Is it possible to get from my home in Charlottetown to my office at Yankee but public transit only, avoiding both rental cars and air travel? Here’s an itinerary:
- Leave Charlottetown at 7:45 a.m. by Acadian bus, arriving in Halifax at 1:00 p.m. with a transfer in Amherst ($53)
- Leave Halifax at 4:30 p.m. by shuttle bus, arriving Yarmouth at 8:00 p.m ($55).
- Overnight and part of the next day in Yarmouth.
- Leave Yarmouth by high-speed ferry at 4:00 p.m. the next day, arriving Portland, Maine at 8:30 p.m. ($89).
- Overnight in Portland.
- Leave Portland by train at 5:50 a.m. arriving Boston at 8:25 a.m. ($23).
- Leave Boston by bus at 10:00 a.m. arriving Keene, NH at 3:05 p.m. ($41).
In Keene I’d still be 30 minutes from Yankee, but I could probably hitch a ride with a Yankee staffer into the office. If I left Monday morning, I’d arrive in Keene on Wednesday afternoon, a journey of about 55 hours and a cost of $261.
An alternate route would be to take the bus from Charlottetown to Bangor (11 hours, $75), then a bus from Bangor to Keene (via Boston, 11 hours, $39), a route that would require only one overnight and would cost only $114. It would, of course, involve spending 22 hours on various buses, which might just kill me.
The fastest route to Yankee that does involve air travel and car rental, by comparison, would involve a Delta flight to Boston (1:45, $203) and a 90 minute drive to Dublin (car rental about $60/day). Best-case scenario the total trip, leaving time for airport transfers etc., would be 4 and a half hours from door to door.
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Another factor is the notorious unreliability of long distance buses. I once took a 6 hour one-way bus trip from Calgary to Lake Louise a total distance of about 150k. The driver actually borrowed some duct tape from a passenger to fix the hydraulics that closed the bus’ door.
Hi — I read your email about poor public transportation options from PEI to New England. The same thing can be said for all of Atlantic Canada. Back until the late 1960s, passenger trains were operated by the federal government (CN) here on Newfoundland and also in PEI. They were replaced by buses, which were better for a few years, then after VIA Rail was formed, the bus services were contracted out to DRL (here in Nfld) and SMT (on PEI) and the connections went downhill with them. Up until 1960 for instance, you could leave from the Charlottetown train station (now your Workers Compensation Board office) and take the train to Moncton, getting the boat at Borden along the way. At Moncton you would switch to a sleeper car which was heading to Boston — first on a train to Saint John (on CNR), then on a train going to Montreal (on CPR), then that car was placed on a train to Portland at Mattawamkeag, Maine (on the Maine Central RR) and then at Portland on a train to Boston (on the Boston & Maine RR)….
Perhaps we should have the feds invest in surface alternatives to polluting air travel?