Today we are trying a Coach Bus operator that is new to us: Peter Pan Bus Lines. These bright green buses have been providing intercity coach service across the Northeastern United States since 1933. In this trip from New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, which cost $40, we rode one of the newest MCI D4500 buses in the fleet. We especially liked the green interior lighting!
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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:34 Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York
3:28 Randomness
3:55 Interior Review
4:48 New York to Baltimore
6:49 Baltimore Bus Station
7:09 Washington Union Station
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I enjoyed that video👍👍
Hello TRA, I'd like to see a video on the NCTD Breeze bus.
As a lighting designer, I am rather taken by the Shrek theme – thanks for the illuminating clip m/
I take Peter Pan from Hartford to Boston for a day trip when I don’t want to stay in CT (when I’m visiting for a weekend). I took Peter Pan from the Port Authority to Hartford when I was looking for my missing SSD at a hotel in Newington only to find out, when I got home, it was in my room the entire time. Last time I took Peter Pan was in 2022 when I needed to get back to NYC from Boston. I was debating taking Amtrak or the bus and the bus turned out to be the cheapest option. I had some food with me so the ride wouldn’t be that bad. Only time I got to ride both the Boston T and NY Subway in the same day.
With green lights, Lindsey looks like she became The Mask like Jim Carrey did 😂! Bright green is a nice color, I can see why it's her favorite! Yeah as you mentioned, before the PABT there were multiple bus terminals in Midtown, some of which were part of hotels like the Hotel Astor Bus Terminal on West 45th and the Dixie Bus Center on 42nd Street, located on the ground floor of the Dixie Hotel (later Hotel Carter), opened in 1930 and operated until 1959. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had coach service aboard a ferry to the Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City that ran from an elegant bus terminal with a revolving bus turntable (which the Hotel Carter's terminal did as well) in the Chanin Building at 42nd and Lexington. Greyhound on the other hand had its own facility adjacent to Penn Station, and they didn't move to the PABT until 1963.
Besides the PABT, there's another bus terminal in Manhattan, the George Washington Bridge Bus Station in Washington Heights, which has NJT, jitneys, multiple MTA Bronx bus routes (on the streets below), and subway connections at 175th Street on the IND Eighth Ave Line and 181st St on the IRT Broadway-Seventh Ave Line. It opened in January 1963 with a design by Pier Luigi Nervi. Pier Luigi Nervi was from the Italian province of Sondrio. He also designed the Norfolk Scope arena in Norfolk, VA, the PalaLottomatica and Palazzetto dello Sport arenas in Rome (which hosted the 1960 Summer Olympics basketball tournament), Australia Square in Sydney (as a collab with Harry Seidler), UNESCO Headquarters in Paris (as part of a collab with Bernard Zehrfuss from France and Marcel Breuer from Hungary), Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco (collab with Pietro Belluschi), and the Paul VI Audience Hall which is part of the Vatican complex.
I assume Peter Pan is way better than Greyhound.
Glad the Circulator at Union Station came to the rescue, keeping transit running through the night should be a given because it comes in clutch for situations like that! Ah yes, the Port Authority Bus Terminal…with how much of a maze that place is, the Lumiose City music from Pokémon XY always plays in my head whenever I go through it 😂. Megabus on the other hand has their NYC bus stop by Hudson Yards. We took Megabus from NYC to Philly in December 2023 for a day trip and then took Amtrak NER back. We arrived an hour early for our 10:15 bus and the lady that was there at the stop was like "Oh we still have seats for the 9:15, if they don't show up, you can just get on" and while we initially took the offer, we noticed the windows looked very bad and it smelled quite bad too, so we got off. We also considered the fact we reserved upper deck front row seats in advance, and we didn't want those seats to go to waste.
Glad we waited because it would've changed the experience if we didn't. The views were wonderful, the bus wasn't crowded at all, got a landing shot at EWR, and we even arrived earlier than expected! NO traffic! That said, I think the government should step in when it comes to intercity buses. We are a huge country, we have united in our name, and yet it doesn't have the true connectivity that it deserves. Yes, there are politicians that care about trains, but having buses are just as important! Especially for the places the trains can't go, and it's especially great to have options that are cheap!
To visit the transit expo?
Thom, They're not coach buses, they are motorcoaches.
Well at least Peter Pan doesn't buy back his old magic flying powder from other fairies
For the fun of it, you want to try and review some of the luxury bus service (business class) that is available between the two cities. 🚌
Good to know! I guess it just depends on whre the bus terminals are relative to your needs, versus the Amtrak Acela terminals. The service looks pretty good.
New Englander here: I like Peter Pan, as far as bus lines go. They're usually my choice out of Boston to go to the Cape, parts of Connecticut, or the Berkshires. Their buses are usually pretty new, always clean and well maintained, the staff is fine, the schedules as reliable as they can be, and the website is easy to use and intuitive. Not to mention: each bus has a Peter Pan related name! They built a new bus terminal in Springfield as part of the Union Station revitalization project there (I have yet to visit), and with Boston doubling the size of its (already very nice!) bus terminal, I think (non-Greyhound) buses have a decent future. With MassDOT's upcoming Springfield-hubbed expansion of rail service between Boston, western Massachusetts, and Albany, I think they'll be in a good position to work off of that service and go to places that won't be served by the new rail service (the Hill Towns, the Pioneer Valley, the college towns, places in between stops, etc.)
Have a funny story about the PABT:
I was unaware of the lack of seating, and looking for a place to rest my tired feet (frustratingly difficult to find in NYC unless you buy something), I thought "Surely a bus station must have somewhere to sit." Not only was I dead wrong, but i somehow missed a "Ticketed Passengers Only" sign and went up an escalator to what turned out to be an empty bus bay. Of more immediate concern was the apparent lack of a way back down. So I did something I hadn't done since I was in grade school: I ran down the up escalator!
You’re right—Metra is the way to really fly!!! And you’re right again— buses are awesome too!!!!!
That’s an interesting type of bus there. I would take the train like pretty much always if it’s between NYC and DC though because I like that more too.
Thom, just think, Peter Pan Airlines, or Peter Pan Regional Rail, LOL!!!🤣🤣🤣🤣
NJ Transit runs a lot of services in there from local buses that travel to Fort Lee and back (ironically, not too far from the GWB bus station) to commuter buses that travel far down the Parkway. There is (or at least used to be) a Coach USA bus to Palmer Square in Princeton, which is a short walk from the Dinky terminus.
I’ve only taken buses from the top floor at PABT and at night, it can feel really sketchy, but I’ve never experienced anything except crazy long lines at the men’s rooms and urine being left places other than the restrooms. Lots of urine.
They seem to be several steps in quality/non-sketchieness above Greyhound. So I had an idea for a challenge of sorts. Try to get from Washington DC to NYC (or maybe even Boston) using nothing but metro and commuter trains and maybe the odd bus and no Amtrak (I think you have to use a bus to connect MARC to SEPTA, the gap between CTRail and MBTA is even bigger up north).
3:42 METRA should get you to do their commercials Thom!!😂😂🤣 I can say for at least in the Northeast you can go anywhere (within reason) by bus in a pinch . Sometimes it's good to do a road trip somewhere where YOU don't have to drive!!
Didn’t know Peter Pan went that far south.
As a Chicagoan I appreciate the Metra reference
I always find these northeast private bus lines interesting in how they operated. It both seems wild, but also makes sense to skip Philly. I assume they took the New Jersey Turnpike for the entire state then?
Metra the way to really fly
Love it, thanks for sharing
It was a Pleasure to drive you that night
I’m The driver in the Seat Peterpan Operator Raymond H
Interesting and informative, your "Peter Pan" video was an enjoyable excursion this evening at my desk here in Sanj Francisco. Nice work Thom. I too like bus travel having crisscrossed the USA several times on Greyhound and intrastate travel in Florida onboard Trailways. When I arrived in NYC at the Port Authority Bus Station when I was 17 back in 1965, I remember it being quite different from the place you recently filmed, but I was pleasantly shocked to have paid 15 cents for a large, fresh-squeezed. orange juice after having paid $1.50 for a small, reconstituted orange juice at the lunch counter in the Greyhound bus station in Tampa, FL.