When I asked friends and family to guess how I recently traveled from DC to ATL, the response was unanimous:
[1] plane?
[2] car?
[3] train?
They all struck out. Some guessed I biked. Others, knowing my love for walking, suggested I walked.
Nope. All wrong.
Not a single person suggested or guessed that I took the bus. It’s simply never entered their mind. Unthinkable!
When I shared with them that I did indeed take the bus they were incredulous. They simply did not believe me. Typical follow up questions included: “Why would you do that?”, “Have you lost your marbles?”, “Are you ok?”
Well, I did. I took the bus. Washington, DC to Atlanta, Georgia. Overnight at that.
It all began on a Thursday evening with a 21 minute, one mile walk from my house to the Takoma Metro station. After a mere 3 minute wait for the Metro, I arrived at Union Station in Washington, DC 15 minutes later. A beautiful, classic building.
Time for dinner at the Union Station food hall. Not fancy, but filling enough.
To get to the loading area for intra city buses you must go to the garage. FlixBus (who bought Greyhound) uses bays 5-8. The bus departed promptly at 10:50 p.m., as scheduled. It arrived in Atlanta 12 hours later, as scheduled.
Loading the bus at Union Station garage was the first of many experiences. To get on the bus I had to walk past an overflowing trash can and a family literally sitting on the pavement feeding their kids.
The Chinese ticket-taker – the driver himself – had very little patience with anyone with questions. “Get on! Get on!” he’d yell, in his accented English.
When I purchased my ticket I did not buy the option to select a seat. Nor did I buy the privilege of riding without a neighbor on the seat next to me. I did buy it early so I had seat 2A assigned to me. Getting on the bus, there was no way to know which seat was which. But I imagined that 2 meant the second row and A meant the window. Well, someone was already there. No problem. I took seat B.
My neighbor was a pleasant older gentleman – like myself. We connected because he was headed down to near my old neck of the woods, Love Joy, Georgia. We exchanged some pleasantries including his stories of growing up African American south of Atlanta and me growing up in the same area as a White Latino. Soon after we departed he moved on to an empty seat with no neighbor so we could both stretch out – and try to sleep. (The bus was at best 50% full).
In between the turns and squeaks, I tried valiantly to get some shut eyes. Listening to music with my headphones helped. But not even that could mask the blaring conversation the bus driver was having on his phone. Other passengers were clearly annoyed at this too – but to no avail.
The lights inside the bus were out while on the road. But as we approached each of the six stops we were eventually to make, the driver would scream – yes, scream – “Richmond! Richmond”! And he would abruptly turn all the lights on to the brightest level. This began to feel like cell torture to make you sleep deprived.
As the bus approached one of the stops in southern Virginia, two Latinos – I am pretty sure they were Venezuelans who had recently crossed the border and ended up in DC – came to the front to speak to the bus driver. He’d have none of it. “Sit! Sit!” One of the Venezuelans innocently kept asking in Spanish “donde queda la tienda?” (where is the store?) Evidently someone was to meet them there at some store. No answer. Instead when the bus stopped, the driver firmly shouted – yes, shouted – “out! out!” The two men confusedly exited the bus and the driver expediently took off. Not a peep from the other passengers.
At another stop a cheerful African American lady got on with her bag and promptly sat down on the seat behind me. From the phone conversation she was having and I could not help but hear, she was recently homeless and on her way to reconnect with a friend in another city. While her conversation kept me awake, it was at least a good story to listen to as I tried to fall asleep. I was somewhat successful in catching some shut eyes for the next couple of hours.
Three hours from Atlanta the bus stopped at a large gas-station where we were allowed to get off the bus to go to the bathroom. But, in the words of the bus driver, “quickly! quickly! 8 minutes”. I followed the crowd in grabbing our respective critical belongings and rushed to the bathroom – I had not used the bathroom on the bus. I rushed back to my 2A seat, overjoyed that I made it back in time.
Oh oh. Someone else was not so lucky. A young Brown lady who had been sitting all the way in the back of the bus – clearly with a dependency challenges given her own admission as she talked to herself – never made it back. Not a peep from the passengers. The driver soon continued his loud phone conversation.
As we approached Atlanta the bus got off the highway at Chamblee, only miles from downtown. I used to live in Chamblee, so I knew the territory. The bus stopped at a rather unkept supposed ‘bus station’, identified as the Chinese Bus Depot – on Shallowford Road (near Buford Hwy, for my ATL friends). I got off. The Station was closed. (I have subsequently found out that FlixBus has arranged to partner with these bus drivers and bus stops to expedite their rebranding of Greyhound). I called my brother to come pick me up and waited outside. It had been 12 hours since I had left DC. Impeccable scheduling.
After 36 hours visiting family and friends in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, it was time to do it all over again Saturday night. I dreaded the thought of six stops with another militant driver. But, I had to get back to DC to go watch the Braves play the Nationals the next day.
A friend dropped me off at the Civic Center MARTA station, where the FlixBus website stated the bus would pick me up at 9:50 p.m.
The bus stop designation was nowhere to be found at the MARTA metro station. The handful of folks hanging out on this not-busy-at-all station on a Saturday night in downtown Atlanta were clearly not looking to get on the bus or the metro. Let’s just say they were hanging out. No problema. They did not bother me; I did not bother them. So I sat down in one of the benches after getting clarity from a lady helping empty trash cans that indeed, this was the stop for FlixBus.
As I waited – having arrived on purpose with plenty of time to spare – a car drives up and drops off a young man with some apparent disability. (This was evident from the women that helped him out of the car). I motioned, inviting them to share my bench. The woman was thankful – and so was the young man. In trying to start a conversation, I realized he could not speak, nor understand much – at least English. (I believe they were from West Africa as I heard the women speak French).
A FlixBus arrived ahead of schedule and we both rushed to make sure we would get on, me expecting the worst from my previous experience. The bus driver got off the bus and as I tried to get on he screamed “not your bus! not your bus!” Oops. This was not the DC bus. I tried to explain it to the young man, who got it immediately. And so did the other five or six passengers going in the direction of DC/NY. Oh well.
Our bus did arrive on time, promptly at 9:50 p.m. The two bus drivers got off. They were two chubby African American men, one younger and the other middle age. They let us know that the bus was going all the way to NY via Charlotte, Richmond, and DC. Wait! Could it be that there’d be only three stops? I didn’t even ask. I got on the bus and found my seat, 2B. (I did take A, the window). There were no more than 10 passengers on the bus.
The bus driver worked quickly, but graciously. Once everyone was on the bus he politely asked a Black lady who was talking on the phone to please lower her voice. She was speaking a language other than English – I could not decipher. She did not understand him so she got up and walked towards him. He politely, using hand signals, communicated the message which she clearly understood, saying “sorry”, and went back to her seat.
Traffic getting out of Atlanta was hell. Only the commuter lane was moving. And it was Saturday night at 10:30 at night. Nonetheless, we made good time to Charlotte. All passengers were asleep by the time we got there. The bus driver turned on the lights in three steps, dimming from soft to bright; and loudly announced “Charlotte!” Folks got off; others got on; the driver turned off the lights; we moved on. No issues.
The ride to the next stop – at a gas station for stretching our legs and grabbing some bites – was totally uneventful. I got at least 4 hours of undisturbed sleep. Not bad. At the gas station I bought some eats and loaded the bus. No hurry.
The drive to Richmond was equally non-eventful. People got off; people got on. And on to Washington, DC.
We arrived in Washington a full hour before the scheduled arrival. The bus driver indicated to passengers that the same bus would continue to NYC, so everyone had an hour to go inside and rest in the architectural marvel that is Union Station.
I walked to the Metro and got on the train to Takoma station, then walked home. Beautiful weather. Nice walk.
The cost of the bus trip? $120.00. Less than ½ what it would have cost to fly or go on the train. Compared to planes, buses are infinitely less hassle. No security line, no long wait at the airport, no long line to get on the plane. No long ride to and from the airports here and there. Door-to-door flying takes no less than 6 hours, less than half of the 13 hours the bus takes. Yet, it is a tireying 6 hours.
Would I ride the bus again? In a heartbeat.
Would I recommend it? Only to cost conscious folks that understand what they are getting into. That is, I highly recommend the bus to folks that appreciate connecting with diverse people and culture regardless of economic standing – and do not get rattled by incidents that are not everyday occurrence in their own life.
The folks that ride the bus are generally of lower socio-economics, yes. And mostly Black and Brown – I was the only White person on the bus going there and coming back. But, these good folks are also our neighbors, our workforce, our long lost friends. We all have stories to tell and share. We all have issues and challenges.
If you never experience these different social circles, you are prone to form your biased perceptions based on movies and social media, where exaggeration and hyperbolics loom. I find sharing spaces with others to be a very human thing to do, a learning experience, and just plain fun adventures.
Life is good. Live on. Ride on. enJoy.
