On Friday I had a 5 minute walk to the bus stop in Gaithersburg. The bus took me right to the Southwest ticketing area at BWI. I flew through TSA-pre security, and at the other end hopped right on the bus at DIA and was dropped off with a 5 minute walk from my apartment.
I left Gaithersburg at 4 pm and arrived in Boulder at 9:45 pm. I blogged and tweeted the whole flight and both bus rides. Total cost : $17 in bus fares and $130 for the airline ticket. No parking costs, no rental car, no dealing with Friday rush hour traffic.
No TSA agent has yet to have had the opportunity to lay their hands on me and if I can possibly avoid it and still get to where I want to go in the time I have to get there, it will remain that way until the time comes I’m pushing up daisies.
That’s a good way to do it these days. As much as I enjoy driving, I like the RTD Boulder Airport bus myself. DIA parking is a pain in the butt.
I also remember times when a comparable trip would have taken about 1.5 hours less*), with predictable and light Boulder Turnpike traffic, easy parking at the old Stapleton airport, no morose TSA, no worries that I forget to put away my pocket knife before the trip, airlines letting us walk onto the plane till the moment of departure, etc.
Just about everything got worse since then but one thing: Connectivity on the shuttles and during the flight. 7 hours 45 minutes is a big chunk of a work day. I used to spend a lot of time preparing what to take with me to be productive on the plane. That became easier and I see a lot of people working on the shuttles, too.
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*) Small disclaimer: I don’t specifically recall I-95 and 200E traffic; I usually travelled north from BWI