Bolt from DC to NYC for $1...

Just read about this in today's Washington Post--after seeing my first one the other day on DC streets and wondering, to someone I know, what's that? Turns out, a new service from Greyhound based on RyanAir-type cheap seats. Prices run from $1 to $20, depending on when you book your seat. Service takes about four hours from New York to Washington, DC or vice versa. First reviews from Marc Fisher at the Post are very good:

The Bolt is a spanking new orange and black coach--so new it has the most intense new car smell I've ever sniffed--that pulls up to the southeast corner of 11th and G streets NW 12 minutes early. (It will pull out two minutes early, another impressive touch.) The driver, dressed in a neat, form-fitting Bolt Bus black sweater and a black uni, just glances at the boarding pass you've printed out at home and you're on your way. Service started last week, so I guess the fact that there were a grand total of six people on my midday trip to New York is not necessarily a sign of lack of customer interest.

On my trip, three of the six passengers chose Bolt because its buses offer wireless service all along the route (though a couple of folks complained that the reception was slow--hey, for a buck, hold the whining.) All of us chose Bolt because of the price. One woman, a student at the University of Maryland, said she picked Bolt because "I heard it's owned by Peter Pan/Greyhound, so it's reputable-ish."

Only two of us got the $1 fare (there's a 50-cent booking fee online, which is the main way to buy Bolt seats). The others paid $5 or $7, except for the one walk-on, who paid $20, which is still less than Greyhound and less than a third the cost of a regional Amtrak train around the same time of day. Bolt uses a Southwest Airlines-style fare system in which a few seats on each trip are sold at ludicrously cheap levels and the prices bump up a notch or two as more seats sell and as the time before the trip diminishes. But the service's highest fares remain competitive with the Chinatown buses and cheaper than real Greyhound (which these days offers a $22 web-only one-way fare to New York.)

The Bolt bus was sparkling clean with black velour seats and heavily tinted windows.While there were three flat-screen TVs on board, luckily they were not in operation. Indeed, our driver told us that while "we usually say to please keep conversation to a minimum so you don't disturb your neighbors, today you can do whatever you want" because there were so few of us and we were spread all around the bus. I used three rows for my various paraphernalia.

We made it to 33rd Street on Manhattan's West Side in three hours and fifty two minutes--eight minutes longer than an Amtrak local train I took on the way home and 25 minutes shorter than the scheduled time for Greyhound's D.C.-NYC run. It was a remarkably smooth ride, with a courteous and friendly driver who helped folks with their luggage. And best of all, Bolt, unlike some of its competitors, makes no potty stop--just a nonstop Bolt to the big city. Anytime I'm on a Chinatown bus that makes a pit stop, I cross that company off my list.