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As It Turns Out, The Chinatown Bus Was Just As Bad As We Always Thought It Was

We knew it was awful, but we loved it in its own special way. And now, our love has been taken from us. According to the Inquirer, New Century Travel, Inc. (also known as The Chinatown Bus) has been shut down in a sweeping crackdown on bus safety. The issues with the Chinatown bus included such issues as, “drivers without valid licenses or medical certifications, buses with uninspected brakes, tires and lights, and drivers who did not get mandatory rest periods.” You know, minor stuff.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 31st, 2012 at 1:01 pm.

  • LB

    The CTB is/was fine, asshole.   go greyhound ny/phl and compare.   and while shutdown is mildly amusing to traveling blipsters, its likely crushing to the commuting worker, and probably hits the working asian community disproportionately hard.   

  • Claude M. Schrader

    the last time I rode one you could feel the warped rotors every time he hit the brakes. Amazingly I made it back to philly in one piece. what a nightmare

  • Zom

    insert Asian driver comment here

  • Eaxjunk

    the last time i took the chinatown bus was to a lady gaga concert in new york in 2008. we got there relatively unscathed, though i should mention we stopped in random fields to pick up bewildered asians. it was on the way back however that made me think these buses were kind of sketchy. not only did our ticket prices jump from $1 to $7 (my friend’s from $1 to $8) but there was this woman who kept screaming DC! DC! BOSTON! DC! Our bus came 2 hours late, stopped in the nyc metro bus zone, was subsequently told off by angry new yorker, and returned… TWO HOURS LATER. yes, it took us 4 hours to catch a bus on a saturday to philly. oh and they smell like crap.

  • http://twitter.com/chopsaw jamais

    i used to semi-commute to NY for somewhat freelance odd jobs and just visiting.  i always took new century.  seemed like things were looking good when 2 years ago they finally got a storefront in NYC instead of just dropping you off in the middle of east broadway.  decent place too as far as chinatown bus stops go.  (it used to be ‘look for the lady yelling with a unreadable sign for DC, or PHILA!’)  however, last time i took it – couple months ago- they had relocated to a different (smaller) storefront which was a little worrysome, but this kind of sucks (their prices may have gone up as well).  i mean, yeah, okay – they are pretty much courting disaster with their licenses and lack of breaks, safety, etc, but it was cheap and convenient and it suited my needs perfectly, and i knew what to expect most of all.  

    after reading the article looks like Apex was also shutdown.  there was one other one, wasn’t there?  

    honestly i hate megabus, crowded and overhyped/priced (could never get tickets far enough in advance to be cheaper than chinatown). greyhound is okay sometimes, and craptactular others.  also – i never have a need to go all the way to the port authority.  ever have to get to the greyhound station at 3am?  it sucks.  

  • Anon

    when people misuse the word “random” I stop listening.

  • Amarikah

    The last time we took the Chinatown bus, my husband had to sit in the three seater in the back next to a couple. Over the course of the trip, he realized out they had just met  at the station and the gentleman was treating his new lady friend to porn on his portable DVD player with my husband sitting on the other side of them the whole time. For the next trip, we took Megabus and were treated on the Noon Sunday return to a St. Joe’s frat boy who had puked his pants the night before and so was walking around the top level in borrowed sport shorts and a dress shirt drinking road sodas and loudly mocking the women around him. At one point he fell down the double decker steps.

    I’d call this a wash.

  • thegreengrass

    Amtrak ftw.