Greyhound in the news

[ns8401]

Another drip drip story out of Columbus… this time a man causing a disturbance and groping himself out front of the terminal. This is the 24th call for police service since the place opened a month ago… 13 of them are disturbances, 1 is a sex assault and there were also shots fired at one point. 
 

https://www.10tv.com/amp/article/news/local/safety-concerns-disturbance-greyhound-west-columbus/530-ead63290-2d4e-41db-b6ea-7199b57d8e25

[ns8401]

An update to a story from last week… Greyhound will be pulling out of the Albany, Georgia Transit Center and begin stopping at a BP Gas Station effective August 4th.

https://www.walb.com/2023/08/02/greyhound-set-remove-operations-albany-transportation-center/?outputType=amp

[ns8401]

86989 Blew a tire near Forsyth, Georgia about 315pm today and went into the ditch on I-75. There were 36 on board, 13 were injured but none seriously and the other 23 were taken by school bus to a local center. Everybody says it flipped but it doesn’t look like it to me. 
 

Photos of the bus at the link:

https://www.11alive.com/amp/article/news/state/greyhound-bus-flips-over-nearly-40-people-i-75-monroe-county/85-5388e78f-7895-472b-aea5-86bc9f34188f

[ns8401]

To Boise, Idaho… 

Apparently there have been 3 cancellations in a row on a once a day route and about 30 people have been stuck there getting the run around from Greyhound. At least they got a hotel room one of the nights. This is a place that is now a truck stop and not an actual station. 
 

https://www.ktvb.com/amp/article/news/local/local-dozens-waiting-days-for-greyhound-bus-in-boise/277-8fe16a3f-d959-44d5-b3a4-57fb1595071b

[traildriver]

11 hours ago, ns8401 said:

To Boise, Idaho… 

Apparently there have been 3 cancellations in a row on a once a day route and about 30 people have been stuck there getting the run around from Greyhound. At least they got a hotel room one of the nights. This is a place that is now a truck stop and not an actual station. 
 

https://www.ktvb.com/amp/article/news/local/local-dozens-waiting-days-for-greyhound-bus-in-boise/277-8fe16a3f-d959-44d5-b3a4-57fb1595071b

It is hard for me to understand how unresponsive this company has become.  Maybe it’s time for the DOT to step in, and order them to either shape up, or shut down entirely.

They may have considered doing just that, but having no ‘service’ at all, might be a real hardship for some people.

Shame on Flixbus, for allowing this sorry state of affairs…

[ns8401]

2 hours ago, traildriver said:

It is hard for me to understand how unresponsive this company has become.  Maybe it’s time for the DOT to step in, and order them to either shape up, or shut down entirely.

They may have considered doing just that, but having no ‘service’ at all, might be a real hardship for some people.

Shame on Flixbus, for allowing this sorry state of affairs…

I was thinking about this today… I have set up a Google news feed with simply the word Greyhound as the search term… what I post would give someone the idea I’m Cherry-picking the bad news… but what you see… that’s the actual order the stories come up in which is quite sad. 
 

I agree that there is some reluctance to shut them down for fear of a lack of service which would be painful but the gaps would be filled in and I believe service would improve in the end. I had someone comment to me that this merger “isn’t going as well as was hoped” just last week. That’s the understatement of the year. At some point they are going to exhaust their supply of customers as people swear off it. Yes it’s a captive audience but probably too small to survive on if you scare everybody else away. Those much ballyhooed travel numbers don’t appear to have materialized close to the way their press releases were crowing before Memorial Day. 
 

Incidentally in East Lansing, Michigan FLIX was tossed last week from the Burger King they had established a stop at in March or April, too much trash, public urination (why?!?) and passengers camping out in the booths inside the place. These guys don’t get it.

Overall it occurs to me that this situation is getting worse by the day. FLIX may come to the slow realization that combining services with their new asset has hurt whatever trendy hip image they think they have. I’ve been standing at the ticket counter and the FLIX representatives (the agents get to talk to the same folks the customers do) give the run around to the staff. The whole thing is nuts. 

[traildriver]

As bad as things have become, I have to believe there may be a smattering of dedicated employees with strong work ethic, despite the demoralizing shape the company is in.  Can you possibly imagine what it must be like to bear the brunt of the ineptitude around them?  I can't...

[ns8401]

45 minutes ago, traildriver said:

As bad as things have become, I have to believe there may be a smattering of dedicated employees with strong work ethic, despite the demoralizing shape the company is in.  Can you possibly imagine what it must be like to bear the brunt of the ineptitude around them?  I can't...

That’s why I could never work there… I’m one of those strong work ethic types.. trying to be an old school style driver and succeeding some of the time. There are a few late 80’s era guys left in Detroit… night and day compared to the newer folks in attitude and presentation. Most of them are instructors and talking retirement before it collapses and they have said as much about the state of things. 
 

Having watched it slowly erode over the past several years I can’t possibly imagine how they can stand the complete insanity… the extra $5 an hour they make simply isn’t worth it. The agitation of people who have issues and probably should be the last people we want angry is also a definite worry for the drivers there. Greyhound is becoming an enigma… nobody can figure out why or how it’s still running. 

More fun from my neck of the woods I figured out poking around tonight:

Their Greyhound escapades with Flint (Davison Township) got FLIX tossed out of the Meijer stores in Cascade Township (what they were calling Grand Rapids East as it’s about 20 minutes out of town) and Holland, Michigan. Undoubtedly they didn’t ask permission or notify anybody they were going to stop there just like Davison. So They regrouped and went to a BP in Holland. The Grand Rapids East stop is entirely gone. They’ve decided to set up shop at the Sams Club in Lansing replacing the previously mentioned Burger King. The kicker is that the Detroit to Muskegon and Chicago to East Lansing FLIX runs (Carr’s and Voigts respectively) now show as Greyhound as of the 10th. That’s guaranteed to thrill everybody they didn’t ask before deciding to move stops around and change operators. There is a lurking NIMBY presence in East Lansing to boot. It will be VERY interesting to see if actual Greyhound buses show up there. 
 

I’ll give them this… there’s never a dull moment and things keep changing by the day. No announcements or warning… wake up one day and it’s different. 

[Rapidbus]

7 hours ago, ns8401 said:

I agree that there is some reluctance to shut them down for fear of a lack of service which would be painful but the gaps would be filled in and I believe service would improve in the end. I had someone comment to me that this merger “isn’t going as well as was hoped” just last week. That’s the understatement of the year. At some point they are going to exhaust their supply of customers as people swear off it. Yes it’s a captive audience but probably too small to survive on if you scare everybody else away. Those much ballyhooed travel numbers don’t appear to have materialized close to the way their press releases were crowing before Memorial Day. 

Overall it occurs to me that this situation is getting worse by the day. FLIX may come to the slow realization that combining services with their new asset has hurt whatever trendy hip image they think they have. I’ve been standing at the ticket counter and the FLIX representatives (the agents get to talk to the same folks the customers do) give the run around to the staff. The whole thing is nuts. 

There is a very good reason why Greyhound kept the Boltbus brand completely separate. 

Manpower and equipment issue seem to be a problem for the company. On top of that you have the locations that are bring sold off by Twenty Lakes left and right

 

The fear for lack of service is real. In Canada, outside of major cities, you still haven't gotten back to what you had before GLC went completely belly up.

 

With the low cost airlines expanding, their captive customers will eventually travel by another mode. On top of the fact that they are going "e stop" for more and more locations, negating one of the benefits of the bus 

5 hours ago, ns8401 said:

That’s why I could never work there… I’m one of those strong work ethic types.. trying to be an old school style driver and succeeding some of the time. There are a few late 80’s era guys left in Detroit… night and day compared to the newer folks in attitude and presentation. Most of them are instructors and talking retirement before it collapses and they have said as much about the state of things. 

Most Greyhound drivers I've experienced has been professional. One thing that Greyhound have in my opinion is professional and courteous drivers, compared to the ticket agents at many terminals. Maybe I have just been lucky.

5 hours ago, ns8401 said:

The kicker is that the Detroit to Muskegon and Chicago to East Lansing FLIX runs (Carr’s and Voigts respectively) now show as Greyhound as of the 10th. That’s guaranteed to thrill everybody they didn’t ask before deciding to move stops around and change operators. There is a lurking NIMBY presence in East Lansing to boot. It will be VERY interesting to see if actual Greyhound buses show up there. 

Maybe to get the COVID funding, they had to run the service in-house like how their current Detroit - Chicago buses are funded? 

I think Indian Trails also still get the same funding to run all their service? So maybe they just want piece of the action there as well hence the change. Otherwise in the era of changing everything to Flix contract based operation, It's hard to imagine why they would switch back

9 hours ago, traildriver said:

It is hard for me to understand how unresponsive this company has become.  Maybe it’s time for the DOT to step in, and order them to either shape up, or shut down entirely.

They may have considered doing just that, but having no ‘service’ at all, might be a real hardship for some people.

Shame on Flixbus, for allowing this sorry state of affairs…

Have they ever been responsive though? I never felt Greyhound was responsive, even back during the 2004 service reductions. 

[traildriver]

1 hour ago, Rapidbus said:

Have they ever been responsive though? I never felt Greyhound was responsive, even back during the 2004 service reductions. 

At least it seemed like they still cared about their reputation then, and responded to media queries.   Even if they didn't operate as if they did.   Now, they don't even seem to answer those.  Probably because, what could they answer with.  I would hate to be their media spokesperson, if they even have one anymore....

[ns8401]

17 minutes ago, traildriver said:

At least it seemed like they still cared about their reputation then, and responded to media queries.   Even if they didn't operate as if they did.   Now, they don't even seem to answer those.  Probably because, what could they answer with.  I would hate to be their media spokesperson, if they even have one anymore....

All of the Greyhound spokeswomen seem to have been disappeared in favor of one guy… their PR Manager. I assume those other people were laid off. At some point earlier this year there was a large layoff and a lot of people vanished. 

[ns8401]

2 hours ago, Rapidbus said:

There is a very good reason why Greyhound kept the Boltbus brand completely separate. 

Manpower and equipment issue seem to be a problem for the company. On top of that you have the locations that are bring sold off by Twenty Lakes left and right

 

The fear for lack of service is real. In Canada, outside of major cities, you still haven't gotten back to what you had before GLC went completely belly up.

 

With the low cost airlines expanding, their captive customers will eventually travel by another mode. On top of the fact that they are going "e stop" for more and more locations, negating one of the benefits of the bus 

Most Greyhound drivers I've experienced has been professional. One thing that Greyhound have in my opinion is professional and courteous drivers, compared to the ticket agents at many terminals. Maybe I have just been lucky.

Maybe to get the COVID funding, they had to run the service in-house like how their current Detroit - Chicago buses are funded? 

I think Indian Trails also still get the same funding to run all their service? So maybe they just want piece of the action there as well hence the change. Otherwise in the era of changing everything to Flix contract based operation, It's hard to imagine why they would switch back

Have they ever been responsive though? I never felt Greyhound was responsive, even back during the 2004 service reductions. 

I would say that the US does have a leg up on Canada though. We have all the interline carriers that can step in and while it might be disrupted for a year or two I don’t think it would result in a full blown death of the system. The issue is the coasts.. effectively the entire coast and border of the country all the way around is Greyhound only territory. The other companies are only a state away almost everywhere. Western Canada by contrast doesn’t seem to have had any other service at all. 
 

As for the COVID money… IT has a pile to use through 2025 and it’s funding their attempt to be independent. I don’t know that Michigan gave Greyhound any COVID money, I may have to look into that more, it’s an interesting point. 
 

Manpower is an issue. They actually incentivized their drivers to bid an away from home terminal for the summer to the tune of $5000 from places that have more than they need. Some of the guys I know ended up in Denver and Albuquerque. They seem to have an incredible number of people in training at any given time but I don’t know how many stay and they end up being shipped anywhere and everywhere so I don’t see them for months after they hit their board. 
 

They also seem to be short on buses. About 15 of them are in Chicago at a training center. Judging by the class sizes they probably don’t have a choice but if I recall correctly they have a couple other schools elsewhere so that’s a fair number of buses sidelined with a long-game benefit. FLIX has imposed a no new buses till Greyhound is profitable rule so some of these cuts are towards that goal. That all being said it seems like they have enough buses and they are short a driver or they are short buses and have plenty of drivers. Then they go three days and nothing bad happens. Weekends seem to be the worst of it. 
 

From the articles I’ve read about the cuts in 2004-2007 it seems to me that every single media outlet that asked for a comment got one or nearly so. I don’t recall the same cone of silence that they have now. Even the old Greyhound people would usually offer some sort of canned response as recently as last year. 

[Lu Haobang]

13 hours ago, Rapidbus said:

In Canada, outside of major cities, you still haven't gotten back to what you had before GLC went completely belly up.

Other carriers have picked up the pieces though.  Rider Express recently started Regina-Calgary and Ottawa-Peterborough-Toronto, which were fairly major Greyhound routes that had disappeared.  Flix now does Toronto-London-Windsor.  Winnipeg-Saskatoon is still missing its service, and some cities lost their station and went curbside, but overall, intercity service in Canada is still alive.

[Articulated]

5 hours ago, Lu Haobang said:

Other carriers have picked up the pieces though.  Rider Express recently started Regina-Calgary and Ottawa-Peterborough-Toronto, which were fairly major Greyhound routes that had disappeared.  Flix now does Toronto-London-Windsor.  Winnipeg-Saskatoon is still missing its service, and some cities lost their station and went curbside, but overall, intercity service in Canada is still alive.

While smaller carriers have picked up routes, most of them only operate express between the biggest cities, where one can get the biggest profits/ridership, with no/limited local service to the smaller cities and communities in between.

Example, there are now 5 companies running the Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa corridor (Book-A-Ride, Coach Canada/Megabus, Flixbus, Red Arrow, Rider Express), yet all but one of them operate express, with Kingston as the only intermediate stop. Even then, Coach Canada's service to decent-sized communities like Belleville, Brockville, Cobourg, and Cornwall are predominantly a holdover from the regulation days when they held exclusive rights to those corridors (in exchange for providing local milk run trips).

As has been stated before, there's also a lack of a "national" network and connectivity between operators that existed with Greyhound's national network. Some companies have ticketing agreements but they're not common or widely publicized, and schedules aren't always designed to connect with competing carriers (see: Ontario Northland and Rider Express in Winnipeg).

[ns8401]

1 hour ago, Articulated said:

While smaller carriers have picked up routes, most of them only operate express between the biggest cities, where one can get the biggest profits/ridership, with no/limited local service to the smaller cities and communities in between.

Example, there are now 5 companies running the Toronto-Kingston-Ottawa corridor (Book-A-Ride, Coach Canada/Megabus, Flixbus, Red Arrow, Rider Express), yet all but one of them operate express, with Kingston as the only intermediate stop. Even then, Coach Canada's service to decent-sized communities like Belleville, Brockville, Cobourg, and Cornwall are predominantly a holdover from the regulation days when they held exclusive rights to those corridors (in exchange for providing local milk run trips).

As has been stated before, there's also a lack of a "national" network and connectivity between operators that existed with Greyhound's national network. Some companies have ticketing agreements but they're not common or widely publicized, and schedules aren't always designed to connect with competing carriers (see: Ontario Northland and Rider Express in Winnipeg).

Was there a comparable interlining network in Canada like what we have in the US with Greyhound Canada as the facilitator?

[Rapidbus]

9 hours ago, Lu Haobang said:

Other carriers have picked up the pieces though.  Rider Express recently started Regina-Calgary and Ottawa-Peterborough-Toronto, which were fairly major Greyhound routes that had disappeared.  Flix now does Toronto-London-Windsor.  Winnipeg-Saskatoon is still missing its service, and some cities lost their station and went curbside, but overall, intercity service in Canada is still alive.

While many cities have some level of service

Frequencies are still far below what GLC had in its final days which is roughly 1 trip across Hwy 1 and Yellowhead. 
 

I mean what used to be 3 Vancouver - Calgary is down to one 4-5 days a week trip, and what was once a day trans con is down to 3 days a week with a once a week extension to Winnipeg. Rider Express is trying, but it’s such a big gap to fill and most of the passengers who used to rely on GLC is on another mode now.

Ironically ONTC is doing pretty well in Northwestern Ontario, they started service west of White River and Fort Frances during COVID. Still not to the level GLC had with 6 weekly trips.

Toronto-London-Windsor is still down, Toronto-Ottawa is roughly equal, but all competing schedules, so less time option for people. Rider and Flix both have one trip on Hwy 7 but no local stop other than Madoc as a rest stop

Montreal-Ottawa is still down with local service completely eliminated. 
 

Even corridors like Calgary-Edmonton is still down from GLC days. 
 

 

Towards the end not really. They were really the only player in town. They still maintained interline with GLI, Orleans and Maritimes towards the end

3 hours ago, ns8401 said:

Was there a comparable interlining network in Canada like what we have in the US with Greyhound Canada 

[ns8401]

2 hours ago, Rapidbus said:

While many cities have some level of service

Frequencies are still far below what GLC had in its final days which is roughly 1 trip across Hwy 1 and Yellowhead. 
 

I mean what used to be 3 Vancouver - Calgary is down to one 4-5 days a week trip, and what was once a day trans con is down to 3 days a week with a once a week extension to Winnipeg. Rider Express is trying, but it’s such a big gap to fill and most of the passengers who used to rely on GLC is on another mode now.

Ironically ONTC is doing pretty well in Northwestern Ontario, they started service west of White River and Fort Frances during COVID. Still not to the level GLC had with 6 weekly trips.

Toronto-London-Windsor is still down, Toronto-Ottawa is roughly equal, but all competing schedules, so less time option for people. Rider and Flix both have one trip on Hwy 7 but no local stop other than Madoc as a rest stop

Montreal-Ottawa is still down with local service completely eliminated. 
 

Even corridors like Calgary-Edmonton is still down from GLC days. 
 

 

Towards the end not really. They were really the only player in town. They still maintained interline with GLI, Orleans and Maritimes towards the end

I think Toronto-London-Windsor is even now… they have the one FLIX and the two Trailways…

To Roanoke, Virginia we go: 

The ticketing portion of a building intended for use as a Greyhound station at the city’s new multimodal facility will instead be an enhanced customer service center for the local transit system after Greyhound decided to make Roanoke a stop-only. Their buses retain permission to use the facility and passengers can use the waiting room but Greyhound will not have a lease.

https://roanoke.com/news/local/valley-metro-greyhound-roanoke-unused-building-new-purpose/article_225da97e-32f9-11ee-af5e-33a45d9c4779.html

 

[traildriver]

6 hours ago, ns8401 said:

Was there a comparable interlining network in Canada like what we have in the US with Greyhound Canada as the facilitator?

Not just ticket, baggage, and express interlining, but GLC (and ECG) actually pooled equipment to facilitate thru service beyond their own routes, in the regulated era.  Examples:  Chicago-Detroit-Toronto-Montreal, via Eastern Greyhound, Eastern Canadian Greyhound, Colonial Coach Lines.  or New York City-Buffalo-Sudbury-Calgary, via Eastern Greyhound, Gray Coach Lines, Greyhound Lines of Canada.  There were several other examples across Canada.   

[traildriver]

53 minutes ago, ns8401 said:

To Roanoke, Virginia we go: 

The ticketing portion of a building intended for use as a Greyhound station at the city’s new multimodal facility will instead be an enhanced customer service center for the local transit system after Greyhound decided to make Roanoke a stop-only. Their buses retain permission to use the facility and passengers can use the waiting room but Greyhound will not have a lease.

https://roanoke.com/news/local/valley-metro-greyhound-roanoke-unused-building-new-purpose/article_225da97e-32f9-11ee-af5e-33a45d9c4779.html

 

Looks like Greyhound may get a "free ride" there....probably what they were hoping for.

[ns8401]

2 hours ago, traildriver said:

Looks like Greyhound may get a "free ride" there....probably what they were hoping for.

Quite a contrast with Albany, Georgia where it got them excluded from plans they were involved in. 
 

2 hours ago, traildriver said:

Not just ticket, baggage, and express interlining, but GLC (and ECG) actually pooled equipment to facilitate thru service beyond their own routes, in the regulated era.  Examples:  Chicago-Detroit-Toronto-Montreal, via Eastern Greyhound, Eastern Canadian Greyhound, Colonial Coach Lines.  or New York City-Buffalo-Sudbury-Calgary, via Eastern Greyhound, Gray Coach Lines, Greyhound Lines of Canada.  There were several other examples across Canada.   

Interesting, so it sounds like there was some atrophy over the years there. 

[ns8401]

Not much new here but it does indicate that Greyhound now has 16 days (The were extended to 30 days total instead of 20 apparently) to get things right in Columbus or face legal action. They have not commented to the media yet on this which ties into what we were talking about a couple of days ago.

 

https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/the-new-greyhound-terminal-north-wilson-road-could-close-heres-how-we-got-here-transit-public-safety-hilltop

[MCIBUS]

I'll bet Greyhound will simply pull out that station and move somewhere else or complete stop going to Columbus.

[traildriver]

10 hours ago, MCIBUS said:

I'll bet Greyhound will simply pull out that station and move somewhere else or complete stop going to Columbus.

Could be.  But Columbus is such a large city, it's the state capital, and a transfer point.  If the city is too hard on them, they might just stop at a suburb, just beyond the city limits, convenient to say I-71 and the I-270 beltway, such as Grove City.   So long as they find a spot there without too much resistance.  That may be difficult, considering the poor reputation they have created for themselves in that area...

[Rapidbus]

On 8/11/2023 at 6:34 AM, traildriver said:

Could be.  But Columbus is such a large city, it's the state capital, and a transfer point.  If the city is too hard on them, they might just stop at a suburb, just beyond the city limits, convenient to say I-71 and the I-270 beltway, such as Grove City.   So long as they find a spot there without too much resistance.  That may be difficult, considering the poor reputation they have created for themselves in that area...

Jackson MS and Little Rock, AR both large cities lost all Greyhound service so you never know

[ns8401]

2 hours ago, Rapidbus said:

Jackson MS and Little Rock, AR both large cities lost all Greyhound service so you never know

Little Rock eventually got it back… but the arrangement is odious to all involved being at that homeless shelter that wasn’t even consulted first before they got a nice surprise.