Jaunted is always in the midst of a public transportation celebration. Join us in celebrating the ultimate travel tool: a cheap way to get around. Share your stories in the comments or by emailing us at tips [at] jaunted [dot] com.
The St. Charles Avenue Streetcar is back in New Orleans, and while it still doesn't ply its whole route, the city and tourists are glad its back. The current 6.5-mile stretch rolls west through the city making excursions from the French Quarter easier than hailing a taxi.
The St. Charles line runs as far west as Napoleon Avenue, in the heart of the Garden District. (Construction to extend service beyond Napoleon is ongoing.) The other end point is Canal Street, down by the river and the ferry dock, in the Central Business District. From there, you can catch the more touristy Riverfront Line, which, you guessed it, chugs east through the Quarter along the Mississippi.
What to do besides simply enjoying a ride on the classic rolling stock? The best Magazine Street shops are in the Garden District, a few blocks south of St. Charles Avenue. And you can find some great restaurants in the Warehouse District--like La Boca and Emeril's--between the streetcar line and the river.
Jaunted is always in the midst of a public transportation celebration. Join us in celebrating the ultimate travel tool: a cheap way to get around. Share your stories in the comments or by emailing us at tips [at] jaunted [dot] com. Today's tale comes from Annabel in London.
The infamous London Underground. Perpetrator of the much-maligned "Mind the Gap" catch-cry, from the announcement that you'll hear every time you board the train and see brandished across tourist shop t-shirts throughout the city.
But that's not the worst of the underground. Used by by 3 million passengers every day, it's not uncommon for Londoners to stand for the duration of their daily commute and experience frequent delays caused by signal failures, staff shortages or "a person under the train". (That being the morbid euphemism for suicide that the driver won't hesitate to announce to all on board.)
Passengers and staff alike are prone to distress when riding the tube, with drivers and station workers addressing commuters over the loudspeaker like Catholic school nuns dealing with naughty pupils. "Please allow passengers to get off the train first!," barked the exasperated driver of my train a couple of weeks ago. When the bulk of passengers clambered aboard anyway, the driver sighed and muttered, "Go on then, pack yourself in like sardines, see if I care. I'm going home," much to the amusement of those of us left on the crowded platform.
Overheating, overcrowding, crotchety staff, delays, strikes and fumes; the London Underground is a hectic experience but you should experience it at least once. After that, you can investigate the city's bus routes.
Jaunted is always in the midst of a public transportation festival. Join us in celebrating the ultimate travel tool: a cheap way to get around. Share your stories in the comments or by emailing us at tips [at] jaunted [dot] com.
Seoul South Korea's subway system will introduce women-only cars in 2008 to make rides more comfortable and free of gropers, according to subway officials.
Sexual crimes happen frequently when the cars are packed and people are pressed against each other."
Nearly half the crimes reported on the city's eight subway lines are of the frisky variety, with many taking place on two lines that serve university and office districts. Female only train cars are not a first, several Tokyo train lines have recently tried women-only carriages to prevent groping.
Hmm. And we thought all this talk of Japanese and Korean gropers was a travel myth perpetuated by tourists unfamiliar with the perils of crowded subway cars. Looks like we were wrong. Now if Seoul could only help us figure out what has to be one of the world's most confusing subway maps.
Jaunted is always in the midst of a public transportation festival. Join us in celebrating the ultimate travel tool: a cheap way to get around. Share your stories in the comments or by emailing us at tips [at] jaunted [dot] com.
The difference between Portland and Seattle can be summed up in their respective streetcars.
In Seattle you ride the SLUT, while in Portland you board a shiny, new, beautiful, clean streetcar.
Portland Streetcar started in 2001, running from the Portland State University campus, north through the Pearl District, out to NW 23rd, then back to PSU. In 2005 the southern end of the street car line was extended down past RiverPlace to the South Waterfront, which also serves the Oregon Health & Science University.
As for fares, allegedly, the streetcar is $1.75 for a two zone ride, however, almost all of the downtown stops are in what is called "Fareless Square", so paying for a Portland Streetcar ride is increasingly rare.
However, just because Portland Streetcar is beautiful and mostly free doesn't mean she won't cost you. The line has also been dubbed "The Screechcar" because of its high-pitched electric motor hum and nasal female voice used in sponsored stop announcements such as, "SW Moody at Gaines sponsored by Residence Inn by Marriott". Don't worry though, Portland Streetcar doesn't sport a Brooklyn accent.
Jaunted is in the midst of a public transportation festival. Join us in celebrating the ultimate travel tool: a cheap way to get around. Share your stories in the comments or by emailing us at tips [at] jaunted [dot] com.
And so there I was, standing in the arrivals terminal of Copenhagen Airport. My girlfriend had invited me to visit Denmark over the December holiday. We were walking through the arrivals hall like post-trans-Atlantic-flight zombies, looking for her uncle. Then there he was. "Hi, Nezam," I said as we piled into his Citroen. It would be one of only two car rides I took in the next month.
I mean, why would we take the car? It was a bitch to park the thing, and gas probably cost more than beer, which in Denmark is--sadly--expensive. So the girlfriend and I would take the bus or the metro to get where we needed to go.
Actually, I should rephrase that. I would take the metro, since she decided to ditch me the minute we started staying with her family in Copenhagen. There I was, in Europe, trying to be the gracious guest of someone who apparently no longer cared about me. The newly-opened metro was my only buddy.
Sleek beyond all get-out, sexy and there when I needed it, the subway reminded me of my girlfriend when she was on the other side of the pond. I lived for the automated voice on board the driverless trains, "Naeste Station: Kongens Nytorv." That's where I'd get out and transfer to the bus. I lived to hear that sweet voice as the metro glided toward my stop. The only thing that killed me is that I'd be going home not to her, but to my lover.
Jaunted is in the midst of a public transportation festival. Join us in celebrating the ultimate travel tool: a cheap way to get around. Share your stories in the comments or by emailing us at tips [at] jaunted [dot] com.
At least four different kinds of public transportation cross St. Petersburg, Russia, on a daily basis. But if you really want to experience the Russian soul, you have to take the metro -- luckily, it's also the easiest to use in the city.
It is said that Peter the Great's Baltic legacy stands on the bones of the workers who tried to construct a city on this swampy piece of marshland. (Something had to hold the Hermitage up!) City planners responded by tunneling deep underneath the city to build the metro, and compensating for the corresponding darkness and dankness by giving many metro stops an individualized flair, from glass pillars to marble columns and iron grillwork.
Taking the long escalators into or out of the metro is a great way to see rank-and-file Russians -- and they're expecting you to look. While in other cities people seek anonymity by dropping their eyes or pretending to concentrate on their books or CD players, there is no Russian pastime like staring at the people on the other side of the escalator, especially during rush hour. It's a great way to see what you should be wearing in order to blend in with the crowds. And once you've emerged into the sunlight, treat yourself to a delicious huichin pastry (a Georgian treat which resembles a potato-stuffed croissant) and an armload of pirated CDs at one of the impromptu open-air markets that have sprung up outside the stations.
Feel shy about taking photographs in this former Communist town? Just be discreet; the town is much more used to tourists and their shutter-happy ways than it once was. And watch out for the bands of little kids who will materialize from nowhere when you pull the camera out and "offer" to take your picture. Suffice to say, they don't really care about getting you a good shot.
Jaunted is in the midst of a public transportation festival. Join us in celebrating the ultimate travel tool: a cheap way to get around. Share your stories in the comments or by emailing us at tips [at] jaunted [dot] com.
In most cities the public transit system is like a skeleton: It's always there, and more noticed in its absence than in regular operation. Perhaps the city of Madrid was hoping to save its cheap, clean subway system from such a fate when the local Telemadrid television station created "Metro a Metro," a game show that makes the metro system its playing board.
The game starts with four players racing to get to one pre-determined metro stop by answering trivia questions. The furthest away is eliminated, and then the map changes and they're racing to a different stop. In the finale, participants go head-to-head to answer 15 trivia questions in a minute. "Metro a Metro" loved to ask about the often obscure names of the subway stops; it's from there that I learned my own stop, Islas Filipinas, was named in honor of an ambassadorial visit. Sometimes co-host Carla Hidalgo would shoot live footage around Madrid for the questions.
When I lived in Madrid I used to come home every day after class and watch "Metro a Metro" with my host dad, a guy who knew pretty much all the answers. My only chance was with the pop culture questions, and then only when I could translate them fast enough. I used the Metro constantly, even though it closed during the all-important party hours between 2 and 6 a.m.; it had just been spiffed up for the city's bid to host the 2010 Olympics (it lost, sadly). You can even take it directly to the airport -- hear that, New York? Too bad no cunning producer has picked it up for an American version (say, "Subway to Subway" on NY1?) yet. Watch "Metro a Metro" five days a week at 7:30 p.m. in Madrid and the suburbs.
Jaunted is in the midst of a public transportation festival. Join us in celebrating the ultimate travel tool: a cheap way to get around. Share your stories in the comments or by emailing us at tips [at] jaunted [dot] com.
Down in Western Australia, the people of Perth love their cars. Added to that, Perth's a coastal city that stretches nearly 80 miles just to house one and a half million people who've all gotta live near the beach--all that makes it hard to make the ultimate public transport system. Transperth gives it a go, but just ask any tourist or foreign student in Perth and they'll tell you about the time they had to wait an extra half hour for their bus, or the bus drivers who wouldn't let them take their surfboard on a bus bound for the beach. (The bus drivers, however, do wear shirts, unlike their brothers in Bratislava.)
Just this year Transperth gave Perthites a big buzz with their new payment system: now you can be a SmartRider by getting a special card to use as a ticket. You can use it over any distance, it can be automatically topped up from your bank account when its balance gets too low, and when you do some complicated multiple bus moves during a day, it'll calculate the lowest possible fare for you. All you have to learn is what "tag on" and "tag off" means: Perth people are beginning to learn it's something to do with waving your SmartRider card over a magic box.
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