FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Carbon-conscious commuters, take heart: public transportation on the east coast of the United States is now extensive and interconnected enough to take you all the way from northern Virginia to Portland, Maine – across 12 states and over 600 miles.

Two young men, Washington D.C. resident Stefan Berteau, 27, a research engineer, and New York City resident Davide Gadren, 26, a freelance writer, plan to make the trip over four days starting May 14, sticking to subways, city buses and commuter railways the entire way. As part of the “rules” of the project, they will ride only on vehicles operated by public, mass transit authorities, utilized as alternatives to car travel.

"The world is expanding: populations are growing exponentially, and in the northeastern United States in particular, cities are continually merging into what is gradually becoming one contiguous urban territory," Berteau said.

Berteau said that this phenomenon, known as the BosWas supercity or the great northeastern Megalopolis, encompasses 44 million people, or 16 percent of the U.S. population.

"Merging of cities has been a staple theme of science fiction for the past 50 or 60 years, and now it's actually happening," he continued.

"The Megalopolis is now fully connected via multiple transportation networks," Gadren said. "First, commercial railways solidified the territory. Then, in the 1950s, the interstate highway system connected outerlying communities to urban centers." Now, he contends public transit connects the area as well.

Berteau and Gadren, who have dubbed themselves "megalopers," will post video, photographs, interviews, and blog entries leading up to and during the trip at http://www.megaloping.com.

This trip across the great American “supercity” holds many implications, positive and negative. According to Gadren, the advantage is that we are becoming a connected community – and the disadvantage is that individual communities are losing their identities.

"We will attempt to show that the Megalopolis does indeed exist, but will also attempt to highlight the subtle yet important differences that distinguish one place from another in what is rapidly becoming one, single supercity," Gadren explained.

As to the latter, Gadren has hope: “You still can’t get a decent cheestesteak outside of Philly.”

For more information, contact:

Stefan Berteau and Davide Gadren, the “megalopers”

In Washington, D.C.
Stefan: (202) 213-0132
stefan.berteau@gmail.com

In New York City:
Davide: (202) 550-9001
stardove07@gmail.com