By Marc Fisher, Steve Hendrix, Peter Carlson and Gary Lee
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, April 25, 2001

Once upon a time, like last year, if you had to get from Washington to New York, you went by plane if you had big money, by train if you had plenty of time, by car if you had a deep personal need for masochistic experiences, and by bus if you had nothing at all.

Now, everything has changed. Amtrak's new Acela Express train travels nonstop between Union and Penn stations in 2 hours 28 minutes, almost half an hour off the former rail champion, the Metroliner. And the E-ZPass -- the plastic transponder you attach to your windshield so you can speed through toll booths while guffawing at suckers waiting in endless lines -- slices a good 20 minutes off the drive, and much more on trying holiday weekends. Imagine: Better living through technology!

To test the new world of East Coast Metroplex commuting, The Post sent four reasonably willing reporters to New York, by US Airways shuttle (Peter Carlson), Acela Express (Steve Hendrix), car (Marc Fisher) and Peter Pan bus (Gary Lee). The race commenced in pitch darkness at 6:15 on a weekday morning at the Post building in downtown Washington and ended at the paper's New York bureau on West 57th Street.

We were under no illusions that this was an even race. Clearly, planes move faster than buses; even newspaper reporters understood that much. But the hype artists at Amtrak argue that in a door-to-door matchup, Acela is competitive with the air shuttles. And at least one of us strongly believed that a nonstop driver could beat the train and, with a boost from some of those patented LaGuardia Airport "volume delays," perhaps even the plane. As for the bus, well, it's cheap.

So who won?

We could focus on the horse race, but that would be wrong. In fact, what we had here was really a test of four modes for speed, comfort and overall satisfaction.

The only way he could lose, he figured, would be to miss the 7 a.m. shuttle, which, as he stood in the pre-dawn drizzle trying to hail a cab, began to seem fairly likely. There weren't many cabs on 15th Street at 6:15 in the morning -- or at 6:20, or 6:25. Several drove right past him, but one finally stopped and Air Man made it to the US Airways shuttle building by 6:40, whereupon he made like O.J. to the gate.

The plane landed right on time at 8. After a long, slow taxi to the terminal, we arrived at 8:08. I did another mad dash out of the airport and hopped into a cab at 8:15. As soon as my butt hit the seat, the meter read $2.00. Welcome to New York!

The cab lurched through traffic, arriving on 57th Street at 8:40, whereupon we crept, we crawled. Finally, at 8:53, I paid the cabby $24 and jumped out at Sixth Avenue, hoofing the last block to The Post's bureau, arriving at 8:57.

Elapsed time: 2 hours 42 minutes.

Train Man almost missed the Acela because he stayed at the Post building to gloat over Air Man helplessly flailing his arms at taxis. But at 6:20, Train Man jogged over to the Farragut North Metro station, made his way to Union Station and hit the platform with four minutes to spare.

Train Man reports that the Acela may look like a toppled rocket, but at precisely 6:50, it took off more like a royal sedan chair, a slow smooth rollout into the rain with nary a herk or a jerk. By 7:05, we had cleared the D.C. clutter and were clacking along at speed. I got up for train travel's greatest luxury: a walk.

The Acela doesn't actually travel any faster than other passenger trains -- 125 mph is the speed limit for all trains between Washington and New York. But the Acela can maintain higher speeds on the curves than the older rigs.

When I told the train crew I was competing in this race, they started plying me with advice, shortcuts to the subway, even which escalators at Penn Station were the least crowded. They wanted me to win.

At 9:20, the Acela nosed into the slip at Penn Station. Outside, the taxi line was horrendous. But Train Man had an ace to play; while strolling through the Acela, he had happened upon an executive of a certain capital city newspaper, a train partisan who had a car waiting in New York.

Train Man hitched a ride and scooted uptown. Half a block from the finish line, he bailed out and ran the last leg.

Up the elevator and down the hall, I burst into the Post bureau looking at my watch and yelling, "9:36! 9:36!"

But Air Man had already been there for 39 minutes. Elapsed time: 3 hours 21 minutes.

Car Man, meanwhile, had taken advantage of his head start. While the others made their way across Washington to reach their modes of transportation, Car Man zoomed through the dark, up 16th Street NW, past a drug dealer doing business in the open at Harvard Street. Twelve minutes and nine red lights to the District line, 17 minutes to the Beltway, which was blessedly empty at 6:31.

Fighting annoying drizzle, then heavy rain, he moved through Baltimore and its suburbs traffic-free. He passed two troopers in Maryland, but they seemed not to mind his liberal interpretation of the speed limit.

The E-ZPass did him no good at the long lines at Maryland's two tolls; the Free State insists on its own incompatible transponder system. But Delaware cooperates with states to the north, and the pass saved probably five to seven minutes there.

Ach! Car Man reports. I knew I would hit someone's morning rush, and it turns out to be Delaware's. (Isn't it too small a state to have a rush hour?) Standstill traffic hits at 7:47, and I creep all the way to the bridge to New Jersey -- a 10-minute setback.

Despite the weather, Car Man made fine time, scooting through E-ZPass lanes on the New Jersey Turnpike at 45 mph, past dozens of waiting cars, arriving at the Holland Tunnel (the radio reported massive backups at the Lincoln, far less of a wait at the Holland) at 9:29.

Manhattan traffic was light, and Car Man arrived at a garage one block from the finish line at 9:57. He ditched the car, ran the last block and entered the bureau at 10:03 -- 27 minutes behind Train Man. Elapsed time: 3 hours 48 minutes.

Bus Man, at that moment, was still somewhere in New Jersey. His 7 a.m. Peter Pan coach had been scheduled to arrive in New York at 11:20.

Oh, sure, Bus Man had muttered to himself on his way to the terminal on Capitol Hill. On several earlier bus trips, the estimated 4 1/2-hour journey had taken far longer due to traffic snarls or other snafus. One steamy August evening, mechanical failure had forced a Greyhound into a dismal shopping mall somewhere off the Jersey Turnpike. That trip lasted 6 1/2 nerve-racking hours. So I knew I was the tortoise pitted against three hares. Winning would take a freak of nature or a miracle.

Bus Man gave himself 25 minutes to get to the bus terminal via Metro and foot. He arrived at the terminal at 6:34, only to find 12 other people ahead of him in the ticket queue. He didn't reach the agent until 6:53. He galloped over to the bus, only to hear the driver bark, "We're full up. The rest of you will have to wait for the next bus out."

Boom -- a one-hour delay. So much for a miracle. But the 8 o'clock nonstop got going right on time. "We'll be arriving in New York at 12:20," the driver, a burly silver-haired matron, announced over the loudspeaker. "Or thereabouts."

When we pulled into Port Authority terminal, it was 11:50. Yes! A full half-hour ahead of schedule. Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I made haste through the crowded terminal, upstairs and down the corridor to the A Train.

Bus Man arrived at 12:10 -- 5 hours 55 minutes after he left Washington. Even if he had gotten on the 7 a.m. bus, he still would have been more than an hour behind Car Man.

The Acela wins this one easily. Acela cars, unlike other trains, are bolted together for shudder-free starts and stops. New and spotless, the train has the clean, efficient look of those high-tech public toilets in cities like Copenhagen and Oslo. The dining car is as bright and roomy as a SoHo sushi bar. A TV is tuned for stock market jockeys, the right programming for a train full of laptops and cell phones. With sparse crowds, the express train has no line for coffee and muffins. There's always a roomy lavatory to be had. In fact, demand is so light on the express train that, on Monday, Amtrak will add a single stop -- and two minutes to the run -- to pick up more fares in Philadelphia.

The bus makes a surprisingly strong showing here. As Bus Man notes, low cost should not be confused with shabbiness. With two well-cushioned, comfortably reclining seats to himself, Bus Man takes in great views of Baltimore, Philadelphia and other scenic points. Thoroughly vacuumed and swept overnight, the bus is neat and tidy. Even the toilet is clean. And there are no screaming babies, loud teenagers, boomboxes or other noisemakers.

By comparison, the shuttle ride is an exercise in agita. Despite the ludicrous hour, Air Man faces a line at the check-in counter, where a guy in a dark pinstriped suit elbows him out of the way with his briefcase and cuts in front of our reporter.

Air Man: The New York to Washington shuttle is the crosstown bus of America's ruling elite, and these guys are cutthroat competitors, even before dawn. I boarded, squeezed into a middle seat and glanced around for famous people. No luck. Just a lot of dark suits, white shirts and male pattern baldness. Soon the flight attendants came by and tossed me a bag. There was a bagel in it. Well, sort of a bagel. A Presbyterian bagel, near kin to Wonder Bread.

In the car, you can eat whatever you can stuff into one hand. Except that Car Man was committed to a nonstop drive, which put a practical limit on the volume of refreshments that could be consumed.

The car has the advantage of privacy, meaning you can shriek at the passing world, hurl your trash on the floor, crank up the radio -- whatever makes the hours go by. The D.C.-N.Y.C. route passes through some decent radio territory, most notably the eclectic music of WXPN (88.5 FM in Philadelphia), the free-form stylings of WFMU (91.1 in northern New Jersey), jazz great WBGO (88.3 in Newark), hot talker New Jersey 101.5 along the turnpike, and the nation's original, still best all-news station, WINS (1010 AM in the Apple).

But sitting for four hours without a break is inevitably tiresome. Whatever the distractions, you're still stuck in the car.

• The air shuttle may be the world's least romantic mode of travel, but if you've got money and you're in a hurry, it works.

• The automobile is neither fast nor easy, but it's yours. It offers the illusion of affordability -- with E-ZPass, you need hardly ever reach into your pocket. But 24 hours in a New York garage is easily $50, and can top $100.

• Door to door, the bus trip cost all of $42.60, which can't be beat. The chance to read, chat and sleep are big pluses, too, but the time investment is considerable.

Final overall results: Train, plane, car, bus.