I’m a regular on some transit boards. Every once in a while someone will drop by and post a variation of “I need to get from A to B, is this possible?” In most cases if both places are served by public inter-city transport the answer is yes, so the real question is “how painful/time-consuming this?” In tonight’s thought experiment A is Milwaukee, Wisconsin while B is New Bern, North Carolina.

Where are we going?

Wikipedia tells us that New Bern is the birthplace of Pepsi, near Cape Lookout and a good 90-100 miles from major hubs like Raleigh and Wilmington. Hipmunk (if you’ve never messed around with Hipmunk, stop reading now and go do so) tells us that the Coastal Carolina Regional Airport is a stone’s throw from New Bern, and serves multiple major airlines with multiple departures. Greyhound’s System Timetables (another invaluable resource) tell us that New Bern sits a line between Raleigh and Myrtle Beach and sees two buses a day.

How do we get there?

Let’s start by asking Google Maps about the shortest distance between the two points. While public transport networks don’t (always) map to road networks this method can suggest possibilities that route planners don’t. Google Maps suggests two routes:

  1. Milwaukee-Chicago-Indianapolis-Dayton-Charleston-Greensboro-Raleigh-New Bern
  2. Milwaukee-Chicago-Fort Wayne-Columbus-Charleston-Greensboro-Raleigh-New Bern
The first thing you’ll notice is that neither of these maps well to Amtrak’s system map. Amtrak’s skeletal system will send you either to Washington (via the Capitol Limited) or Richmond (via the Cardinal and a bus connection).  Further, you can’t make a same-day connection in either of these places with Amtrak’s two Raleigh-bound trains, the Carolinian and the Silver Star.

The shortest distance between two points…

I’d say that there are three kinds of advice you can receive in a situation like this:

  1. Clueless advice.
  2. Bad advice.
  3. Good advice.

Clueless advice is someone who only knows how to use trip planners, and concludes that it can’t be done because of the day layover in Washington. Bad advice comes from someone who knows about the layover and, per the Dunning-Kruger Effect, thinks they’re giving good advice. That person says: take the night in Washington, catch the train to Raleigh or Selma-Smithfield the next day, and then take the bus. This is bad advice, because it overlooks something very, very important: the last bus to New Bern from Raleigh leaves after the earliest possible train arrival in Raleigh. If you take this person’s advice you’re spending the night in Raleigh as well.

Good advice is given by someone who checked on this possibility and realized that taking the train to North Carolina is a no-op and should be avoided. Instead, we need to work with Greyhound’s network as well and figure out how to get to New Bern faster, avoiding the overnight in Raleigh.  Greyhound will sell you a ticket to New Bern from Washington via Richmond and Raleigh. Your first bus leaves Washington at 7:35 PM. Your transfers are at 10:20 PM (Richmond–two hours layover) and 2:50 AM (Raleigh–two hours layover). This trades two hotel stays for a single awful night in buses and bus stations and an arrival in New Bern an entire day sooner.

(As an aside, even better advice is to take that Delta flight from Milwaukee to New Bern via Atlanta, which takes a total of six hours with the layover and is about $400 round-trip. Sometimes the answer is flying unless you’ve got no choice.)

Rounding it all up…

The poster didn’t say why s/he was going from Milwaukee to New Bern, and why s/he considered going by train. If you have business in Washington, for instance, then spending the night could make sense. If you have friends in Raleigh maybe you don’t mind the hotel stay there. Knowing how transit systems connect with each other can save you a day and some real aggravation.