Transit through the Northeast Corridor

September 23, 2023 12:45 PM

Dancing the Megatropolis is a short web journal about taking public transit from Olive, VA to Amesbury, MA.

There was one intercity bus leg due to an unexpected holiday scheduling issue, but MetaFilter's Own Vidiot otherwise spent a whole lot of time on commuter trains and public buses over a couple of days. His site for the trip made me nostalgic for the Old Web and the trip I took on the DC to NYC leg of this itinerary about a decade ago, thanks to MetaFilter.

posted by EvaDestruction (21 comments total)

Determine the northernmost point - where can you take the train to...Amesbury, MA Uh, beg-your-fucking-pardon?!

The spliced up posting format means maybe he eventually mentions the Downeaster and Portland, ME, but hackles have been raised!

(Bit of trivia, the Downeaster's designation as intercity passenger rail was deliberate and mostly about funding qualifications and regulatory arbitrage. Especially pre-COVID it carried a healthy amount of commuters)
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 1:07 PM on September 23, 2023 [9 favorites]

hackles have been raised

I tried raising my own hackles once, but at a small scale it wasn't economically viable. Nowadays I get mine from the store and they're perfectly fine.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:43 PM on September 23, 2023 [17 favorites]

“The spliced up posting format means maybe he eventually mentions the Downeaster and Portland, ME, but hackles have been raised!”

Oh, Yeesh. He explicitly said no intercity, and, no, handwaving that away doesn’t count. Settle down.
posted by Galvanic at 1:53 PM on September 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

Needs more photos or more descriptive writing.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:01 PM on September 23, 2023

I feel justified in my complaint about the fact that there is no way to get from Connecticut to Rhode Island via transit without using Amtrak. I have taken Metro-North to catch an Amtrak train up to Boston, and have looked into taking the MBTA commuter rail to catch an Amtrak train, but the fact that the MBTA commuter rail never meets Metro North always bothered me. And I never wanted to take a bus and walk three miles as part of the trip to get from NYC to Boston.

I think the Megabus to Philadelphia was cheating, but I understand why he took it.

This is fascinating, I didn't realize that the other system did connect up like this.
posted by Hactar at 2:50 PM on September 23, 2023

For North of Boston commuting, there's the C&J bus which goes up to Dover NH. The company does intercity trips to NYC but South Station to Seacoast NH is definitely a commuter route.
posted by damayanti at 5:07 PM on September 23, 2023

For those who like this kind of thing, here's a classic true-blog recounting of a west coast version traveling by local transit from Seattle to Vancouver, BC back in 2009
posted by morspin at 6:32 PM on September 23, 2023

BAMA. (Boston-Atlanta-Metropolitan-Area). 1984, William Gibson, "Neuromancer."
posted by metametamind at 7:02 PM on September 23, 2023 [6 favorites]

In 1903, a couple spent their honeymoon riding trolleys from Wilmington, DE to Maine: Ten days over 500 miles of trolley lines.

Five years later, a New Yorker did the same basic thing, only he started in New York instead.
posted by adamg at 8:38 PM on September 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Looks like ALL the MeFites woke up this morning and started slamming his server. This project sounds super cool, and I look forward to reading it when it will load!
posted by hydropsyche at 4:46 AM on September 24, 2023

dammit why am I forced to read that in a window half the height of my screen?
posted by pjenks at 7:36 AM on September 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

I thought the expression "BosNYWash" was a thing, but I may be misled because it was used in (of all things) Overdrawn at the Memory Bank.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:38 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

I wonder if there’s a way to do this more inland, via Hartford/Springfield/Worcester.
posted by madcaptenor at 9:08 AM on September 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

pjenks: "dammit why am I forced to read that in a window half the height of my screen?"

Ditto.
posted by signal at 9:25 AM on September 24, 2023

I learned it as BosNYPhilaBaltiWash decades ago.

Uh, beg-your-fucking-pardon?!
I thought he said no Amtrak.
posted by MtDewd at 12:55 PM on September 24, 2023

I’ve only ever heard it as BosWash. And it seems like he could’ve made it to Hampton Beach NH (summer only) via MVRTA Route 83.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 2:13 PM on September 24, 2023

This was a great piece.

Echoing madcaptenor. I've tried to figure out New Haven to Hartford to Springfield to Boston using only commuter rails or intercity bus and gave up.
posted by jello at 9:08 AM on September 25, 2023

Categorizing Amtrak as "commuter rail" and removing it from the list of options despite it being a fundamental part of NE corridor transit is just weird.
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:21 AM on September 25, 2023

Categorizing Amtrak as "commuter rail" and removing it from the list of options despite it being a fundamental part of NE corridor transit is just weird.

I assume you mean "not commuter rail"?

It's the point of the exercise -- to see if you can treat the entire Northeast as one big city and use only "city" methods of transport to get from one end to another. Amtrak (and planes) are "between city" methods.
posted by Galvanic at 9:54 AM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yeah. This whole exercise can be thought as a traveling through all the cities overlapping spheres of influence.

I kind of like how Boston's MBTA has been coming south and New Haven's Shore Line East has been moving north. Where will they meet? Westerly? Kingston? Boston's already taken Providence and extended it's turf all the way down to Wickford Junction. Will Connecticut dare to cross into Rhode Island?
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:24 PM on September 25, 2023 [1 favorite]

Needs more photos or more descriptive writing.

Dude, I thought it was just fine. Chill.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:16 AM on September 28, 2023