When BoltBus is Full, There's Still the Chinatown Bus
The bus was mainly full of Chinese and African immigrants with only a sprinkling of the twenty-something student and creative types who used to ride Chinatown. Bolt and Megabus have taken over this market, one that Chinatown buses had perhaps accidentally captured in the early 2000s. Chinatown, armed with low low prices, came out of nowhere to kick Greyhound’s butt on the Eastern seaboard.
But Greyhound has made a comeback with BoltBus (a Greyhound/Peter Pan owned boutique line), and Megabus crossed the pond from England to get a piece of the action. All the BoltBust tickets were sold out by the time we checked on Sunday morning, so we took the train to Chinatown, where buses leave for Philly on the half-hour.
The young Chinese driver yelled and tried to close the door on me. Our bags were already under the bus and my girlfriend was making an ill-advised run to buy iced milk tea. I screamed at him and yelled at her. We got on the bus, a little on edge, and realized that we had missed the opportunity to sit next to each other; both of our seatmates obliquely declined to trade.
I tried to read while the bus inched through 45 minutes of traffic choking the way from lower Manhattan to the Holland Tunnel, anticipating the coming nausea but unable to divine a better option. I think I leaned across the aisle to say something about never ever taking the goddamn Chinatown bus again.
Leaving the tunnel, the driver energetically overtook competing traffic, eyes shaded by sunglasses and ears plugged by headphones from an MP3 player, muttering curses. He shot his middle finger through the air at offending drivers, savoring the combat.
I ended up finding this moment back on Chinatown refreshing. There’s no wifi and its pretty dirty, but the strange little transportation infrastructure tying together far flung communities across the East Coast is really something special—although next time I just might make my reservations in advance.
COMMENTS
ADD COMMENT
MORE
Article:
Researcher Kevin Jones Recruits People for Much-Needed HIV Studies
Article:
Million Man March Comes to Philly This Weekend
Article:
Vacant Hunting Park School Is a Scrapper's Delight
Article:
Philly Blogger Learns a Lesson or Two on Rhetoric, Islam and Politics
Article:
Milton Street's Ex-Factor
Article:
Free Spirits: A Call to Kill the PA Liquor Control Board
Article:
Is Mayor Nutter Losing the Gay Vote?
1. Rufus Lafitte said... on Jun 5, 2009 at 02:56PM
“It used to be people of the older generation that looked at me crazy when I said I was taking the Chinatown bus. Now even people my age act like I'm nuts, but I prefer being able to show up whenever I want and getting on a bus to having a clean, safe, entertaining and odorless ride.”
2. Anonymous said... on Jul 7, 2009 at 09:22AM
“Be wary of staticleap.com. While it appears to be an unbiased Chinatown bus resource, it's actually owned by one of the Chinatown bus companies.”