Traveling with no car in America

[Ivo Skoric]

Traveling without a car in the US

A lot has been said about the U.S. as the SUV nation. And it is true that 
there are more cars than people in America. But there is a reason for that. 
Public transportation sucks. It is at the level of Eastern Europe if not 
worse: slow, inefficient, unreliable, discomforting, intrusive, and sporadic.

Take for example traveling between New York city and Rutland, VT. It 
takes about 4.5 hours for average driver to complete that trip under 
average traffic congestion and weather circumstances. On a good day I 
can make it in under 3.5 hours, but I would discourage others of trying to 
beat that, unless they are as avid State Trooper spotters as I am.

The alternative to the environmentally unfriendly, economically 
disastrous, detrimental for world peace, single person car travel, is to 
take a train or a bus. Amtrak runs a daily service between New York and 
Rutland (Ethan Allen Express). According to Amtrak schedule it takes 
between 5 hours and 10 minutes and 5 hours and 45 minutes to make that 
trip.

Realistically, however, it always takes at least 20 minutes, and sometimes, 
during rain, or snow, even longer. Western European customer is used to 
train travel being faster and more reliable in varying weather conditions 
than the road travel. Not so in the U.S. with out-dated railroads and with 
cargo rail supremacy over the passenger rail travel.

Building a high speed rail system would do more for American economy 
and security than building another aircraft carrier, but I am not sure 
whether this US Administration would be open to such radical socialist 
thinking.

Also, the train is usually late at departure. Not exactly counting on it, but 
at least secretly hoping for that to happen, I was late for it this past 
Sunday. Of course, as it goes, the train was not late at departure that 
day, and I missed it.

Unfazed in my intention to make it to Rutland, so I can hit the slopes on 
the next day (supposedly a powder day, but it wasn’t really, just a couple 
of inches over hard, hard-pack), I went from Penn Station to Port 
Authority, to get a bus.

Greyhound and Vermont Transit together run several buses daily that 
connect New York city and Rutland. The one trip fare is $56 (compared to 
Amtrak’s $61), if purchased in New York (it is $35 if purchased in 
Rutland, an advice for bargain hunters). The Vermont based bus fare is 
the only one to compare favorably to about slightly less than $30 I spend 
on gas and tolls when traveling by car, if I don’t get a speeding ticket (in 
which case car travel is probably more expensive that flying by airplane).

I purchased the ticket and went for the gate. If the schedule was to be 
believed, the bus would leave in about 20 minutes. Inspired by the 
nation-wide paranoia, Greyhound introduced a low-tech carry-on 
luggage checkpoint on all its lines: two persons with an $80 hand held 
metal detector, one frisks you, another goes through your carry-on 
luggage to weed out any objectable items.
To make their search easier, I volunteered to remove all the items that 
could possibly be used as weapons, from my carry-on luggage to the 
bag that’s going to go below in the bus underbelly. However, the 
amicable young lady with pierced tongue, and her companion, decided 
that one item needs to be seized, without reimbursement.

My protestations, that the seizure was unnecessary on grounds that I 
cannot use the item that is locked underneath in the bus luggage 
compartment, were met by the judicial explanation of how I could during 
the stop in Albany, hypothetically ask the driver to get something from 
my suitcase, and, bingo, turn to a cold blooded terrorist.

The item in question was a generic box-cutter knife, about $2 in value, so 
I did not make a big stink about losing it. Also, they were right about the 
possibility for passengers to access their unchecked bags (the ones that 
are going to the luggage compartment). And there was no need to wait 
until Albany for that. I had plenty of time and privacy to exchange the 
entire contents between my backpack and my suitcase if I wanted.

In theory, if I had a 9mm in my suitcase - I could have volunteered the 
box cutter from my backpack, which was checked, and then, before 
boarding, take my 9mm from my suitcase, and put it in my backpack, 
prepared to do some mayhem later. In hindsight, as this story would 
develop, I do have some regrets of not having being better armed.

Ok, as the sloppy attempts on totalitarian state passed, the time of bus 
departure (3:30 pm) came and went by, without bus materializing at the 
gate. By 3:40 nervousness moved in the queue of prospective 
passengers. The security checkers were still around, being the only 
functioning detail of the corporation, which gave the whole event a 
certain Eastern European aura, and people started asking them what’s 
going on.

The bus driver was late, they said. Nothing can be done. Just wait. 
Eventually, he shall come. And he did. At 3:50. If he was not black, with 
his fur hat, with some sort of emblem in the middle, I would really think I 
was in Russia. Particularly, when he came back in, after inspecting the 
bus, to tell us that the bus is broken.

Whether they repaired it, or gave us a new bus, we finally boarded by 4 
pm. Before he closed the doors, the driver lifted a blue duffle-bag from 
the front seat, and asked the passengers: “whose bag is this?” There 
was no answer. Apparently, nobody knew how with all that security an 
entire bag, that nobody could claim, ended up on the front seat of the 
bus. Eventually, the driver just tossed it out, and let security people deal 
with it. We were, finally, on our way.

The travel to Albany was largely uneventful, and after the mandatory 20 
minutes stay in Albany we were again on our way. Not for long. We got 
another driver. He looked like a do-gooder pain in the ass from the 
beginning. Dozen miles in our voyage and he made a turn to Albany 
International Airport, stopped at the well lit Greyhound stop sign, went 
out, found something wrong with the bus, came back in and told us that 
he was returning the bus BACK to Albany, because he decided it was 
unsafe for driving.

In Albany, he reassured us, we would be transferred to another bus. 
Where is that 9mm when one needs it? True, when we came back to 
Albany, we did get another bus. But the time lost already, plus the time 
we were about to loose driving slow through the snow storm, which 
made roads slippery and decreased visibility, made us one hour and forty 
minutes later than scheduled on our arrival to Rutland.

I took me nearly eight (8) hours to complete the meager 251.3 miles trip 
using public transportation. This is, at 31 miles per hour, about as fast as 
one could go with the horse and carriage in 18th century. I could have 
been there and back, if I drove. Maybe, the reasons for America’s 
insatiable thirst for oil, and for its willingness to turn to violence to 
satisfy that thirst (kind of like a crack addict), should be sought in the 
tragic state of public transportation in the U.S.

Ivo