# Would you take a 56-hour bus trip to shrink your carbon footprint?



## TinCan782 (Feb 5, 2014)

Only rail-related because the chart includes trains with buses and other modes of transportation...

http://io9.com/would-you-take-a-56-hour-bus-trip-to-shrink-your-carbon-1516532375


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## Ryan (Feb 5, 2014)

I would have thought the train would fare better on the emissions part.


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## TinCan782 (Feb 5, 2014)

RyanS said:


> I would have thought the train would fare better on the emissions part.


Yes, same here!


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## Nathanael (Feb 5, 2014)

His numbers are no good.

The problem is as follows:

- You can figure out the *added* carbon emissions from your travel. In this case, the airplane, bus, and train all have close to zero emissions because they were running anyway. (Unless you were the only ticketed passenger and they would cancel the flight without you -- I actually had this happen on a few "puddle jumper" airplane flights.)

- You can figure out the *total* carbon emissions of the vehicle. But this artificially advantages vehicles with fewer people in them, and gives ludicrous results, claiming that an automobile is more efficient than a train (true if each has only one passenger!)

- You can figure out the *average* carbon emissions *per passenger*. This is probably what he did.

But then the number is completely dominated by how full the vehicle is. Which means that his "better" number for buses is entirely due to the buses running more full than the train.

He might as well take the train. If they're both full, the train is more carbon-efficient.


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## SarahZ (Feb 5, 2014)

I can't even handle coach on a train overnight. No way am I sitting on a bus for 56 hours.


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## TinCan782 (Feb 5, 2014)

SarahZ said:


> I can't even handle coach on a train overnight. No way am I sitting on a bus for 56 hours.


LOL...same here!


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 6, 2014)

Well, I sat in a bus for 41 hours, and it was not bad. But maybe it's because that was on my favourite bus of all time.

I don't understand why the heck he takes 56 hours to get from "Wisconsin" to Atlanta. A Greyhound trip from Madison to Atlanta is only 22 hours, and that's with a 2-hour layover in Chicago. Even if you go from Eau Claire, it's 24 hours, and from Green Bay, 23 hours.

And he posts the interior of a transit bus instead of the actual interior for the equipment on this route: https://www.flickr.com/photos/koyah7d/6794537825/in/photostream/.

BTW, the longest Greyhound schedule in the US is New York-Denver 1683 at 45 hours and in Canada is Toronto-Calgary 5601 at 56 hours.

Due to glaring errors, please take this article with a grain of salt at all aspects!


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## Blackwolf (Feb 6, 2014)

In the words of Lana on the television show Archer: "NOOOOOOOOOOOPE!!" Like, not just no, or hell no, but F**K NO would I willingly be on a bus more than about 4 hours maximum.

Swadian, you'd be happy to know I've actually convinced a friend of mine to ride the Dog for a round-trip between Sacramento and Redding. But only because it's less than 4 hours, and the calling times for the Starlight on this same route are obscene. ^_^


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## railiner (Feb 6, 2014)

56 hours on a bus?

Awwww, that's just a 'shuttle-hop'.... 

compared to my 5 day trip from New York to Fairbanks back in 1970, that is........ 

Of course I was just a 'skosh' younger then....and I did make an overnite stop in beautiful, downtown, Butte, Montana enroute.... 

But that was nothing, compared to my 'marathon' thirty day ride on Amtrak back in around 1979 with a USARailPass......


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 6, 2014)

Blackwolf said:


> In the words of Lana on the television show Archer: "NOOOOOOOOOOOPE!!" Like, not just no, or hell no, but F**K NO would I willingly be on a bus more than about 4 hours maximum.
> 
> Swadian, you'd be happy to know I've actually convinced a friend of mine to ride the Dog for a round-trip between Sacramento and Redding. But only because it's less than 4 hours, and the calling times for the Starlight on this same route are obscene. ^_^


WAIT, NO! BAD IDEA! Sacramento-Redding is operated with Greyhound's worst equipment! Don't do it! 1 hour on one of those is more hell compared to 50 hours on a good bus!


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## Blackwolf (Feb 6, 2014)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Blackwolf said:
> 
> 
> > In the words of Lana on the television show Archer: "NOOOOOOOOOOOPE!!" Like, not just no, or hell no, but F**K NO would I willingly be on a bus more than about 4 hours maximum.
> ...


Well, her choices are:


*Rent a car* for one week, just to drive up and back, at a cost of $200 plus fuel and insurance.
*Take Amtrak*, but arrive and depart in the dead of night at an unstaffed station while forcing her host to pick her up and drop her off at those same awful hours. Cost is $58 for coach. Thanks to the brainless law banning Amtrak Thruway services that don't involve a train segment, it's impossible to get between Sacramento and Redding at an hour which does not require you to be a vampire. She's never ridden the train before, and this would not be a good way of introducing it to her.
*Take Greyhound*, which has four round-trips a day, and is only $30 more than Amtrak for a refundable ticket. She can get into Redding, and return to Sacramento all during normal Human business hours. If the route is plagued with poor equipment, there is not much we can do about that.
Are there any other reasonable options I have missed?


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## jebr (Feb 6, 2014)

Blackwolf said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
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> > Blackwolf said:
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Book a ticket from Davis to Redding on Amtrak + thruway and toss out the Davis to Sacramento portion? Once I figured out that there was a different code for the bus stop, I could book Davis to Redding just fine. I don't think e-ticketing should interfere, either, as the corridor trains are technically unreserved. If you're worried about that, though, just buy multi-city from Sacramento to Redding outgoing and Redding to Davis coming back (that way the one you're skipping is the last one on the journey, and so they shouldn't void it.)


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## tp49 (Feb 6, 2014)

jebr said:


> Blackwolf said:
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> > Swadian Hardcore said:
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This! Then again I'm an avoid Greyhoud at all costs kind of guy.


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## Blackwolf (Feb 6, 2014)

tp49 said:


> jebr said:
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> > Blackwolf said:
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Alas, I offered that. She balked, and is sticking to her Greyhound option because of the backtracking involved. The prices are the same, and the overall trip is shorter via the Dog.

The correct way to handle this would be to have the law limiting Amtrak California's thruway bus operations repealed. I would argue that it is outdated, and that it gives unfair advantage to other bus operators. Its either this, or we get a San Joaquin extension all the way up to Redding with a middle-of-the-day schedule.


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## rrdude (Feb 6, 2014)

I would not send my ex-wife on a 4-hour bus trip, let alone a 56-hour bus trip.

Wait, maybe I would.....................


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## SarahZ (Feb 6, 2014)

Some of the times really confuse me. 12 hours for a flight from Atlanta to Wisconsin? If you fly from Atlanta to Milwaukee, you're looking at two hours.

So then part of me thought, "Oh, he's calculating round-trip," but then I realized 26 hours by car would be one-way. 70 hours by train makes sense, thanks to the transfer in DC and Chicago. I'm just stuck on that 12-hour flight and 56-hour bus trip.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 6, 2014)

Blackwolf, please warn your friend that if she takes Greyhound, she might hate the G4500 bus so much as to swear off Greyhound at all costs forever, even though the route is being upgraded later this year and the G4500's are being rebuilt.

"Greyhound" is not the problem, "G4500" is the problem. People keep pointing their finger at Greyhound instead of the G4500. Blame it on Dina, the company that made the G4500.



SarahZ said:


> Some of the times really confuse me. 12 hours for a flight from Atlanta to Wisconsin? If you fly from Atlanta to Milwaukee, you're looking at two hours.
> 
> So then part of me thought, "Oh, he's calculating round-trip," but then I realized 26 hours by car would be one-way. 70 hours by train makes sense, thanks to the transfer in DC and Chicago. I'm just stuck on that 12-hour flight and 56-hour bus trip.


See? Sarah sees the same confusion that I'm seeing. The author has probably never ridden a Greyhound bus and never checked schedules for such an itinerary. Sounds fake to me.


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## Ispolkom (Feb 6, 2014)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> "Greyhound" is not the problem, "G4500" is the problem. People keep pointing their finger at Greyhound instead of the G4500. Blame it on Dina, the company that made the G4500.


If I buy a ticket from Greyhound, their buses are their responsibility. I don't care if they bought them from Dina, Mina, or the Queen of Sheba. My beef is with Greyhound, with whom I have a commercial relationship.


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## Ispolkom (Feb 6, 2014)

SarahZ said:


> Some of the times really confuse me. 12 hours for a flight from Atlanta to Wisconsin? If you fly from Atlanta to Milwaukee, you're looking at two hours.
> 
> So then part of me thought, "Oh, he's calculating round-trip," but then I realized 26 hours by car would be one-way. 70 hours by train makes sense, thanks to the transfer in DC and Chicago. I'm just stuck on that 12-hour flight and 56-hour bus trip.


No, they're round trip times. It helps to read the Slate article io9 was paraphrasing. If you plug Madison-Atlanta into Google maps, it gives you a drive time of 12 hours, 48 minutes. No, I didn't believe it was less than 900 miles either, though in my expereince it would require the intervention of God Almighty to get through Chicagoland that fast. On the other hand, if you drove, you'd be going right by Cadiz, Kentucky, where Broadbent's smokes the best bacon in the world.

Six hours each way is reasonable for that city pair, since you're making a connection somewhere (try Kayak).

He went by Megabus, so while Greyhound might have been faster, but I can't personally blame him for avoiding it. He might have gotten a Queen of Sheba GX4650, and had an axle explode.


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## SarahZ (Feb 6, 2014)

Ispolkom said:


> SarahZ said:
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> 
> > Some of the times really confuse me. 12 hours for a flight from Atlanta to Wisconsin? If you fly from Atlanta to Milwaukee, you're looking at two hours.
> ...


I did read the article, but it was a few days ago. I must have overestimated Wisconsin to Georgia. It takes about 20-ish hours to drive from southern Michigan to Florida, so I was guesstimating it was about the same for Wisconsin.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 7, 2014)

Ispolkom said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
> 
> 
> > "Greyhound" is not the problem, "G4500" is the problem. People keep pointing their finger at Greyhound instead of the G4500. Blame it on Dina, the company that made the G4500.
> ...


Then you would be extremly glad to know that the G4500 is been rebuilt at top speed to fix their issues. Greyhound rebuilds a batch every three months. Within 2014, all the G4500 will be good reliable blue buses.



Ispolkom said:


> SarahZ said:
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> > Some of the times really confuse me. 12 hours for a flight from Atlanta to Wisconsin? If you fly from Atlanta to Milwaukee, you're looking at two hours.
> ...


But Chicago-Atlanta gets very good equipment, there is virtually no chance of a G4500 on Chicago-Atlanta because they are not based in the area, they are mostly based in Seattle with some in Los Angeles and Dallas. Greyhound's Chicago-Atlanta is a Limited route, the equipment can kick the arse of anything Megabus has got.

Ispolkom, since you live in Saint Paul, feel free to take a Greyhound ride to Chicago but just avoid peak travel times because when capacity gets dire, Greyhound uses leased buses that are crap. No G4500's in Saint Paul. Do you have a grudge against Greyhound for some reason?

And uh, Blackwolf, you should probably let your friend take a look at this: http://extranet.greyhound.com/revsup/schedules/pdf/600.pdf. All the Sacramento-Redding schedules are actually Sacramento-Portland, this is the longest G4500-exclusive route and has very poor OTP compared to Greyhound's nationwide 90% OTP. If boarding in Redding, don't be surprised if your bus is delayed without explantion, since the G4500 frequently breaks down on the mountains.

Don't want to deal with bad Greyhound buses? Just wait a few months and they'll be cool. Greyhound upgrades their fleet faster than anyone else. Today's Greyhound is better than yesterday's Greyhound, tommorow's will be better than today's.


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## Ispolkom (Feb 7, 2014)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Ispolkom, since you live in Saint Paul, feel free to take a Greyhound ride to Chicago but just avoid peak travel times because when capacity gets dire, Greyhound uses leased buses that are crap. No G4500's in Saint Paul. Do you have a grudge against Greyhound for some reason?


There's no way on God's green earth that I'll voluntarily spend 7 hours on a bus. I especially won't spend 7 hours on a bus to Chicago when I can use miles or points and fly for free in an hour. As for Greyhound, I've tried them, and didn't enjoy the uncomfortable buses or seamy stations. Since, as you write yourself, "Greyhound uses leased buses that are crap," I don't plan to repeat the experience.


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## Shortline (Feb 7, 2014)

Would I take a 56 hour bus ride to lower my carbon footprint?? No. I would personally cut a hole in the ozone and melt the ice caps just to avoid a 56 hour bus trip. I don't even like to ride the bus from the rental car lot to the airport terminal.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 7, 2014)

Shortline said:


> Would I take a 56 hour bus ride to lower my carbon footprint?? No. I would personally cut a hole in the ozone and melt the ice caps just to avoid a 56 hour bus trip. I don't even like to ride the bus from the rental car lot to the airport terminal.


LOL, it's not that bad. Ever done it before?



Ispolkom said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
> 
> 
> > Ispolkom, since you live in Saint Paul, feel free to take a Greyhound ride to Chicago but just avoid peak travel times because when capacity gets dire, Greyhound uses leased buses that are crap. No G4500's in Saint Paul. Do you have a grudge against Greyhound for some reason?
> ...


Sure the leased buses are crap but Amtrak has some bad equipment too once in a while. Everybody has some bad equipment once you have a huge operation.

If you don't want to ride Greyhound. I'm planning to ride Greyhound to Canada which would mean about 90 hours on the bus total round-trip. I'll have some train rides too. I'm sorry you're missing out on the fun.


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## jis (Feb 7, 2014)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Shortline said:
> 
> 
> > Would I take a 56 hour bus ride to lower my carbon footprint?? No. I would personally cut a hole in the ozone and melt the ice caps just to avoid a 56 hour bus trip. I don't even like to ride the bus from the rental car lot to the airport terminal.
> ...


Yep. I have actually done it before, and no I won't do it again. It took me a week to get my backbone straightened out to a normal state after that.  It is really pretty bad. I suppose it is different if you happen to be a bus frother.


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## SarahZ (Feb 7, 2014)

I have spent a whopping three hours on a bus, and I was itching to get off by the time we got there. There is no way in hell I could do 56 hours.


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## Ispolkom (Feb 7, 2014)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> I'm sorry you're missing out on the fun.


No, I'm planning a couple of longish bus rides this summer in Norway: Geiringer to Andalsnes over the Eagles Road and the Troll Route, and Fauske to Narvik north of the Arctic Circle. I haven't the faintest clue what brand of buses are used, but neither involve Greyhound, I'm happy to say.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 8, 2014)

Ispolkom said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
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> > I'm sorry you're missing out on the fun.
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Sorry, it won't be as fun to me because Greyhound's 102DL3 is the best bus I have ridden (and yes I've taken luxury sleeper buses) and it does not operate in Norway. If I went to Norway, I would ride a bunch of trains and maybe take a ship along the coast. But I strongly dislike the body-on-chassis buses which are prominent in Norway.

It seems clear to me that no matter how many posts we make against each other, it's not going to make a factual difference, so you ride what you want, and I ride what I want. Let's just agree to disagree.


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## jis (Feb 8, 2014)

Ispolkom said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
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> > I'm sorry you're missing out on the fun.
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Geiringer to Andalsnese is a beautiful ride. And then you can take the train from Andalsnese to Trondheim which is a beautiful ride too, or you can take the coastal steamer to wherever along the coast. Consider taking the coastal steamer out to the Lofoten Islands for a quick trip, somewhere like Stamsund) specially in the middle of the night in bright sunshne. I enjoyed that a lot. I took that trip from Bodo, also north of the Arctic Circle.


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## JayPea (Feb 8, 2014)

No way I'd take a bus for 56 hours. I had to do the Southwest Chief Chicago-Los Angeles in coach one time and that was more than enough for me. A bus ride of that length would be a worse, IMHO. The longest I've been on a bus was for 7+ hours, on a bustitution from Portland to Spokane. That wasn't too bad but was about my limit. This was three years ago. I had taken the EB from Spokane to Seattle, and was informed by Amtrak that the train was going to be hours late (this was during all the flooding in Montana and North Dakota; the EB I was on was in fact the next-to-last through train from Chicago for if I recall 6 or 7 weeks) and that there would be an on-time bus going to Seattle. I opted for the train anyway, which shocked both the Amtrak agent and the ticket agent in Spokane. If I'd wanted to take a bus to Seattle, I could have saved myself a drive to Spokane and caught the Thruway bus that stops in front of my apartment.

At any rate, after spending a few days in Seattle, I took the CS to Portland and then a bus back to Spokane, as by that time the EB wasn't running to and from Portland at all. I could have changed my reservation and just returned to Spokane on the stub version of the EB from Seattle, but did voluntarily keep my original reservation, because I wanted to see the Columbia Gorge again. I'd seen the Gorge a gazillion times, but wanted to see it for the gazillion and 1st time, regardless of the method of transportation used to see it. But as I say, that was about my limit. Even the lure of ease of catching the bus right out my front door and the fact that for the portion of my ride from my home town to Spokane I could ride for free doesn't tempt me to take the bus anyplace. The reason I could take it for free from my town to Spokane is that a buddy and, in fact, former roommate of mine is a bus driver for Northwest Trailways, the company that provides Thruway service to my town, and he told me not too long ago that Northwest Trailways has a "friends ride free" policy for the portions of the route the driver happens to be on. No thanks!


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## Ispolkom (Feb 8, 2014)

jis said:


> Ispolkom said:
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Actually, I think that I have you to thank for mentioning the beauty of the Rauma railway. When I found that you can combine it with "the world's most beautiful ferry ride" (Hellsynt-Geiringer), and a vertiginous local bus ride between Geiringer and Andalesnes, I rearranged our travel plans.

I had hoped to use the Hurtigruten coastal steamer, but it seemed quicker and much cheaper to get to Narvik by taking the overnight train from Trondheim to Fauske, then another local bus north. I'm not much enamored of spending five hours on a bus between Fauske and Narvik, but imagine that the scenery will make the time pass quicker. We'll be there in early July, so at least there won't be any shortage of daylight.

So much to do, and so little vacation.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Feb 8, 2014)

Nobody actually spends 56 hours on *a *bus unless you're riding Toronto-Calgary in one go with no rest stops. My planned 90-hour bus trip will have many many overnight rests at many many different towns and cities, that won't be 90 hours on *a *bus, not on one bus.

This 56-hour on the article title is actually 4 buses if you take Greyhound and more if you take Megabus. The longest segement on Greyhound would only be 16 hours, hardly a lot as long as you don't ride a leased bus. And leased buses are used only on Thankgiving, Christmas, and Independance Day travel periods.

Northwestern Trailways really isn't great because their E4500 have narrow seats. Greyhound's rebuilt 102DL3 is a very comfortable bus, you don't know it until you ride it. And it seems none of you have ridden it.

Frankly, on my latest bus ride I thought about all those complaints and aversion to Greyhound and I was just appaled, I took a look around the bus a few times and I just could not understand why people hate this thing and don't want to ride it, it's really not bad.

Come on guys, open your mind. I did it, you can do it too.


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## jis (Feb 8, 2014)

As I said, been there, done that. Not again if I can help it. Sorry


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## tp49 (Feb 8, 2014)

No thanks. For any trip I would take that could last 56 hours in duration I would look at the plane, then the train, then maybe driving, then not going.


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