Q: Hey Ace, I love Charlottesville and all, but sometimes you just need to get out of town and into the real center of the universe. I’m talking about the city so nice they named it twice, New York, New York. What’s the best way to get from here to there?—Manny Hattan
A: The lights, the sights, the peeing in the streets. Ace misses New York sometimes, too, Manny. In fact, on one visit, he waited at a crosswalk next to Dr. Ruth Westheimer herself. That was a sexy trip! In the spirit of giving and receiving, Ace is happy to share with you several current options for getting to the Big Apple, and even happier to tell you about another one on the way.
Ace confirmed with developer Oliver Kuttner (who spearheaded Downtown’s Terraces project, among others) that he’s working on a new fancy-dancy bus line to EnWhySee, which he hopes to get on the road sometime this year. Kuttner says few details have been nailed down, but since he’s a racecar builder Ace can at least guarantee it’ll be a hell of a ride.
Until then, however, there are more pedestrian forms of public transport. For the high-flying set, The Charlottesville-Albemarle Regional Airport sends several airplanes to New York through its main airline, US Airways. You can grab a nonstop flight to New York’s LaGuardia Airport three times daily Mondays through Fridays, at 6:45am, 11:55am and 4:25pm, or twice daily on weekends, at the same morning times. At a mere hour and 40 minutes from takeoff to landing, it’s by far the fastest way to get there. And let’s not forget those nummy peanuts. But it’ll cost ya anywhere from $334 to $700 round trip (depending on how early you book tickets).
Amtrak offers a somewhat cheaper alternative, with two express trains leaving the Charlottesville railroad stop on W. Main Street daily at 7:05am and 4:21pm, both of which pull into a stop at Penn Station. Round-trip tickets run $178 for coach or $505 for a sleeper cabin, which you very well may need for the roughly seven-hour trek.
But that ain’t got nothin’ on the marathon trip you’d take on Greyhound. There’s no express service bus available until after Washington, D.C., so expect stops at every ’ville and ’burg between here and the nation’s capital. Three buses headed the New York way leave the Charlottesville Greyhound station on W. Main daily, at 9am, 12:40pm and 8:15pm. The bus line estimates an eight-hour travel time to New York’s scenic Port Authority. As someone who’s taken that trip several times, Ace can tell you to prepare for more like 10 to 12 soul-deadening hours. But the price is right: At only $58 for a round-trip ticket, that leaves plenty of bucks to blow on miniature statues of Liberty and falafel from sidewalk vendors.