What's the longest distance that can be traveled by using free transportation? | Hacker News Reader

What's the longest distance that can be traveled by using free transportation?

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71 pointsjxub47 comments

Doesn't quite count as free, but when Megabus was getting started a ±decade ago, they used to have $1 tickets available if you booked them far enough in advance. I have some nice college memories of getting from Pittsburgh to NYC to Boston (about 600 miles/950km each way) and back for ±$5 total.

Not sure if they still have similar deals, but I imagine there is some sort of new transportation startup offering cheap/subsidized bus/car rides.

The Megabus Toronto - Buffalo route at 160 km (or 100 miles) is still selling for $2.99 CAD ($2.29 USD) each way.

It sounds like you were a few years too late to appreciate Fung Wah. $5 Chinatown to Chinatown (Boston and NYC) and no shenanigans with buying tickets in advance. They were absolutely crushing the competetion and growing. Then they had a couple accidents and had the microscope of state scrutiny put on them (no low margin business without insane economics of scale can survive that scrutiny at least in MA) which drove them out of business. Then Megabus and all the other discount bus lines that are owned by the major bus lines showed up to fill the vacuum.

Don't get me wrong, Fung Wah had some growing pains and the fact that their service was the kind of thing that the upper middle class love to hate did them no favors (cue jokes about sitting beside someone who is transporting live chickens) but it's a classic case of corporate interests and (hopefully well meaning but) misinformed regulators destroying a business that provided great utility to lots of people who couldn't afford anything else.

This is dangerous misinformation. Fung Wah was incredibly irresponsible, repeatedly ignored the law and regulation, the drivers were often unlicensed and the buses unmaintained, they ignored street laws and designated pick-up areas and was generally a menace to NYC.

The reason was NOT "the microscope of state scrutiny" as you say, but because Fung Wah actively blocked regulators from accessing safety records after it was discovered that 21 out of 28 of their buses had multiple structural cracks in them.

You can also see what this comment flippantly refers to as "a couple accidents" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fung_Wah_Bus_Transportation#Sa...

Anecdotally, I have taken Fung Wahs that have pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of a highway to pick up random passengers, have broken down before even leaving the city, and where the driver has abandoned the vehicle in the middle of traffic to get in a fistfight with another driver.

Take off your rose tinted glasses. Fung Wah being shut down isn't an elitist conspiracy — they were completely irresponsible, riding their buses was dangerous, and the rise of Megabus and Boltbus in their wake is unequivocally a good thing.

Yeah, they were a shitty low class bus line with all the baggage that comes with that but they offered $5 tickets and that's what people could afford. Being able to go between Boston and NYC for $5 made a heck of a lot of people's lives better.

>Megabus and Boltbus in their wake is unequivocally a good thing.

Only if the difference between $5 and $15 (or even $35, which is what the Megabus website is telling me a Boston-> NYC ticket for today costs) is not meaningful. $15 tickets and Fung Wah coexisted. Clearly there was no shortage of people willing to take on the extra risk of riding Fung Wah in order to save $10. As far as I care that makes it a useful service you can hemm and haw about whether or not it was justified but the fact of the matter is that said useful service no longer exists thanks to the state.

>Fung Wah being shut down isn't an elitist conspiracy — they were completely irresponsible, riding their buses was dangerous,

This is exactly what I mean. If you don't care about the difference between $5 and $15 then of course you don't see any reason for Fung Wah or any similiar service to exist because it is all downside.

> This is exactly what I mean. If you don't care about the difference between $5 and $15 then of course you don't see any reason for Fung Wah or any similiar service to exist because it is all downside.

No. You are making a lot of assumptions about me as well as twisting my words. Fung Wah being gone is good because it threatened the lives of their passengers. That feeling doesn't change whether my income level rises or not, and even if you disagree, you have no basis to make your claim.

Do you also chastise people who believe in regulation of alcohol production and sales? Regulation undoubtedly drives alcohol prices up, but it also prevents a lot of people from going blind from tainted batches like in Russia.

>Clearly there was no shortage of people willing to take on the extra risk of riding Fung Wah in order to save $10.

How many of them knew what the risk was?

And a poorly maintained bus with an unlicensed driver speeding down a highway or a city street is a danger to all the vehicles and pedestrians around it. Those random people certainly didn't agree to take that risk.

Only free transportation I have come across in the Midwest is Free shuttle to nearby casinos. Now I hope they also have a shuttle or two to the next city center but I have my doubts that I can reach Atlantic City from here. I should try that next spring.

Is that all within the same city, or is the casino shuttling people from nearby cities?

If multiple nearby cities, you could go anywhere in the network via the casino!

The casino is 45m away from a major city, and they have a few routes going through it. It isn't in a big town itself, so I hope they can connect me to another big city from there. Casino-touring here I come.

Only free transportation I have come across in the Midwest is Free shuttle to nearby casinos.

When you get out into the really small towns there are often free, regularly scheduled shuttle busses and vans paid for by the state or county that ferry people to the nearest medium-sized town for groceries and pharmacies and such. Usually it's the elderly and poor that use them. Some of those routes are an hour or two each way.

This would violate the "It must be available free of charge to any person regardless of citizenship, residency, age, occupation, gender or any other characteristic." rule though. Would the bus accept a 16 year old?

I was underage when I used it, when the shuttle driver asked if I had the years I asked him if they ID on the shuttle or at the entrance of the casino. I stayed on. EDIT: I guess it does discriminate on age. Having trouble editing OP.

I'm surprised that they didn't ID at the shuttle. My ex loved going to casinos and we been to over 20 in North America taking the shuttle buses. For us they either required ID at the shuttle boarding or the member card at shutting boarding. Of course the member card is free, but you needed to be of age at the casino to get one.

International crime could get you extradited for 'free'?

Afghanistan to Gitmo is quite a long way.

And since the war on terror appears to be permanent, it wouldn't appear to break the rules!

In fact, if you manage to get sought after, you might be able to split a reward with a friend that turns you in...

Breaks the rules:

> It must be free regularly, not just during special events.

I'm pretty sure getting extradited is a "special event" :-)

I would assume they charge you for extradition as part of your court fees. Similarly to my knowledge if you get deported or have to leave a country for visa reasons you have to pay for your own travel even though the date of departure is enforced by customs and/or law enforcement. Though fortunately I have never been extradited and I hope to keep it that way.

I dunno about free transportation but I've been thinking of creating a 1 day Moscow sightseeing tour route that requires only a ticket for 1 subway ride. Since it's possible to transfer from subway to some suburban trains/monorail with a whopping 90-minute interval transfer allowance, this allows you to get a lot of mileage of just one trip. Some potential transfer points include

- VDNKh

- Luzhniki Olympic Complex

- Moskva-City

- Belorusskiy Rail terminal (with a lunch at Depo Food Mall)

- Tsaritsyno Palace

You can spend all day on just one ticket...

I think you can use the ticket for only one subway ride in one go, that severely limits your plan. And 90 minutes are counted since the first trip.

and 1 day unlimited pass is a thing, for just 230 rub.

I think the more interesting question would be which public transportation routes greater than X miles (or kilometers) in length have the highest distance to price ratio.

London: probably 25 miles for £1.50 (https://www.timeout.com/london/blog/how-far-can-you-go-with-...) or one of the rare £1 EasyBus tickets from Paddington to Luton which would cover around 37 miles.

The second one is not really public transportation though, and we're getting dangerously close to the £15 Ryanair flights territory.

Potential competitor: North (Gympie) to South (Varsity Lakes) on Brisbane Australia’s ‘inner city’ train network. 260km (160 miles) for AU$20 (£10.50) - cheaper off peak or with concession. Buses also extend this further in each direction using the same ticket.

Sydney trains have a more forgiving fare structure for this purpose. Scone to Bomaderry or Goulburn is at most $8.86 for over 300 km straight-line distance.

A London Underground fare, off-peak, avoiding Zone 1, is also £1.50.

So, Heathrow Terminal 5 to Epping should be a contender. It's around 28 miles.

(And being run by a private company can't exclude MegaBus, since almost all public transport in the UK is run by private companies.)

Yup Terminal 5 to Epping is possible for £1.50 (2 routes bypassing zone 1). Else its £5.10 direct through zone 1.

In the UK, people over 60* get a pass which lets them use buses for free. Some of them have used this to travel considerable distances:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7324086.stm

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transp...

* Correction, not 60, "female state pension age", which is currently 67; thanks for the correction, tonyedgecombe: https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-elderly-person-bus-pass

67 in Oxfordshire.

I’m surprised no one went straight here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport#List_of_...

Does the longest running ferry in the world count. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kootenay_Lake_Ferry

Get into a kayak. Don't paddle as to abide by the rules. You can go as far as the river takes you.

Does hitchhiking count? I've hosted couch surfers who have hitchhiked thousands of miles. One couple came to San Francisco all the way from Ecuador.

Infinite distance if you can find a loop..

rules say "flight of the crow"

Sailboating could be cheap if you can borrow the boat.

Downhill?

How far can you two feet walk?

Is hitchhiking “free transportation”? What about walking?

> You cannot walk for more than 500 meters at a time to switch between two stops.

Edit: plenty of the other rules outlined would rule out hitchhiking

It is definitely possible to hitchhike with the rule of not walking more then 500 meters. Sounds like a cool game by the way! I loved hitchhiking with arbitrary rules, an entire continent becomes a playground.

Having read the rules, I do believe is is possible to hitchhike in such a way that it qualifies as free transportation that allows to travel the longest distance. A simple way to do so it to get a single ride that is several hundred kilometers long.

The author of the question on StackExchange accepted hitchhiking as a valid answer.

> The transport must run regularly, not just as a one-off event.

They've ruled out hitchiking. Which is a shame, because I'm reminded of the 'Jailbreak' charity fundraiser, where students are challenged to get as far as possible [with sponsors paying per mile] from their starting point using only transport offered for free. Some of them managed to persuade airlines to give them long haul flights...

I rode a bicycle from SF to NYC (about 2500 miles, ~150 miles per day), and that was "free" in the sense that I didn't have to pay anyone to do it. I'm also assuming you don't count the cost of food.

You could probably walk, too, if you wanted. It's pretty amazing what can be accomplished with nothing but human power and some determination.

If you read the original question on the linked page, it specifically rules out self-powered transportation.

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