Trains, Planes, Footprints, and (Comfort and Joy)
So I arrived in Newark Airport from Savannah yesterday around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. I prefer Newark to LaGuardia and JFK for a couple of reasons, not the least of them being state loyalty. Yes, I will travel out of New York City to Jersey paying the $15 surcharge to the Taxi and Limousine Commission to fly out of Newark. Newark Airport makes sense to me. It’s laid out in a way that I can navigate. I just like it better.
I traveled to Newark via cab last Friday because I just couldn’t get up early enough to do anything else, and bless the Supershuttle for being so cheap ($21, one-way; 12 for additional people in your party) and proletarian, but it has its issues (namely, you’re packed in like a sardine; they pick you up way too early for your flight—3 am for a 7 am takeoff, for example; there’s always somebody who is stunningly late for his or her flight (because he or she lied to the dispatcher about the time of the flight) and is killing the driver in a death by a thousand irritating threats and pleas).
My favorite way of getting to Newark is the Train to the Plane.
But I didn’t do that last Friday. My flight was at 9:05 AM. I don’t know why I insist on booking such early flights. I don’t go to sleep until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning on any given night. On the nights before I’m about to fly out I have this perverse habit of staying up even longer, thus assuring that instead of the 4 or 5 hours of sleep I might get had I gone to bed at the usual time, I will now get 1 or 2 hours of sleep.
Hence the whirlwind of out of the bed, brush teeth, splash water on face, grab my suitcase and purse dash outside and into a cab for a $65 cab ride (that included the tip)
I also must have made some kind of air travel history. I left my apartment at 7:35 am and was through security and sitting at my gate by 8:15. No kidding.
Still, the taxi is not my transportation of choice when it comes to getting to Newark. I love the Train to the Plane. I recommend that to anyone who lives in NYC who has to fly out of Newark: Take the TtotheP (also known as Air Train and Rail Link). There are a few r
easons.
1. It is $15 one-way, $11.25 for children, senior citizens, and the disabled.
2. The amount of carbon emissions saved by traveling on public transportation should not be underestimated. You are being green while saving money.
It’s not for someone with luggage of Zsa Zsa Gabor proportions, but if you’ve got one suitcase and a carry-on, it’s pretty much a cinch. You go to Penn Station, buy your ticket and wait for the next designated New Jersey Transit train. Yes, I took a cab to the train station, which cost me all of 7 or 8 bucks with the tip, so location to Penn Station has to be factored in.
You board the train at the appointed time (they run pretty frequently) and in about 10 to 15 minutes you arrive at the Newark Rail Link station (note that Amtrak also stops there and that you can go to points north and south from this station). You get on the Newark Airport monorail (which is almost always there or just about to be there) and you get off at your terminal (inside each car is a map with the airlines and their terminals clearly indicated). Voila.
When I got back to Penn Station yesterday, I took the subway home because the taxi line was simply and hilariously long, and no way was I going to stand in that line for 40 minutes in the cold, when I could even walk home quicker. So I toted my suitcase down, then up the steps of the subway stations. And it’s then that I thought of two more good reasons to take the TtotheP: Exercise—sorely needed after holiday eating (the Germans have a verb for that sort of eating, it is fressen used only when describing how animals eat) and the affirmation that I’m still young enough and in shape enough to carry a heavy suitcase up and down several flights of stairs and still feel okay. And that includes the four flights at the end of the trip to my fifth floor apartment. That made me feel good and feeling good at the end of a day of air travel is something to take note of.
For $15 bucks (plus the $2 for my subway fare) I:
Had a workout
Saved $48
Reduced my carbon footprint (almost negligible considering I was just in a plane eating up thousands of pounds of jet fuel, but hey)
Felt decidedly happy and unstressed at the end of what can often be a stressful trip.
It leaves me wanting to come up with other ways to be green and healthy and save money an feel good inside all at once. Kind of resolutions without actually being resolutions. Do you have any ideas? I’d love it if you shared them. In the meantime have fun with this ad for a certain athletic shoe. It shows how the Brazilian soccer team amuses itself and other passengers when its flight is delayed (in a pre 9/11 world. Do you think we can ever get there again?)
I traveled to Newark via cab last Friday because I just couldn’t get up early enough to do anything else, and bless the Supershuttle for being so cheap ($21, one-way; 12 for additional people in your party) and proletarian, but it has its issues (namely, you’re packed in like a sardine; they pick you up way too early for your flight—3 am for a 7 am takeoff, for example; there’s always somebody who is stunningly late for his or her flight (because he or she lied to the dispatcher about the time of the flight) and is killing the driver in a death by a thousand irritating threats and pleas).
My favorite way of getting to Newark is the Train to the Plane.
But I didn’t do that last Friday. My flight was at 9:05 AM. I don’t know why I insist on booking such early flights. I don’t go to sleep until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning on any given night. On the nights before I’m about to fly out I have this perverse habit of staying up even longer, thus assuring that instead of the 4 or 5 hours of sleep I might get had I gone to bed at the usual time, I will now get 1 or 2 hours of sleep.
Hence the whirlwind of out of the bed, brush teeth, splash water on face, grab my suitcase and purse dash outside and into a cab for a $65 cab ride (that included the tip)
I also must have made some kind of air travel history. I left my apartment at 7:35 am and was through security and sitting at my gate by 8:15. No kidding.
Still, the taxi is not my transportation of choice when it comes to getting to Newark. I love the Train to the Plane. I recommend that to anyone who lives in NYC who has to fly out of Newark: Take the TtotheP (also known as Air Train and Rail Link). There are a few r
easons.1. It is $15 one-way, $11.25 for children, senior citizens, and the disabled.
2. The amount of carbon emissions saved by traveling on public transportation should not be underestimated. You are being green while saving money.
It’s not for someone with luggage of Zsa Zsa Gabor proportions, but if you’ve got one suitcase and a carry-on, it’s pretty much a cinch. You go to Penn Station, buy your ticket and wait for the next designated New Jersey Transit train. Yes, I took a cab to the train station, which cost me all of 7 or 8 bucks with the tip, so location to Penn Station has to be factored in.
You board the train at the appointed time (they run pretty frequently) and in about 10 to 15 minutes you arrive at the Newark Rail Link station (note that Amtrak also stops there and that you can go to points north and south from this station). You get on the Newark Airport monorail (which is almost always there or just about to be there) and you get off at your terminal (inside each car is a map with the airlines and their terminals clearly indicated). Voila.
When I got back to Penn Station yesterday, I took the subway home because the taxi line was simply and hilariously long, and no way was I going to stand in that line for 40 minutes in the cold, when I could even walk home quicker. So I toted my suitcase down, then up the steps of the subway stations. And it’s then that I thought of two more good reasons to take the TtotheP: Exercise—sorely needed after holiday eating (the Germans have a verb for that sort of eating, it is fressen used only when describing how animals eat) and the affirmation that I’m still young enough and in shape enough to carry a heavy suitcase up and down several flights of stairs and still feel okay. And that includes the four flights at the end of the trip to my fifth floor apartment. That made me feel good and feeling good at the end of a day of air travel is something to take note of.
For $15 bucks (plus the $2 for my subway fare) I:
Had a workout
Saved $48
Reduced my carbon footprint (almost negligible considering I was just in a plane eating up thousands of pounds of jet fuel, but hey)
Felt decidedly happy and unstressed at the end of what can often be a stressful trip.
It leaves me wanting to come up with other ways to be green and healthy and save money an feel good inside all at once. Kind of resolutions without actually being resolutions. Do you have any ideas? I’d love it if you shared them. In the meantime have fun with this ad for a certain athletic shoe. It shows how the Brazilian soccer team amuses itself and other passengers when its flight is delayed (in a pre 9/11 world. Do you think we can ever get there again?)
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