I missed this announcement a few days ago. LoL, I feel like I'm the Megabus Ambassador cause I was the one to excitedly announce their arrival in Jax a couple years ago. But despite having used megabus many many times in the Northeast and Midwest, I've still never taken it from Jacksonville. That will probably change now that they've totally opened up the state. I've been waiting for this for awhile...havent checked the service schedule but I imagine I will probably be using this a good bit in the coming years. It's also nice that their business model has dictated expansion...presumably because it has proven successful.
http://us.megabus.com/Megabuscom%20expands%20service%20tofrom%20Florida.aspx
Quote• Miami, Tallahassee and Tampa latest cities to be served by daily express, city-to-city bus service with free Wi-Fi from $1
• Service begins May 15
• All tickets $1 for travel between May 15-21 to/from new cities
• Orlando becomes 14th hub in North America with route opening from Orlando to New Orleans
• Tickets from $1 can be purchased on megabus.com today in English or Spanish language
(April 30, 2014) – Megabus.com, the popular city-to-city, express bus company with fares from $1, today announced expansion to/from Miami, Tallahassee and Tampa, Florida. Additionally, megabus.com is opening a new route, connecting Orlando and New Orleans, with service through Gainesville and Tallahassee, Florida; as well as Mobile, Alabama. All services begin May 15 and tickets can be purchased at www.megabus.com today.
One-way fares always start at $1, plus a reservation fee, on every bus, every day. In celebration of the new service, all tickets purchased on megabus.com to or from the new cities (Miami, Tampa and Tallahassee) and new expansion route (from Orlando to either New Orleans or Mobile) will be $1, plus a reservation fee, for the first week of travel (May 15-21). On May 22, $1 tickets will continue to be offered daily on every bus, with the price increasing incrementally the closer it gets to the customer's desired departure date.
There will be seven daily departures/arrivals to/from Miami, six to/from Tampa and four to/from Tallahassee. In each service location, megabus.com provides service at or near a local intermodal transportation facility, providing customers with additional convenient, inexpensive local transportation options.
Adding service to the three additional cities has made Orlando the 14th megabus.com hub in North America as the company now serves more than 10 million customers annually in more than 120 cities. Across Florida, megabus.com now serves a total of six metro areas (Gainesville, Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando, Tallahassee and Tampa) home of more than 70 percent of Florida residents.
Megabus quality of service is heavily dependent on the area served. One region served may not have the same level of service as another. Service in and around NYC is considered the worse. The Midwest seems to do a lot better, especially out of Chicago Union Station.
Also know that Megabus has no "facilities". So if it is raining, snowing or in a deep freeze at the pick up/drop off area, be prepared to stand with your luggage or to get your luggage.
There have been reports of non-working or overflowed toilets on the buses, but these have been random, WiFi that is "on" but you are unable to connect to anything is more persistent. Not all buses have WiFi, especially if the Megabus branded bus was replaced by a substitute from Coach USA.
While they serve similar cities and have common stops in many of them, they do not guarantee connections. If your bus breaks down in Tupelo, MS and takes 3 hours to fix or replace, they don't make sure you make another bus that leaves from Memphis on time. You have to wait for the next one, even if that means an overnight.
You shouldn't consider Megabus as a Southwest Airlines replacement just slower. Megabus is a great point to point discount operator.
Your experiences may vary.
You are pretty much spot on with everything you said. Take home point is simply that YMMV as the service is not consistent around the country or even day-to-day.
Only slight point of discrepancy is that Megabus does serve some actual stations/facilities. The majority of its stops indeed are simply curbside near destination points, but not all. Washington DC stop is in Union Station. Boston, Toronto, Niagara Falls and Memphis have stops inside bus terminals. I'm sure there are others I don't know about. And at a decent number of curbside stops megabus has permission to use real buildings for bathrooms/seats (usually at college campuses). I clarify this point only to suggest that it's possible that if there were a JRTC someday integrated with multimodal options, megabus could be inclined to negotiate for space in such a facility. It also goes to reinforce the idea that YMMV.
Hence the conundrum over buses at the planned JTA Transportation hub.
Here is Tampa's response to Megabus;
Per the Tampa Business Journal
HART pleased to add MegaBus to expanded downtown terminal
(http://media.bizj.us/view/img/2585841/megabus*600xx1197-797-0-103.jpg)
The introduction of MegaBus routes from downtown Tampa to Orlando and Miami coincides with the recent completion of a new phase of the Marion Transfer Center near Morgan and Scott streets.
The wifi-equipped double-decker vehicles will have use of two bays at the new north platform of the MTC to accommodate three daily trips each to Orlando and Miami.
The MegaBus service launches from Tampa on May 15, featuring a tiered pricing structure where all trips start at $1.
Jeff Seward, CFO of the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, said he started exploring relationships with other Florida markets in anticipation of the terminal expansion.
"[Transit] agencies in Orlando and Miami worked out arrangement to provide space for revenue," he said. "So I contacted MegaBus and we worked out a deal."
MegaBus, which is owned by Coach USA, will pay HART $15,000 a year over five years, strictly for use of the bus bays. "It's not a great deal of money, but we don't have to do anything but provide the space," Seward said. "It'll give us revenue that we can use toward power washing, painting, replacing windows — aesthetic things that make the asset look better and last a little longer."
MTC has become a busy intermodal hub for Bus Rapid Transit in Tampa, as well as handling incoming buses from St. Petersburg.
"We always wanted to have an intercity service at the facility as well," Seward said, "and MegaBus will be providing it.
well there ya go ;) Thanks for sharing.
after looking at schedules I'm not so sure I'll be using this service much. if i didnt have to connect through orlando then I would absolutely be using it to go to tampa and miami fairly often.
keep in mind that MegaBus currently stops at the JTA Prime Osborn Skyway station....so it seems likely that the bus would continue to stop there as the transportation center develops.
The MegaBus routes in Florida are a bit of a puzzle to me. It seems like they should send a bus to Miami and to Tallahassee from Jacksonville. Perhaps someday they will. JAX to NOLA would be useful. :)
I wish there were other stops out of Jacksonville. Why not a Jacksonville, New Orleans leg?
as an answer to both questions above, MegaBus works on a hub and spoke system. Orlando is the new hub. Prior to that, Jacksonville and Orlando were served from the Atlanta hub, which was a bit of a stretch. So Jax to New Orleans would definitely be out of reach.
good point, TUFSU, but if the demand is there it should be noted they do create service that bypasses hubs. One of the new routes announced is Tampa-Miami, which bypasses the Orlando "hub." Dallas is the hub of its region but Austin, Houston, and SA all have direct service. Here's an outdated map that already shows a few other examples, but it doesn't have some including the Austin-Houston route I mentioned. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/MegabusNorthAmericaMap.svg)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/MegabusNorthAmericaMap.svg
Ultimately, if demand were strong then Jax-Miami could happen. But it's doubtful. The best I am hoping for anytime soon is simply a way to buy the ticket all the way through to Miami or Tampa, and just having a stop in Orlando without having to get off the bus. Currently thats not even an option.
When I booked my first Megabus trip just a little over 2 1/2 years ago, it didn't have anything in Florida or Georgia yet. It's new territory. Yeah, Jax only has 2 direct destinations so far, but you can only get 4 places from the country's second city (Los Angeles) currently, too. All of that's likely to change in due time.
I think there are 2 things in Jax's favor:
1.) Megabus now serves places in multiple directions from Jax. It's less on the edge of the serviced region now. Opening up the peninsula adds a lot of population and a lot of density to Megabus's Southeast operations, and Jax is right in the middle of that.
2.) The existence of major hubs in the more established regions hasn't left the in-between cities with nowhere to go. Chicago has 30 direct destinations, New York 33, Atlanta 28, and DC 17, but in between these are numbers that Jax should be happy to match: Indianapolis 7, Cincinnati 10, Columbus 10, Cleveland 12, Richmond 8, Buffalo 15, Baltimore 10, Durham 8, Memphis 9, Lexington 8, Knoxville 11, Chattanooga 12.
I don't see Jax being stuck with only Atlanta and Orlando connections for very long, especially because I don't see South Florida being hidden from the rest of the country behind bus transfers in Tampa and Orlando for very long. Currently Florida is connected to the rest of the country via only Atlanta and New Orleans. That naturally bypasses Jax just as I-75 does. But as soon as they connect Florida to NY or DC or even just the Carolinas, Jax will be a part of that, whether Orlando, Tampa, and/or Miami is the reason the route is created.
As for westward, I'm not sure. The New Orleans route that comes as close as Gainesville and Orlando kind of stings, but it's also possibly a good sign. It's not like Amtrak is going to revive that corridor anytime soon, and it's good that Megabus even thought of that route as one of its first in Florida. If Megabus has a route going up I-95, there will be much more incentive to connect an I-10-oriented corridor to it in Jax.
They just added the state's 2 largest metro areas... let's see how demand changes things for the whole state and for Jax in the next few years.