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January 18, 2006

Don't Ever Ride Greyhound. Ever.

In which a Greyhound bus from New York to Philly ends up heading north on the Boulevard

Through the wonders of corporate travel, I spent last weekend on the East Coast. Not only was this a welcome respite from the then-record-threatening 24 consecutive days of rain out here in C@L, but it also offered me a chance to pull a whirlwind tour of my erstwhile East Coast haunts: New York, Philly, and The Squan. The Philly part was particularly exciting -- a trip down to the Wachovia Center to check out the Flyboys against the Avs. Given that (a) I hadn't seen pro hockey in around two years, (b) there's no pro hockey option in C@L proper, and (c) it was part of a larger birthday experience for a buddy, I was, as they say, pretty Flyered up.

The game started at 2 pm on Saturday. As an experienced New-York-to-Philly-sports-complex traveler (see Hey, Subway Guy), I just assumed we'd be taking the train down, with the only open question being NJT/ Septa versus Scamtrak. Sure, it would take a couple hours, but if we got on an 11 am departure, we'd be fine.

But no! There was another plan! Everyone is always taking the train; why not change it up and try the bus? Where bus = Greyhound. It's a little cheaper, shorter than NJT/ Septa, and would drop us right in the middle of Center City. Fairnuff, we thought. We'll give it a whirl. Plus, this would help me to feel slightly less snobby about not really having ever taken Greyhound.

(In re: never having ridden the Greyhound: this is not due to an aversion to public transportation. Rather, when you spend most of your time in New York/ New Jersey/ Philly, and travel often between and within these places, you tend to take the train. Trains go pretty much most places you want to be, leave at regular intervals, and are reasonably priced (with the exception of Scamtrak). So it's more that I am a train snob than a public transportation snob. Just getting that cleared up.)

The bus was scheduled to depart at 11 am, to arrive in Philly at 1 pm. We arrived at the Port Authority a few minutes past 10:30 and purchased tickets from the automated ticketing machines. Check. We stopped in one of the lovely Port Authority restaurants for breakfast sandwiches (you just can't get bacon-egg-and-cheeses everywhere out here in C@L), Gatorades and coffees. Check. Made our way to Gate 68 by 10:45 and joined the queue. Check.

The queue didn't move much in the next 15 minutes. Turns out that the bus was already full. Huh. Funny that they sold us a ticket. Still, some folks in our group as well as a Greyhoud employee told us that another bus would be along in twenty minutes to take the rest of us; this is "apparently" how things go with Greyhound.

Yeah, so that didn't happen. We got on the next bus, and that next bus left at noon. So we were looking at being late. Sigh. Our only hope was that we wouldn't miss more than the first ten minutes of the game. That was our hope.

Once aboard the bus, we got an exciting pep talk from Operator Bruce Carter, who walked us through some important safety procedures and even got some yuks when he told us that, "In case of emergency, I'm going to be out that door first!" Yes yes, very funny. I've never heard them say that on an airplane, but hey, it's Greyhound, it's a little more laid back. No biggie.

So we're cruising down the turnpike. All good. We get off at Exit 4 and hop on NJ Route 73. All good. But then we pull over and stop at a Greyhound station by the side of Route 73. As this was supposed to be an express bus (no stops), we were a little confused. Operator Bruce Carter hopped off the bus and did who knows what in the station for a couple minutes before returning to his post and getting us back on the road. Odd, but it didn't seem serious. Maybe he was just using the restroom.

Oh, if only.

About five minutes later, Operator Bruce Carter got on the PA and asked if anyone could help him out with directions to Philly. This prompted some puzzled looks and sarcastic comments from our group. I mean, it isn't completely straightforward to take the turnpike into Center City, but it also isn't that complicated. You need to change roads a couple times -- but if you follow the signs for Philly, you should be fine (Directions found here).

Right. So we stayed put (we were in the back of the bus) and assumed that Operator Bruce Carter's continued progress on Route 73 meant he had a sense for where he was going.

(Not so much.)

We crossed the Tacony-Palmyra bridge (which, in so doing, prompted us to realize that the pronunciation of said bridge's name is a quick proxy for whether or not you have a Philly accent) and entered Philly. The correct move from there would have been to get on 95 South. Nope. We drove right past that. We drove past Frankford Avenue. At which our group's other Philly guy and I realized that this was not going well. We were in Northeast Philly (in the general vicinity of where I grew up), headed toward the Boulevard. Hmmm. A curious route. Though I appreciated the oppportunity to share the sights and sounds of my ancestral homeland with my friends, Northeast Philly really isn't on the way to Center City. But we figured that Operator Bruce Carter must be following someone's advice and maybe he was taking us up the Boulevard so we could get to 30th St. Station...or something. I mean, it didn't really make sense.

Mostly it meant that it was probably time to go have a chat with Operator Bruce Carter. So I ambled up to the front of the bus and asked Operator Bruce Carter if he needed some help.

"Hey, do you need some directions, I grew up around here."

"Where were you when I asked earlier?"

"Ummm, dude, this isn't on me."

"But I asked."

"Errrr, well if you keep going south on this road [Route 1, a.k.a. Roosevelt Boulevard d/b/a The Boulevard] you should be fine."

"All right, I'm fine now."

I returned to my seat, feeling a little chastised by Operator Bruce Carter. I mean, I know it's a bad situation, but I was only trying to help. As I was walking back, another woman, a cell phone in hand, walked up to the front and handed the phone to Operator Bruce Carter. Fine, I thought. He would call HQ and get this sorted (the lack of a radio was somewhat puzzling). I was feeling pretty good about things until he pulled a ubie on the Boulevard and started heading north. As in, back towards New York. As in, the wrong way.

I realized at that moment that I actually was probably the only one on this bus who knew where in the hell we were. This was where I grew up. None of the other passengers had a clue. So I figured I should give it another shot with Operator Bruce Carter.

"Hey man, are you going to try to get back on 95?"

"You had your chance."

"What?"

"I said you had your chance. I'm on the phone with that woman's sister [gesturing with phone] and she's going to get us home."

"Yeah, well, we're going the wrong way. You're going to want to make a right on Cottman Avenue and then get on 95."

"I'm all right man. I've got it. You can sit down."

Sit down? Sit down? Operator Bruce Carter had shown me a yellow! As I walked back to my seat I made a big/ immature point of yelling "You're going the wrong way!" over my shoulder so that all the passengers could hear me. The people should know the truth about their trip! Or so I thought. Instead, people jeered me. Seriously. A group of passengers told me to stop bothering Operator Bruce Carter, that he was "embarrassed" and that I was "making him nervous."

Making him nervous! He's making me nervous! The damn bus is going the wrong way! And I got even more nervous when we drove right past Cottman Avenue. That's when we knew we needed another plan -- especially if we were going to make it to any part of the game at all. Since I had obviously soured relations with Operator Bruce Carter, we appointed another delegate (Philly guy Number Two) to persuade him to go the right way. The second delegate was a lot smoother than I was, talked Operator Bruce Carter into making a turn on Welsh Road ("Look, it's Tiffany's!"). With some twists and wiggles (I can't imagine that a Greyhound had ever before graced that stretch of Northeast Philly pavement), and a couple customer service calls to my phone, we made it to 95.

Exhale.

Operator Bruce Carter could take it from there. As we approached 10th and Arch, Operator Bruce Carter pointed out Benjamin Franklin's grave to our left (which earned a "I bet he knows how to get to New York -- and he's been dead 200 years" from our little peanut gallery) and cheerfully reported that "Due to unforseen circumstances, we would be arriving about 45 minutes to our destination." Unforseen? Unforseen? If you had told me that you didn't know how to get to Philly, I could have forseen us getting lost.

Anyhoo, we hopped off the bus, found a cabbie who would take five (score!) and got down to the game with about 10 minutes left in the second period. Not great (for us), but the game rocked, and the rest of the day was a blast.

The lesson here is, of course, don't ever take Greyhound. Ever. And I mean ever. At least not with Operator Bruce Carter involved. Also, if a bus driver asks for directions and you have an answer, don't hesitate to speak up. You see more hockey games that way.

Posted by thatkid at January 18, 2006 7:43 PM under Philly , ThatKid

Comments

Posted by: Thorles at January 19, 2006 8:50 AM

Posted by: thatkid at January 19, 2006 9:15 AM

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