Is catching a Trailways bus in NYC at the Port Authority nicer than it is at home?

In My Humble Opinion
1

That’s kind of a weird question, I know, and makes me look like an insufferable snob. See, I want to go on one of the weekend retreats they have at the Zen Mountain Monastery, which is at Mount Tremper, NY. I don’t live in New York - I live in South Carolina. On their website, they suggest you fly in to a NYC airport, somehow get to Port Authority, and catch an Adirondack Trailways bus.

<record scratch> Wait, what? Catch a bus? Like, with vomit and drunk people and the great unwashed? Are you guys playing a trick on my Buddha nature? Trying to teach me a lesson before I even get there?

The alternative, of course, is renting a car (expensive) in New York City, driving in and out of New York City (eek!), taking it up to the Catskills (I may end up doing this sometime in the winter and have no winter driving experience) and not using it at all during the retreat, after which I do the thing in reverse. So, you know, that isn’t optimal.

But a bus? God, I’d never ride a bus, at least not down here!

So I was thinking, hey, maybe buses are different up North. I know trains are - people actually ride trains up there, right? On a regular basis? So maybe the buses are decent and middle class people actually ride them, because New Yorkers don’t have cars?

Also, when I think of Port Authority I picture nice Nebraskan girls getting grabbed by pimps and crack dealers as they get off the bus. Is that even safe? Is there an internal soundtrack that sounds a lot like “Welcome to the Jungle” when you walk in? Have I been poisoned by 1970 depictions of New York (which I know is a safe city)?

2

I went into and out of the Port Authoritry Bus Terminal all my life. Most of the time, it’s how I get into and out of NYC.

It’s clean enough (for NYC). They’ve revamped it in recent years, but you still have to deal with the fact that it’s a high-traffic place in a populous city. The shops are interesting and reasonably clean. It’s well-kept, and you won’t be beset by pimps and drug dealers as you step off the bus. The area around it has been cleaned up considerably in recent decades. But I used to go there as a teenager in the 1970s, when it was much sleazier.
I suspect the TRailways terminal may be nicer “at home”, simply because it isn’t so big and heavily used. But if your bus terminal back home hasn’t been kept up or is in a bad part of town that may not be true.

3

HA. (Well, I don’t think we have Trailways.) But if you want to be guaranteed to see a homeless person, the Greyhound bus terminal is the first place I’d send you. It’s even gross to fill up at the service station across the street sometimes, and that’s on the border of one of the big entertainment districts. I certainly wouldn’t want to go to the Greyhound station as a woman alone.

ETA - so, the terminal and the buses themselves - you’d, say, put your teenage daughter on one alone? (How about if she’s 30, but has never ridden a bus before and doesn’t carry a knife?)

4

I don’t find it gross or dangerous at all. It’s not the cesspit of filth and crime that popular media of the 70s would have you believe. And I saw plenty of women travelling alone. They weren’t getting groped and gang-raped nearly as often as you think they might be.

But I find the Port Authority to be a bit overwhelming. It’s way bigger than I’m used to.

5

You’ll be fine.

6

I don’t even really know how it works - I assume they only stop at stops they have ticketed passengers for? So they know I want to go to this really little place? There will, one assumes, be an announcement? How on-time are they? Reliably so? If my plane is late and I miss the bus, will I have to pay a fee? Seriously, this is all completely foreign. I’ve gone to plenty of foreign countries where nobody spoke English that were nowhere near as intimidating to me.

ETA - and nobody’s really answered - are the buses gross?

7

No, the buses aren’t gross. The last 4 times I rode one (to NYC – I take buses to Martha’s Vineyard far more often), they were perfectly clean. There were no bums, there was no vomit, there was no trash. It was actually a quite pleasurable ride except for the last time when it was so full I felt a little squeezed into my seat. Most of the passengers seemed to be slick yuppie types.

They were extremely punctual. Both times when I left the city back for Boston they were overcrowded – so when one bus filled up they pulled up another one. Everyone got to where they were going on time.

I have no idea about unscheduled stops. You’ll have to ask them about that. But the ones I took only stopped at designated places. One of the stops was at a place where people could get up and stretch, walk around, use a public restroom, and get a bite to eat at any of several fast food places.

And the drivers were pretty friendly.

You’ll be fine.

8

Excellent question. I’d put my teenaged self alone there – the bus terminal is cleaner than it was in the 1970s, and the area is a lot more acceptable. The buses were clean then and are now.

But I know we’re protective of our teenaged daughter. Pepper Mill didn’t even want to let her go alone to the movies locally here (I would’ve). With friends is fine. I don’t think she’d let her go to the Port Authority terminal even with friends.
A thirty-something woman ought to be fine, I think. And you don’t need a knife.

9

But I like knives. How else am I supposed to make sure nobody sits next to me?

Seriously, this is all very reassuring. I had dismissed the bus idea entirely until I looked up what it would cost me to rent a car and then thought about how much fun it wouldn’t be to drive in NYC. The buses sound very different from down here indeed, if they’re full of slick yuppie types.

10

Greyhound passenger decapitated by seatmate. That was in Canada, though.

11

I don’t have a teenaged daughter so I don’t know how I’d react. I’d certainly feel safe putting her on the bus, but I’d probably walk her through the PA. Not so much because I’d fear for her safety but because I’d be afraid that she’d get lost and miss her bus. If we’d grown up in the area and taken the bus a few times, I’d probably be OK with her going by herself.

As to the “gross” issue, you might encounter the occasional abandoned newspaper or drink cup. The former is not a big deal, but a drink cup rolling around on the floor can pretty annoying. It’s easy enough to throw out, though.

Given the choice between taking a bus and taking a plane, I’ll choose the bus for trips under 5 hours.

12

:rolleyes:

I took the bus to my summer job upstate when I was 16 – and that was in 1991 (when it was considerably shadier than it is now, yet much less shady than in the 1970s). I was not even raped once!

I am 5’2", female, and unarmed.

13

I’m starting to have second thoughts about this. Maybe they’re not as safe as I previously thought. For instance, did you know that crazy women from South Carolina carry KNIVES on those buses?

14

On their way to Zen Buddhist retreats, no less. Hide your wives!

15

Oh, great. Crazy religious fanatics from South Carolina carrying knives.

16

The real horror is finding a parking space in NYC. Even to just return the car to the rental agency.

Yeah, I know. As I said, I’d let the teenaged me (who rode in the 1960s and 1970s when it was a lot sleazier) do it. But you get overprotective as a parent.

17

I’ve been through the PA bus terminal a number of times over the last decade. It is very busy, but not terrible or disgusting or anything like that.

The biggest problem is that every bus company has its own ticket office, and it can be hard to find the one you need, if it isn’t one of the big national companies. (I needed a bus to get to a New Jersey suburb. It was some local NJ bus company.)

18

What I found confusing was that the ticket office and the gate were not only not near each other, but on completely different levels. If I didn’t ask someone, I wouldn’t have figured it out on my own.

19

Well, sorta. There hasn’t actually been bus service out of that station since the early 1980s. Those buses parked outside are actually living quarters, so the people you see lounging around there aren’t actually homeless. Same as the bus terminal in Savannah near MLK.

20

Seriously? Where’s that?

Or was I just whooshed?