As my bus pulled into Port Authority this past Monday, I woke up to the painful reminder that bus naps aren't always the best. I rolled my head around and the pain gradually faded, soon becoming easy enough to ignore. Meanwhile, the bus driver maneuvered carefully around the terminal, narrowly avoiding an Adirondack Trailways bus. As the logo passed my window, it brought to mind our recent conversations regarding travel and tourism in the Adirondacks. The affordability and mobility brought about by a company like Adirondack Trailways makes more of the Adirondacks accessible to a wider range of people, yet draws people away from non-serviced regions.
Adirondack Trailways is one of the four brands that operates under Trailways of New York. Trailways of New York was founded in 1926 as the Rip Van Winkle brand, offering transportation between New York City and the Hudson Valley. With early success, the founders, the Van Gonsic Berardi family, decided to expand their services to the Adirondack region. The company expanded its service again in 1990s to include the Toronto and Montreal areas.
While the name Adirondack Trailways suggests a strong association with the Adirondacks, the company only services a portion of the park. The route (which can be seen here: http://trailwaysny.com/index.php/route-map/) enters the park near Lake George, moves up to the Keene Valley, and out past Lake Placid and Saranac Lake. As such, it completely avoids the central and western towns like Tupper Lake, Raquette Lake, and Old Forge. This was perhaps a business decision, a choice to bring people to more touristy locations. The accessibility certainly encourages travel to these areas, making them reachable by those without the convenience of a car. It also unintentionally draws people away from a place like Tupper Lake. The first link on Google that appears after searching "bus to Tupper Lake" is a link to Frankin County's Department of Transportation. The website (which seems ready for an update) offers a bus service, but for someone from New York City, for instance, this may seem like added and unnecessary travel. Unfortunate as it may be, this accessibility controls much of the success of towns in the Adirondacks.
The appearance of the automobile significantly changed the dynamic of tourism in the Adirondacks. The cars and buses accounted, in part, for the disappearance of large hotels, as people could go wherever a road existed. A vacation might now have entailed a trip to personal cabin or perhaps a motel Travel to the Adirondacks certainly increased. To some extent, though, things seem to have remained centralized. Where people may have gone to a hotel for relaxation and entertainment, towns could now offer the same for a wider range of people. Lake Placid, for instance, could serve the entertaining quality that a hotel may have. The money that may have gone to a single hotel, now goes to a variety of businesses. This certainly works for bigger, accessible towns. How, though, do towns with less accessibility draw more tourists? It would seem that to increase accessibility, particularly via buses, these towns might first need more tourists.
Sources:
http://trailwaysny.com/index.php/company-history/
http://trailwaysny.com/index.php/route-map/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trailways_of_New_York
http://www.adirondack.net/maps/regionmaps/adkarea.gif
I've recently been reading a lot about the efforts of Adirondack community members and local organizations to increase the diversity of the park. One of the demographics they are looking to get to the park is people who live in urban areas (since they are much more diverse than rural areas). I think their efforts would be strongly aided by easier public transportation to the park. Increased public transportation to and around the park would also enable people with lower incomes to access the park without owning/renting a car.
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