“I’ve taken a plane. I’ve taken a train. I’ve taken a bus and I just haven’t been satisfied with [any of] them.”
says Daniel Greenberg.
Fed up with travel delays, consultant Daniel Greenberg is launching his own transit company, Magellan. On Friday, Oct. 30, the company will debut with a chartered bus traveling from New York City to Boston and back.
The Motivation Behind Magellan
Greenberg stated that the venture began because he needs a better way to travel from Boston to New York to visit his girlfriend. After spending months complaining about transit issues, he used a bonus from his full-time consulting job to fund the charter, noting, “I [had] to put my money where my mouth is.”
Named after the explorer Ferdinand Magellan, the company’s goal is “to chart better ways from [point] A to B,” according to Greenberg.
Logistics and Pricing
While Greenberg initially believed booking a bus would be simple, the process required him to coordinate the bus’s origin, establish pickup and drop-off locations, and secure two drivers for the trip. The buses accommodate 30 passengers each. As of Thursday morning, the Friday morning trip from New York to Boston was roughly half full, while the evening return trip from Boston to New York had about seven seats remaining.
Pricing for the service is structured as follows:
- $125 one way for a seat in a single-seat row.
- $109 one way for a seat in a shared row.
Fares include a protein bar, a vitamin C drink packet, two bottles of water, an electrical outlet, and Wi-Fi. For comparison, Greyhound one-way tickets typically range from $70 to nearly $200, and Amtrak fares can reach $300 one way.
Future Transit Experiments
Greenberg does not expect to recover all costs from these initial trips, but he intends to continue chartering buses and exploring other transit options. He mentioned the possibility of having passengers split into four-person Ubers or stopping in New York suburbs so passengers can “get on a train into the city.”
