Taking the bus from DC to New York City became unbelievably cheap and therefore popular with college students a few years back, though the trips, leaving from Chinatown, were reportedly noisy and rowdy.

Since then, more adult-friendly competitors for that high-traffic route have sprung up, and there’s even a trip to DC leaving from the Greenbelt Metro Station – woohoo!  So with that kind of convenience and a good parking rate ($4.50 if retrieved on a weekday, free on a weekend), Bolt Bus’s Greenbelt-Baltimore-NY run is the one chosen last summer by my Greenbelt travel buddy and me, with great results: on-time, free wifi and electrical outlets, a decent bathroom on board, and the bus dropped us off in midtown near Grand Central Station.  The price varies by time of the week, but we paid $9 one way and about $22 for the other direction.

(The purpose of my trip, besides a little late-summer adventure, was to see the wildly popular High Line elevated park and the new native plant garden at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.  For good measure I also reported on the Tiny Gardens of Greenwich Village, where we stayed in an airbnb apartment.)

Then my luck changed, thanks largely to the really bad idea I had – that since it’s too costly and complicated to go someplace warm in mid-winter, I’d go the other direction – to New York.  Which I did on January 21, the day of our first big snow.

The short version is that we arrived in New York 4.5 hours late – an hour and a half of it due to slow traffic and three hours because our driver abandoned us!  Not wanting to “get stuck in New York,” she stopped at a Delaware rest stop and we waited there for another driver to take us the rest of the way.  Bolt emailed all of us to apologize for “poor service” and refund us the $15 bus fare, but the driver’s abandonment of us caused me to miss the Broadway show I had a ticket for that night.  I’ve asked for a refund of that ticket, but after weeks of waiting for a response, have given up. (I also asked if it was company policy for drivers to be able to abandon their passengers without consequence – again, no answer.)

Presumably that weather-related, though unforced error on Bolt’s part isn’t likely to be repeated but there’s a new wrinkle to the Bolt service that affects all runs.  Their pick-up and drop-off spot in the city is now at West 33rd and 11th Avenue, in the middle of nowhere.  And by that I mean surrounded by construction fences, not close to a subway station, and frequented by very few taxis.  Being dropped off there in the dark (because of the driver-caused delay), in the middle of a blizzard no less, was kinda terrifying.

Turns out, the city of New York is now requiring Bolt and its primary competitors to use that horrible drop-off and pick-up spot, barely inside the city, in order presumably to keep the buses off city streets.  What’s up with that, New York?  You don’t want visitors?  Or at least of the budget variety?

So I’ll be adding my complaints to Bolt’s mixed reviews on Yelp, I guess.  And looking for an alternative – especially to find a better start and stop location in New York.  Some of my fellow travelers said good things about Greyhound, which actually owns Bolt but offers a traditional terminal – indoors – and their prices are competitive, so I checked it out.

Greyhound indeed has competitive pricing these days, actually cheaper than most bus companies at about $13 weekdays and $25 weekends.  But boy, the reviews on Yelp are sure discouraging.  Lots more delays, less reliable in their service of wifi, and dirty bathrooms seem to be the rule.  Though not as close as the Greenbelt Metro, their New Carrollton to New York run is actually faster because it’s nonstop (without the Greenbelt-NY stop in downtown Baltimore). Greyhound’s terminal in NYC is well-positioned in midtown, at the Port Authority.

Parking at New Carrollton seems to cost $8.25 if you retrieve the car on a weekday, free on weekends.  There’s info on that link about reserving a spot, so I wonder if it fills up on weekdays.  Anyone know?

Megabus, reviewed here on Yelp,  has a downtown DC pick-up/drop-off location only.

DC2NY starts from downtown DC but has a much better NY drop-off and pick-up location, near Grand Central.  Yelp reviews are here.

Vamoose leaves from downtown DC as well as Bethesda, though long-term parking in Bethesda is a problem.  The Bethesda-NY run is reviewed here.

Great Cheap Hotel Found!

The good news from my troubled winter outing in New York is that the new pod-style hotel in midtown, which cost me just $105/nite for a private room with a private bath, was terrific.  (Weekend rates are approximately double.)  The two NY pod hotels follow Europe’s lead in offering tiny rooms at good prices, yet don’t go as far as the “capsule” hotels in Japan, where rooms resemble coffins.  I stayed in Pod39 on East 39th Street, an easy walk to the theater district and very close to Grand Central Station.  And yes, the neighborhood is safe – Murray Hill.