Liveblogging the Megabus #5
It is bumper-to-bumper traffic in the tunnel under the Hudson River, but it appears the bus will arrive on-time — 10:35 am — at Penn Station, or even a few minutes early. Scheduled at 4 hours and 20 minutes, this trip is about 95 minutes longer, but $131 less expensive, than Amtrak’s Acela.
Liveblogging the Megabus #4
Still in Maryland, not yet halfway to New York, the bus gets off the freeway — for a weigh station? Yes, we pass through the station along with the trucks. It only adds a minute or two to the journey, but . . . why? I’ve never seen buses have to stop at weigh stations […]
Liveblogging the Megabus #3
The old model bus system (such as Greyhound) would run a bus from New York to Washington, stopping at perhaps Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, WIlmington, and Baltimore along the way. Most bus stations were downtown, so each stop required lengthy trips through traffic to and from the station. In contrast, the new model bus system (Megabus, […]
Liveblogging the Megabus #2
The I-95 corridor is supposed to be heavily congested, and it is no wonder. Here we have the most densely populated corridor in the U.S. and it is served by a freeway that is mostly just six lanes. Moreover, the lanes are distinctly narrower than freeway lanes that I am used to in the West […]
Live Blogging the Megabus
As has been widely reported, the Antiplanner is taking the Megabus to New York City today. I’ve been on the Megabus before from New York to Washington, but this is my first trip in the other direction. Taking Megabus at a cost of $8 cost the Antiplanner an extra hour of sleep but saved Fox […]
Hiking Up the South Sister
Last week’s weather report for this past weekend (October 23-24) predicted snow in the mountains, so Thursday, October 21, was my last opportunity this year to hike up the South Sister (also known as Charity). At 10,363 feet, the South Sister is the third highest mountain in Oregon and the highest you can hike without […]
Postcards from Asia
My visit to Korea was courtesy of the Korean Institute of Public Administration (KIPA), which asked me to speak at a conference on “Conflict Management and Collaborative Governance.” Apparently, since Korea became a democracy in 1987, people have expressed their new-found freedom by protesting and debating all sorts of things, conflicts that one analyst estimates […]
Report from Japan
On Monday, the Antiplanner rode a high-speed train from Tokyo to Nagano, probably the most expensive high-speed rail route in the world. According to one source, it cost more than half a billion dollars per mile in 1997 dollars, no doubt because much of the route is in tunnels. The train I was on was […]
Report from Seoul
Even smart-growth planners believe, or say they believe, that Le Corbusier‘s Radiant City would be an awful place to live. If you agree, then Seoul is a scary place, as much of it consists of hundreds of high-rise apartment blocks. Seoul occupies less than 2 percent of Korea’s land area but contains 40 percent of […]
Crater Lake User Fees
The Antiplanner’s Ride Around Crater Lake Three Times in One Day (RACLTTOD) went well. My brother Richard joined me for all three laps, his wife Carin for two, and the Antiplanner’s faithful ally (and sometimes commenter) Andy Stahl for two. With two 2-mile detours to Cloud Cap overlook, Richard and I did a total of […]
RACLTTOD
Probably no more posts this week as the Antiplanner is heading down to Crater Lake for RACLTTOD–Ride Around Crater Lake Three Times in One Day. The Crater Lake rim road is about 33 miles around with about 3,800 feet of elevation gain. Three laps, with a couple of side trips to a point called Cloud […]
Budget Maximization & Walkin’ Jim
I have a friend who needs my help, and I hope some of my readers will help him too. Back in 1985, the Antiplanner worked exclusively for environmental groups like the Sierra Club and Wilderness Society, reviewing Forest Service plans and helping environmentalists understand how the Forest Service worked. My research showed that the Forest […]
