What can you buy with a dollar? Believe it or not, you can buy a 4-hour-40-minute bus ride directly from Ann Arbor to the hippest city in the Midwest – Chicago.
- Sarah Royce
Megabus.com, a company that provides cheap transportation between Midwestern cities, recently announced that it will be offering rides from Ann Arbor to Chicago for as little as a buck. Prices range from $1 to $30, and rides can be booked up to 45 days in advance. Not surprisingly, the sooner you book, the cheaper the fare.
Finally having a viable alternative to the expensive Amtrak and the slow and just generally bad Greyhound is obviously good news to students.
Greyhound is noted to have tedious routes: A simple one-hour trip to East Lansing can turn into a 4.5-hour trek through every corner of Michigan. Amtrak, on the other hand, while more pleasant to ride, is also significantly more expensive than Megabus.
Not only will Megabus be a cheaper, faster and more convenient mode of travel for out-of-state students, it can also work to strengthen this area’s important connection to Chicago. With minimal investment required by the state, the new bus service links this area to the hustle and bustle of the Windy City.
It’s great that students can access this new and improved service for their traveling needs while promoting public transportation. Also, the service is convenient enough to be used by more than just students. More people traveling by bus will mean less people will be driving their cars, a definite bonus considering what such a switch can do to curb greenhouse emissions. Along those lines, expanding this service to more than just Chicago should be a priority.
With public transportation within this region almost non-existent, perhaps a service like Megabus can help change perceptions.