airport transportation

caseyatbat
Tue, 03 Jan 2006 00:41:40 +0000

We are also from Ca., and have tried many of the alternatives at this point.
The easiest way to get back and forth is to fly into Charlottesville and then take a taxi to campus (10 miles). Later, as your child develops a support system, he/she will be able to get rides back to campus from friends with cars. However, the airlines that fly into Charlottesville are full fare airlines with limited schedules. We allow D to come home enough times throughout the year that we pretty much said from the beginning that she better count on finding alternatives other than flying into Charlottesville.

Southwest airlines flies into Reagan airport (and NOT Dulles). Last time we checked, there was no non-stop flight, and times never seem to fit our schedule. The good news about Reagon, however, is that it is VERY close to Union Station–where both Greyhound and Amtrak head south to Charlottesville.
D prefers flying into Dulles (substantially west of DC) via Jetblue. Their prices are great, scheduled flights seem convenient… and, of course, there are the TVs…
Getting from Dulles to Charlottesville can be accomplished several ways:
–Taxi. Four of D’s friends from Ca. tried one recently. Just grabbed it from the curb after arriving on a Sunday a.m. It cost 170.00. Split 4 ways made it very do-able, but requires coordination with others to make it a reasonable cost.
–Van on the Go. It is a taxi/limo service that can be reserved ahead of time for rides between campus and airport. UVa advertises it, but I believe it is a private and for profit service. When we inquired, it was quite a bit more expensive (230.00)than a taxi, and had all kinds of restrictions. We ruled it out.

–UVa runs a bus service called Homeride (I think you can ‘google’ it) that runs Friday evenings from Uva to Northern Va. and on Sunday afternoons from Northern Va. to Charlottesville. If that fits your schedule, it is great. Cost is only about 25.00 each way. Problem is that it drops EVERYONE off at a single spot–Vienna, Va. From there, it is a reasonable taxi to either Dulles (to the west) or Reagon (to the east).
–Greyhound. We haven’t tried it. Lots of obstacles with this alternative. Schedule, pick up spots, length of time for ride, accessibility, unworkable web site, inability to find a human at Customer Service…the list goes on.
–Amtrak. This is what D is trying next week. Amtrak runs from near DC down to Charlottesville. If you ‘google’ it, you can see the different places to catch it-and there are quite a few. D is flying to Dulles, taxiing to Manassas (closest Amtrak station to airport at about 15 miles), and then taking the train. We have heard that it normally runs on time, isn’t as intimidating for a young girl as the buses can be, and goes right thru Charlottesville. It is also quick–less than 2 hours from the Manassas station. The cost is about 20.00 one way.

Hope this makes sense. It has been a steep learning curve for us–that’s for sure. I think we may give in and let D take one of our cars next year–for this problem alone.

Feel free to PM or email me if you want more details.