Buses were my main source of transportation growing up. When I was a kid in Milwaukee, I took the city bus everywhere before I was given a car in high school. When I went off to UW, I rode the Badger bus back and forth to Milwaukee, until my folks let me have the car in Madison. But I have fond memories of those bus rides to Madison and Milwaukee. I even took charter trips with the scouts to Valley Forge, New York, Washington, etc. — and another long bus trip from Madison to California. In fact, my first flight really didn’t happen until I was in college and my second flight was taking me to Lackland Air Force base upon graduation.
Now I fly 100,000 miles each year. During my travels, I periodically run into bad weather and that means flights home are cancelled either because of Madison’s weather or the weather in Chicago or Detroit or Minneapolis. I really don’t like spending an extra night on the road and will try to get home one way or the other. I normally fly with United Airlines, so this means I have the opportunity to take the Van Galder bus home. The timetable it offers is great with buses heading to Madison every couple of hours and sometimes more often. The buses are clean, timely and the drivers appear to have the skills required to handle weather in all kinds of conditions.
But I wish for more. Going back as far as 25 years ago, I dreamed of starting an executive bus that would leave Madison around 7:30 in the morning, get you to O’Hare and then downtown. It would return at 7 p.m. and have you home by 9:45 p.m. Nice big leather seats, WiFi, maybe a host or hostess serving beverages, and even seating for a group of four so a team of workers could get some work done. Just think, people could take a bus to downtown Chicago for shopping, or work meetings and enjoy the trip — rather than the current service that Van Galder provides with narrow airline seating and stops in Rockford, Beloit and Janesville, adding another 45 minutes to the trip. If I am not mistaken, Van Galder even offers these executive buses to other cities — so my dream is that someday, my 25-year-old wish will be fulfilled.
Even some minor modifications like WiFi and express service between O’Hare and Madison would be greatly appreciated. Then again, one must remember how lucky we are to have the service that we currently have. I remember classmates from Chicago who would take Greyhounds and they would be stopping in many towns before they got to Madison. But I can still dream, can’t I?
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