. Really not bitter about public transportation. It is just an opinion I have after reading many comments on many threads on UO. Just appears to me that their time doesn't mean that much to them if they will wait that long for buses, trains, or connections. I'm not judging them. Just an observation. Ahh, yes, the old Republican tactic...make a thinly veiled dig at someone or something, and when they call you out on it, act like you didn't mean it. (Hint: Your signature kind of gives you away.) I know what you're referring to (in another thread where you made a similarly ingorant and arrogant comment and MayDay called you a smug prick). Anyways, on to answering your question... In cities with good public transportation system (like Washington DC or New York City, or most European cities) public transportation is not only cheaper to use, it is also time saving. Getting around NYC by subway is much faster than by car. If more people rode public transportation in cities where public transportation is not faster, then you would see the systems improve, lead times shorten, and the time savings of driven lessened, eliminated, or even reversed.
October 1, 200816 yr Ahh, yes, the old Republican tactic...make a thinly veiled dig at someone or something, and when they call you out on it, act like you didn't mean it. (Hint: Your signature kind of gives you away.) I know what you're referring to (in another thread where you made a similarly ingorant and arrogant comment and MayDay called you a smug prick). Anyways, on to answering your question... In cities with good public transportation system (like Washington DC or New York City, or most European cities) public transportation is not only cheaper to use, it is also time saving. Getting around NYC by subway is much faster than by car. If more people rode public transportation in cities where public transportation is not faster, then you would see the systems improve, lead times shorten, and the time savings of driven lessened, eliminated, or even reversed. Yeah, they teach us that in conservative training school! My signature is a joke, I'm happy people take public transportation!!! I never asked a question, so why would you feel you need to answer one?
October 1, 200816 yr I have to agree. I think if we look at the age of the UOians that say they don't mind the bus, the majority will be of the younger set. Folks, with all due respect, that have limited funds and are most likely leisure travelers so the "time" aspect isn't a priority. I think this came up for discussion in the SkyBus thread. Where folks commented that they didn't mind going to a secondary airport and transferring to a second mode of transportation to get to their destination. Okay, now I see what you mean. Yes, limited funds do play a role in such a decision. However, even when someone else has paid the cost (gifts and such), I've insisted upon going the cheaper route. It's more about paying for luxuries when you can obviously do without paying hundreds of dollars for a slightly better experience (sometimes not that much better at all).
October 1, 200816 yr Ahh, yes, the old Republican tactic...make a thinly veiled dig at someone or something, and when they call you out on it, act like you didn't mean it. (Hint: Your signature kind of gives you away.) I know what you're referring to (in another thread where you made a similarly ingorant and arrogant comment and MayDay called you a smug prick). Anyways, on to answering your question... In cities with good public transportation system (like Washington DC or New York City, or most European cities) public transportation is not only cheaper to use, it is also time saving. Getting around NYC by subway is much faster than by car. If more people rode public transportation in cities where public transportation is not faster, then you would see the systems improve, lead times shorten, and the time savings of driven lessened, eliminated, or even reversed. Yeah, they teach us that in conservative training school! My signature is a joke, I'm happy people take public transportation!!! I never asked a question, so why would you feel you need to answer one? Sorry, I meant to say "to address your ignorant statement..." Also, straw man arguments don't work around here. I never said anything about whether or not you were happy OTHER people take public transportation. I was talking about your implication that those who do have extra time to spare. You should work on your reasoning abilities and give the Shift-1 combination a rest. Back to Megabus... Why is there no Cleveland/Columbus connection to complete the 3-C route? It seems like a logical route for them to have with no competition from a train, and with obvious demand (at least according to ODOT).
October 1, 200816 yr its the C-dawg influence!!! Seriously tho, I don't appreciate the ignorant comment. I still don't know how you came to that conclusion, and it appears that you may be bitter about something else. Really not bitter about public transportation. It is just an opinion I have after reading many comments on many threads on UO. Just appears to me that their time doesn't mean that much to them if they will wait that long for buses, trains, or connections. I'm not judging them. Just an observation. Cars involve a lot of waiting too... waiting to get it fixed, waiting on parts, waiting at the gas station, waiting in traffic, waiting on someone to drive you around if you can't drive...
October 1, 200816 yr Why is there no Cleveland/Columbus connection to complete the 3-C route? It seems like a logical route for them to have with no competition from a train, and with obvious demand (at least according to ODOT). I emailed Megabus over the summer about this route... never got a response. I would assume they wouldn't want to go away from their business plan (everything terminates in Chicago).
October 2, 200816 yr Why is there no Cleveland/Columbus connection to complete the 3-C route? It seems like a logical route for them to have with no competition from a train, and with obvious demand (at least according to ODOT). I emailed Megabus over the summer about this route... never got a response. I would assume they wouldn't want to go away from their business plan (everything terminates in Chicago). I don't see it happening anytime soon. Unless they created another hub (which I also don't see happening soon), don't hold your breath. The other hub would have to be Cincinnati or something, and would have to facilitate additional service to cities like Nashville. They already eliminated Pittsburgh and Louisville though, so... Nah.
October 3, 200816 yr Another good reason to take mass transportation! http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081002/tb_scare_081002/20081002?hub=Canada&s_name= Officials fear Greyhound passengers exposed to TB Updated Thu. Oct. 2 2008 6:30 PM ET ctvtoronto.ca Ontario health officials are searching for 27 people who may have been exposed to tuberculosis while travelling on a Greyhound bus from Toronto to Windsor on Aug. 31.
October 3, 200816 yr At least as far back as the sixties, most of the intercity bus service outside the major metro areas depended heavily on revenue from package express to prop up routes that wouldn't have been profitable based on passenger revenues alone. In midwestern towns like the one near where I grew up, services like UPS and FedEx were unknown but it wasn't a problem. If a business needed a rush shipment of a part but didn't need it badly enough to pay air freight, they could get it pretty quickly via Greyhound or Trailways. Dad used it often; shipments from any major midwestern city could reach our small town generally within 24 hours, and often overnight. In cities where local courier services existed, the bus lines often contracted with them to make local pickups and deliveries. The service was fast enough, reliable, and economical. The package express companies managed to steal that business with anti-competitive prices by getting state and local governments to subsidize the cost of hubs and transfer facilities at municipal airports, enabling them to take advantage of already heavily subsidized commercial aviation. Without the revenue from express business, intercity bus lines went into contraction mode. The quality and frequency of service fell off rapidly and many smaller cities and towns lost service altogether. The sorry state of intercity bus service is an example of the effect of flawed public policy on our national transportation system, and it needs to be addressed. Even if we achieve a reasonable level of intercity passenger rail service, a lot of people in smaller cities and towns not on rail routes still will be stranded.
October 4, 200816 yr Greyhound also used to carry U.S. Mail on some of its runs in the Akron area, such as to Tallmadge, Kent and Ravenna. I suspect they also carried the mail in many other places in the U.S., too. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
October 6, 200816 yr Greyhound also used to carry U.S. Mail on some of its runs in the Akron area, such as to Tallmadge, Kent and Ravenna. I suspect they also carried the mail in many other places in the U.S., too. What's the Package Express thing at the Cincinnati Greyhound station? Same thing?
October 6, 200816 yr Greyhound also used to carry U.S. Mail on some of its runs in the Akron area, such as to Tallmadge, Kent and Ravenna. I suspect they also carried the mail in many other places in the U.S., too. Sort of a side note - As RPO (Railway Post Office) service dwindled with the cancellation of passenger trains, the USPS created HPOs (Highway Post Offices) using buses. They were set up with sorting bins similar to those in the RPOs, and a storage area for mail sacks in the rear. Clerks sorted mail en route on round-trip runs that generally ran a maximum of 150 miles in each direction. The first HPOs went into service during World War II, and the practice continued until the USPS reorganized with regional and sectional offices with high-speed sorting machines in the 1960s. One of the last HPO buses was saved by a USPS employee and is now in the collection of the National Postal Museum. It was on loan to the Crawford Collection at the Western Reserve Historical Museum. I don't know if it's still there. The last run of an HPO was on the Cleveland-Cincinnati route. Around then end of the 1950s when my cousin and I were finally exempt from the local curfew law and haunting the streets of Bluffton, Indiana long after respectable young men should have been home in bed, we used to see the HPO come through in the wee hours and stop at the local post office. That one was the first articulated bus I had seen, and it was too long to make the turn onto the side street or fit the PO's parking lot, so it would pull through the driveway of the Texaco station across the street, which was closed at that hour. Too bad I wasn't taking many photos in those years; I already had a beer bottle in one hand, and it took two hands to work the camera I had then. Oh. Where I was going with this was that I read somewhere that in Switzerland the postal service uses buses to transport the mail to all the small towns and villages, and the buses carry public passengers as well as mail. There's at least daily service to virtually every village with a post office.
October 7, 200816 yr Oh. Where I was going with this was that I read somewhere that in Switzerland the postal service uses buses to transport the mail to all the small towns and villages, and the buses carry public passengers as well as mail. There's at least daily service to virtually every village with a post office. In some rural parts of Ireland and Scotland the postal service takes passengers. Its cheaper than having separate vehicles for mail and busses. My mom's parents still live in Ireland and haven't owned a car since before WWII because they can always catch a ride to and from town for the equivelant of about 50 cents.
November 10, 200915 yr The erosion continues. All Aboard Ohio's Sandusky Coordinator reports that Greyhound has ceased all bus service to that city. If so, one of Ohio's largest tourism destinations has now lost all intercity bus service, leaving only middle-of-the-night Amtrak train service to Sandusky. At this rate, hitchhiking may be the only way that 2 1/2 million Ohioans without cars will get around much of the state... "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
November 10, 200915 yr The erosion continues. All Aboard Ohio's Sandusky Coordinator reports that Greyhound has ceased all bus service to that city. If so, one of Ohio's largest tourism destinations has now lost all intercity bus service, leaving only middle-of-the-night Amtrak train service to Sandusky. At this rate, hitchhiking may be the only way that 2 1/2 million Ohioans without cars will get around much of the state... Before I cooment, I guess I would actually have to see the numbers on ridership to Sandusky over the past several years. If hey were loosing money on the trip, then I guess I understand. All in all however, that stinks. Also, that's amazing. I did not know that 25% of Ohians did not have cars. Holy Cow!
November 10, 200915 yr It's a downward spiral. You pull out of cities that are unprofitable, or eliminate stops on a certain route to increase trip planning and efficiency. But you lose a certain percentage of riders as a result, which lowers overall profits. So you pull out of cities...
November 10, 200915 yr Before I cooment, I guess I would actually have to see the numbers on ridership to Sandusky over the past several years. If hey were loosing money on the trip, then I guess I understand. All in all however, that stinks. Also, that's amazing. I did not know that 25% of Ohians did not have cars. Holy Cow! My bad... The 2 1/2 million Ohioans include the households without PLUS elderly citizens who may have cars but use them sparingly or not at all due to physical limitations. Sandusky's situation is probably made worse by the fact that the town center is so far north of the Ohio Turnpike that it wasn't cost- and time-effective for the bus to deviate that much to serve a small number of passengers. Another reason why rail lines traveling through the hearts of town can and usually do offer a distance, speed and cost advantage over buses that have to travel so far from the main highways sometimes to serve stations that are near where the most people live. Or, at least that certainly is true of where the most transit-dependent people live. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
November 10, 200915 yr There was a time...waaaaayy back in the day....when special trains trains were run to Sandusky for people wanting to go to Cedar Point. This also can't be good for Cedar Point's bottom line, as they are already hurting because of driving being on the declien due to gasoline costs.
November 10, 200915 yr I am sick to death of cars being the predominant and sometimes only transportation choice in this supposed 'land of many choices' The auto habit is a plague. And, I could not help but skim to the top of the thread a few years back... Correct me if I am wrong.. But I was not aware that Greyhound closed its station in downtown Cleveland? Could someone please clear this up.
November 10, 200915 yr It is, unfortunately. When you are talking about a private corporation, whose sole job is to provide financial stability and solvency while meeting the transportation demands of the general population, then some cuts have to be made along the way. Unfortunately, Greyhound has not had a viable business model for years, and its reputation has lacked for years as rivals have come in to undercut their business, offering better service, upgraded amenities and cheaper costs.
November 10, 200915 yr Yes, rivals like Megabus, the various Chinatown buses that connect NYC to most major cities along the East Coast and in the Midwest, and a slew of private carriers that also hit the major cities.
November 10, 200915 yr So the rest of those who aren't going to, or living in NY/major cities are basically screwed?
November 10, 200915 yr Sandusky's Greyhound station wasn't even in town. It was way the hell out US 250 south of Rt. 2 next to a corn field. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=sandusky+greyhound&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=43.983628,106.962891&ie=UTF8&hq=greyhound&hnear=Sandusky,+OH&ll=41.391298,-82.650018&spn=0,359.973886&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=41.39131,-82.649583&panoid=ApTAvNUSLf3tieKPOgFsmw&cbp=12,225.59,,0,-0.62 The SPARC bus (public transit) doesn't go that far south, so you'd have to hike up to Walmart on the other side of Rt. 2 to even catch a bus, and that doesn't even serve Cedar Point. http://www.ci.sandusky.oh.us/documents/SPARCflyer.pdf So really, it wasn't even a reasonable transit option for Sandusky's biggest draw without a cab fare.
November 11, 200915 yr Thanks for the clarification. Perhaps the remoteness of the station hurt it, too. Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you put the station too far out near the Turnpike, the people who need the bus the most can't reach it. If you put it in the geographic core of Sandusky, it's too far from the Turnpike to serve it in a time- and cost-effective manner. Correct me if I am wrong.. But I was not aware that Greyhound closed its station in downtown Cleveland? Could someone please clear this up. The downtown Cleveland station has been open since the day it was built in 1948. It was refurbished about a decade ago, but never closed. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
November 13, 200915 yr So the rest of those who aren't going to, or living in NY/major cities are basically screwed? You asked about rivals, you got an answer. Said rivals are competing with Greyhound for the more lucrative inter-city routes.
October 30, 201014 yr I sure wish this Ohio Rural Intercity Bus Program was started 3-4 years ago. It's a great response to the withdrawal of Greyhound from so many smaller cities where service was popular, needed but not profitable. It's also a great way to feed traffic into rail services over heavily traveled routes like 3C.... Athens getting cheaper bus service to cities Saturday, October 30, 2010 02:55 AM By Wesley Lowery THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Traveling between Athens and Columbus is about to get a whole lot cheaper. The city of Athens is rolling out two Go Bus lines Monday that will take riders to Columbus or Cincinnati for $10 as part of the Ohio Rural Intercity Bus Program. Three buses, deluxe motor coaches with electrical outlets at every seat and wireless Internet, were purchased with a grant from the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Federal Transit Administration. READ MORE AT: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/10/30/athens-getting-cheaper-bus-service-to-cities.html?sid=101 "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
January 30, 201114 yr Greyhound to open new Sandusky location Tom Jackson, Sandusky Register, 21 Jan 2010 http://www.sanduskyregister.com/sandusky/2011/jan/21/greyhound-open-new-sandusky-location SANDUSKY - Life is about to get better for people riding the bus to or from Sandusky. Greyhound announced Friday that it has a new location for Sandusky, which has been without a bus station since the last one closed in November. The new bus station is the Friendship Food Store, 3515 Tiffin Ave. Greyhound will begin service at the new location on Tuesday. The phone number is 419-609-9378. ------------------------------------------ The new location is near the Route 2 exit to Route 101 (Tiffin Avenue) in southwest Sandusky; close to the Quarry Lakes Industrial Park and Visteon (formerly Ford) factory.
January 30, 201114 yr That's terrific. Sandusky's only public transportation link to the outside world was a couple of middle-of-the-night Amtrak trains. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
March 29, 201114 yr Fares as low as $1 available starting May 11. Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit are stops By Jim Mackinnon Beacon Journal business writer Published on Tuesday, Mar 29, 2011 Megabus, which offers city-to-city bus fares as low as $1, is coming to Akron. The company will announce today that it is expanding its Pittsburgh hub and adding trips to nine new cities, including Akron. Express coach bus service to and from Akron is scheduled to start May 11 at the Akron Metro Transit center at 631 Broadway. The Akron service will start with four trips daily to and from Pittsburgh and four trips daily to and from Cleveland, said Dale Moser, president of Megabus and its parent company, Coach USA. The service will also enable people in Akron to take Megabus buses to and from Detroit and Toledo. ''They're all pretty good times,'' Moser said. For instance, the first Pittsburgh to Akron trip starts at 6:40 a.m. and arrives in Akron at 8:40, then gets to Cleveland at 9:25 a.m., he said. Other daily rides from Akron to Cleveland are scheduled for 11:10 a.m., 1:40 p.m. and 4:10 p.m. Read more at: http://www.ohio.com/news/top_stories/118824604.html
March 29, 201114 yr The one chance we have at inter-city transit is MegaBus. It's been an extremely popular service between Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Chicago, so much that there is a competing service that will start (or has it already?) offering a bus line along the same tactics as MegaBus. And now Greyhound offers Greyhound Express, which offers nice amenities such as Wi-Fi and more legroom, for as low as $1 - in the midwest. A similar setup, Neon, is for New York-Canada. They are rolling out a premium bus line as well, which I can't remember the name of, that offers an even plusher bus.
March 29, 201114 yr Dammit! You beat me to it, Noozer! Glad to see more mobility options in Ohio -- for a change. EDIT: Wow! They're offering five daily round trips between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, all of which stop in Akron. But none of the trips stop in Youngstown. The service starts May 11, and most of the trips are still priced at $1. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
March 29, 201114 yr Yet they still bypass Dayton when going from Indianapolis to Columbus. Dayton to Columbus is a heavily traveled route but alas. "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
March 29, 201114 yr Dammit! You beat me to it, Noozer! Glad to see more mobility options in Ohio -- for a change. EDIT: Wow! They're offering five daily round trips between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, all of which stop in Akron. But none of the trips stop in Youngstown. The service starts May 11, and most of the trips are still priced at $1. I saw that, and was rather peeved about it. Yet they still bypass Dayton when going from Indianapolis to Columbus. Dayton to Columbus is a heavily traveled route but alas. This makes me feel a little better; misery loves company. :)
March 29, 201114 yr Megabus.com adds Columbus-to-Pittsburgh service Tuesday, March 29, 2011 10:13 AM By Marla Matzer Rose The Columbus Dispatch Megabus.com said this morning it is adding Pittsburgh to its route map from Columbus. The company, which offers tickets for as little as $1 each way when booked in advance, already goes to Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Chicago from Columbus. Two daily departures will be added to Pittsburgh on May 11 as part of Megabus' naming of Pittsburgh today as a new hub. Cleveland and Toledo are also gaining service to Pittsburgh. Read more at: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/business/stories/2011/03/29/megabus-expansion-pittsburgh-ohio.html?sid=101
March 29, 201114 yr UPDATED & CORRECTED http://allaboardohio.org/2011/03/29/ohio-bus-services-to-expand/ Ohio bus services to expand May 11; Biggest growth in Ohio in decades! March 29, 2011 All Aboard Ohio welcomed an announcement today that the low-fare express bus service Megabus will dramatically increase routes and departures in Ohio. Megabus is famous for its limited $1 fares, available on a first-come basis. Since its expansion to the U.S. in the 2000s, UK-based Stagecoach Group’s Megabus has offered two disconnected service areas: a Midwest network based in Chicago and an eastern network based along the East Coast. Megabus’ expansion, to start May 11, will link these two regional networks through a new Pittsburgh hub, and via Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Detroit or Toledo. All Aboard Ohio, a nonprofit citizens-based association that promotes better public transportation services statewide, suggested additional refinements to further improve services including additional routes, stops and making it possible to book through travel on more than one bus with the same reservation. Routes in and near Ohio to start May 11 out of a new Pittsburgh hub include: + Cleveland-Pittsburgh: Six daily round trips, all with enroute stops in Akron only; + Cincinnati-Pittsburgh: Two daily round trips with morning and afternoon departures in both directions, with enroute stops in Columbus only;; + Detroit-Pittsburgh: Four daily round trips, all with enroute stops in Toledo only; + Toronto-Pittsburgh: Three daily round trips with enroute stops at Erie and Buffalo. Expanded services, starting May 11, includes: The new Cincinnati route expands services on the existing Columbus-Cincinnati leg which now has only one bus in each direction in the middle of the night on Thursdays-Sundays. This service operates through Cincinnati to/from Indianapolis and Chicago. So, after May 11 on Thursdays-Sundays, there will be three buses in each direction and two daily buses in each direction on all other days. There will be no stops between Columbus and Cincinnati. No changes were made to other existing Ohio Megabus routes: Columbus (via Cincinnati and/or Indianapolis) to Chicago Cincinnati-Indianapolis-Chicago Cleveland-Toledo-Chicago “Over five decades before 2006, Ohio lost most of its rail and bus services due to governmental policy changes and mismanagement by the carriers,” said All Aboard Ohio Executive Director Ken Prendergast. “Ohio is facing a growing mobility crisis with the first Baby Boomers turning 65 years old this year, young people moving to places where they aren't forced to drive everywhere, and all people facing inexorably rising gas prices with the passing of global peak oil production five years ago. This huge expansion comes at the right time.” The year 2006 was the first year Megabus came to Ohio and reversed a decades-long decline in intercity public transportation routes and departures. It is impossible to reach many cities in Ohio today without a car: 1979 OHIO PUBLIC TRANSPORT MAP http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb90/Peepersk/Transit/ohiopublictransitmap1979s.jpg 2009 OHIO PUBLIC TRANSPORT MAP http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb90/Peepersk/Transit/ohiopublictransitmap2009s.jpg “This latest and much more dramatic expansion shows that Megabus recognizes Ohioans’ need for more transportation choices than just what kind of car to buy,” Prendergast said. “More improvements are needed.” Suggested improvements: Megabus’ Web site, which is the only way tickets can be purchased, has not adapted to its new service offerings. The Web site is designed only for booking one-seat rides as if it still operated its separate hub-and-spoke networks in the Midwest and East Coast. Traveling between the two networks, or in the areas in between them — namely Ohio — is difficult. To new customers, the Web site erroneously makes it appear impossible to take some trips that require more than one bus, such as between Akron and Chicago, or from Cleveland to Washington DC, or from Detroit to Cleveland. Such two-bus trips require a potential customer to take extra time to explore the Web site to see if connecting services exist, and then must buy tickets by making two separate purchases. “We’d like to give these new Ohio routes the best chances to succeed, but we’re concerned that Megabus’ Web site program prevents its potential Ohio customers from discovering they can travel to many places beyond the end of individual bus routes,” Prendergast added. “In some cases, you can’t even book short trips, such as between Akron and Cleveland, to connect with another Megabus to Toledo, Chicago and points beyond.” Additional changes suggested by All Aboard Ohio would address other gaps in the Megabus network, such as between Columbus, Mansfield and Cleveland, and between Cleveland, Erie and Buffalo. All Aboard Ohio also urged Megabus to add stops in Dayton on the Columbus-Indianapolis route and in Youngstown on the new Cleveland-Akron-Pittsburgh route. The Dayton stop would serve a metro area of 1 million people plus the University of Dayton, Wright State University and other colleges. The Youngstown stop would serve a metro area of 700,000 people plus Youngstown State University. Intermodal linkages: Megabus, unlike Greyhound, has no stations of its own. It often departs from street corners in downtowns, or at some suburban locations. Its latest expansion, for example, includes stopping at Akron’s Intermodal Transit Center, 631 South Broadway, where Megabus customers can connect with weekday Portage Area Regional Transportation Authority Akron Express bus services departing about every other hour to/from Kent State University, or with weekday Stark Area Regional Transit Authority Route 81 buses departing hourly to/from Canton, or with Akron Metro RTA buses to Greater Akron and downtown Cleveland. Megabus stops in and near Ohio include: Akron Intermodal Transit Center, 631 South Broadway Chicago Union Station, South Canal St south of Jackson Blvd. Cincinnati West 4th at Race St Cleveland Tower City Center, Huron at West 3rd Columbus NW corner of Nationwide and High; and at Ohio State University Detroit Rosa Parks Transit Center, Cass and Michigan Erie Presque Isle Downs and Casino Pittsburgh 10th St and Penn Ave Toledo Southwyck Shopping Center All Aboard Ohio, founded in 1973, is a statewide nonprofit association of citizens promoting improved and expanded transportation choices in and through Ohio. Please join us today and let your voice for transportation choice be heard! END "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
March 30, 201114 yr Someone just e-mailed this link to me. An amazing resource! http://www.chinatown-bus.org/ I did not know they express buses from Cincinnati and Dayton to New York City, plus one from Youngstown to New York City! "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
March 30, 201114 yr Deadly bus crashes spur safety recommendations Written by By Associated Press Wednesday, 30 March 2011 08:16 WASHINGTON (AP) — Deadly bus crashes over the past decade have claimed dozens of lives, including college baseball players in Atlanta, Vietnamese Catholics in Texas, skiers in Utah and, this month, gamblers returning to New York’s Chinatown. The New York accident, which killed 15 passengers and critically injured several others, as well as recent bus accidents in New Hampshire and New Jersey have rekindled interest in bipartisan legislation that would require regulators to act on longstanding bus safety recommendations. A Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee was holding a hearing on the bill Wednesday. Senators were expected to press Transportation Department officials to explain their slow progress implementing bus safety recommendations by the National Transportation Safety Board, some of which have lingered for more than a decade. Read more at: http://www.sent-trib.com/ap-news/deadly-bus-crashes-spur-safety-recommendations
June 5, 201114 yr Offers six daily round trips, and you can still get some really good deals on fares a few days before you travel..... New Cleveland-Pittsburgh Megabus route buys us 8 hours in town Published: Saturday, June 04, 2011, 11:00 AM By Susan Glaser, The Plain Dealer Take your pick in downtown Pittsburgh. You can: • spend a few hours strolling through the Strip District, the city's former industrial center now filled with markets, restaurants and shops. • study the work of pop icon and Pittsburgh native Andy Warhol, whose museum here is the largest in the world devoted to a single artist. • admire the view from above by taking an incline to the top of Mount Washington for a stunning look at the city skyline. All that, and you don't have to pay for parking. A new route on the super-cheap express-bus service Megabus.com makes a trip to the Steel City as cheap as a cup of coffee. Go for an afternoon or an overnight, a business meeting or a girls getaway. READ MORE AT: http://www.cleveland.com/travel/index.ssf/2011/06/new_cleveland-pittsburgh_megab.html "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
August 22, 201113 yr Megabus between Cleveland and Pittsburgh was scaled back to four daily round trips, and one of the buses doesn't serve Akron. "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
August 22, 201113 yr by request... forget it, jake. it's chinatown! :laugh: ^ seriously, its great to see ne ohio is definately on the map with the chinese, thats gotta be a good thing!!!
August 22, 201113 yr ^Shouldn't the Chinese be able to spell Canton? How do we know the manufacturer is Chinese? ;) Hell the person that wrote the order or gave the information could have spelled it wrong and it was manufactured with the error.
August 22, 201113 yr by request... forget it, jake. it's chinatown! :laugh: ^ seriously, its great to see ne ohio is definately on the map with the chinese, thats gotta be a good thing!!! I checked this out a while ago. It gets into Cleveland at something like 4:00 am. Not that there's anything wrong with that! http://www.mainstreetpainesville.org/
August 22, 201113 yr yeh right they might have been fake puerto rican dominicans -- you never know! :laugh:
August 22, 201113 yr by request... forget it, jake. it's chinatown! :laugh: ^ seriously, its great to see ne ohio is definately on the map with the chinese, thats gotta be a good thing!!! I checked this out a while ago. It gets into Cleveland at something like 4:00 am. Not that there's anything wrong with that! so like amtrak -- except a bajillion times more dangerous!!
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