The Megabus Experience

Moments ago, I found myself dispensing the following advice to a friend who needs a break from Cleveland: the only way to successfully live in Ohio, as a thinking, rational person, is to leave it as often as possible.

Luckily, here in Cleveland we have a reasonably sized airport where the lines aren't too long and the food isn't too gross, and which is easy to get to on the RTA. And, since 2006, we have the Megabus.

I've been waiting to take the Megabus to Chicago since we moved back here in 2007, but until my snobby little friend Mark -- the 20-year-old gay son I will never have -- got accepted at SAIC, I couldn't muster up an excuse to go.

Last week was his birthday -- he's of legal drinking age now, bless him -- so off I went.

Here's the good about Megabus:

• It's a comfortable ride. Both my outbound and return trips were fairly quiet, except for the courtship of some obnoxious twentysomethings.
• It's a double-decker bus, so if you muscle your way to the front of the line, you don't have to sit down below, i.e., by the bathroom.
  
• The driver was unobtrusive. No obnoxious banter or singalongs. No long, emotional goodbyes, either.
• It's very convenient: you can take RTA to Public Square and hop right on (providing the bus isn't late). It drops you off at Union Station, right in the middle of downtown.
  

Here's the bad:

• THERE ARE NO SIGNS IN DOWNTOWN CLEVELAND TO TELL YOU WHERE THE MEGABUS STOPS. Hopefully you looked at the website before you left home, or that you have one of those magic Internet phones. Otherwise, you're just going to have to mill around behind Tower City waiting for other people to start milling around.
• Megabus only has one destination from Cleveland: Chicago. I've heard rumors that it used to go to Pittsburgh but nobody took it, which is a shame. Pittsburgh is exactly where I would want to ride the Megabus to. Pittsburgh and Buffalo. I guess that would be like connecting nowhere to nowhere, huh.
• The big gimmick with Megabus is the $1 fare. The catch is that you have to book WAY in advance. If you book a couple of weeks in advance, like I did, your trip will cost more. It will most likely be less than flying. Whether or not to shell out for the 6-hour ride depends how valuable you think your time is, how many Miss Marples you can read in one sitting, and how much you enjoy looking at corn and donkeys, because that's all you will see on the side of the highway.

The only other notable thing about Megabus is that there were A LOT more people going to Chicago than coming back. I may have indeed seen the Brain Drain in action.

Tomorrow: "Mommy, Why Do We Live in the Suburbs?"