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Decline of Greyhound service mirrors rural Canada's plight

123 points by macbookaries 8y ago

sandworm101 8y ago
>> Greyhound’s decision to write off much of the Canadian frontier Frontier? This isn't 1827. If Canada has a frontier it is The North, not Alberta. Canada has significant problems when it comes to servicing small rural communities. Take the 82 year-old "cattle and grain farmer from Langenburg, Saskatchewan" who lives 11 hours outside Edmonton. Getting him health care is a huge problem, a much greater issue than him visiting relatives in the city. Greyhound didn't just disconnect small towns. It disconnected Vancouver form Kamloops, two large urban areas. It just disconnected Vancouver from Whistler. Those two cities hosted the 2010 winter games. If that link cannot be made profitable, there is no hope for connecting Langenburg. (I took the Vancouver-Whistler route many times as a kid. It was horrible. Four hours in a bus station and then a horrible bus to complete a journey that could be done in an hour by car. When I turned 16 I bought a car and never looked back.)
- grawprog 8y ago
  Last time i took the vancouver-whistler route it was an hour and a half - two hours or so on the bus and like 20 minutes wait at the station on main st. This was 2 or 3 years ago now. But oh man were the greyhound staff ever rude and because the first driver on the way out half tore my return ticket i had to beg the driver in whistler in let me on the bus with the ticket i had. He was really close to making me go buy a new ticket even after explaining. There was also only 2 or 3 departure times both ways.
  - felipemnoa 8y ago
    >>But oh man were the greyhound staff ever rude I personally saw this behavior in greyhound lines, and it wasn't even an outlier, it seemed to be the modus operandi. I thought it was horrible at the time and made me never want to ride the bus again. In fact, I avoided it as best I could.
- fouc 8y ago
  It does seem weird for them to drop perfectly good routes like Vancouver-Whistler, but it makes sense when they're shuttering their whole western operations. I think it's still alright, gives the chance for a new company to come in and fulfil that demand.
cmrdporcupine 8y ago
When I moved to Toronto from Edmonton -- back in the 90s .com boom -- I did it via Greyhound. Under $100 to make it across the country, with all my vinyl records and a few other possessions in boxes under the bus. 50+ hours, reading Dune while popping sleeping pills and muscle relaxants to stay sedated and comfortable, most of that in the wide swathes of northern Ontario... lakes, trees, rocks, lakes, trees rocks, repeat. Can't say it is the best of memories, but pretty profound ones. It was my future wife (then a good friend) who met me at the bus station off Dundas Street.
- dman 8y ago
  Sounds memorable - Any pictures of the journey?
  - cmrdporcupine 8y ago
    None, pre-digital camera days and I never owned a film camera and didn't buy any disposables. I had very little money that I didn't spend on techno records.
    - modzu 8y ago
      so any memorable techno tunes from the trip/times? haha
      - ethbro 8y ago
        Sand^H^H^Hnowstorm?
- steve_adams_86 8y ago
  I love this excerpt of your life. I was pretty young at that point, but had similar experiences (though shorter trips) going up and down BC as a teenager. Instead of techno records I had CDs in a case on my lap. Eventually (after 4 or 5 years) someone was decapitated on a bus and my parents insisted I take a car. Strange times and a much worse ending than yours. I'm sometimes nostalgic for the trees, rocks, lakes, etc. No concerns other than my discman running out of batteries or running out of change for drinks at bus stop vending machines. edit: Remembering now that toward the end I had an iPod mini. That would have been 2008. The problem with the iPod was that you couldn't swap batteries.
themodelplumber 8y ago
Does The Guardian have any kind of political agenda in writing articles of this kind? For example, "encourage left-leaning folks to remain on the island instead of brexiting over to Canada" or something like that. I don't have a dog in the fight; was just curious given how much nation-on-nation journalism (even in the commonwealth) is political or agenda-motivated nowadays.
- icebraining 8y ago
  I mean, I can't say I know, but what about this particular article raises that question? They write about issues from all over the world[1], this doesn't seem any different. Plus I doubt most "brexit refugees" were planning on eloping to isolated regions of Canada. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world https://www.theguardian.com/world
  - gerdesj 8y ago
    Plus I doubt most "brexit refugees" were planning on eloping to isolated regions of Canada You'd be surprised how appealing BC looks to some of us here. Mind you, it (BC) looks bloody gorgeous all the time but as you say Brexit has nothing to do with the big country.
- mprev 8y ago
  It’s no longer the Manchester Guardian. It’s positioned as a global English language newspaper. Coverage of domestic issues in Australia, the US and Canada, at least, is routine.
- Symbiote 8y ago
  They have regular articles about middle class British people moving elsewhere in the EU since the Brexit vote. Just one example, as I'm not very successful at searching for them. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/mar/24/meet-the-brexiles-who-voted-with-their-feet https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/mar/24/meet-the-brexi...
- KineticLensman 8y ago
  Guardian reader here (although I only read it, I don't meta-read it). If I picked up any agenda it was just that of being resigned to rural decline as the world changes.
murderfs 8y ago
I remember reading that Greyhound had a pretty sizable dropoff in ridership after a passenger was decapitated and cannibalized on one of their buses. Googling finds this: https://globalnews.ca/news/4331224/greyhound-bus-beheading-ridership/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4331224/greyhound-bus-beheading-r...
- Waterluvian 8y ago
  I think the reason is just that modern times has people needing to travel less. And there's a critical point where it's no longer profitable to run a bus at all.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    I don't think anyone travels less today.
  - tallanvor 8y ago
    People are traveling more, not less. But bus service has to compete against cars, planes, and possibly trains. In these rural parts of Canada, it's not that the average person is traveling less, it's more that there are fewer people there and more of those who remain have their own transportation.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Not sure about Canada, but in the US the Chinatown busses have impacted the formerly very profitable routes to many destinations. A legit company has to expend money on maintenance, etc, while the quasi-legal busses are fairly unsafe and fuel all sorts of illegal and quasi-legal activity.
  - woodruffw 8y ago
    Anecdotally (15 years of riding buses up and down the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic), I've never noticed a big difference in driver quality or safe driving practices between Chinatown buses and the big names. Then again, I have no idea how well they maintain their buses.
moltar 8y ago
Greyhound didn’t innovate. The buses look like they are super old. No wifi. Exorbitant prices. It’s a terrible experience. Pay a bit more and you can take a train. I’ve been on a government bus in Thailand. The seat reclines into almost laying position, comes with built in massager, video games and stewardess service. The cost of non-stop 9 hour ride was $20.
- traek 8y ago
  > Greyhound didn’t innovate. The buses look like they are super old. No wifi. Exorbitant prices. It’s a terrible experience. Pay a bit more and you can take a train. I don't think this is salient to the discussion specifically of Greyhound shuttering service in rural Canada. There are no train lines that operate connecting most of the outposts described in the article to urban areas.
  - frabbit 8y ago
    To add to that, in some places there were both bus and trains and first the train lines were shut to passengers and then the bus service decreased until it was unattractive, and then they shut the bus lines. Specific example that I know of is Acadian Lines operations in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick(1). The availability of hugely subsidised gas and automobiles has seen people hoodwinked into taking their lives in their hands by driving insanely long distances in frequently dangerous weather. It is all part of costs being displaced onto individuals (who often welcome the displacement as they believe it increases their freedom). Some of those costs are of course also externalized into environmental impacts. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadian_Lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadian_Lines
    - yellowapple 8y ago
      I'd come at this from the opposite perspective: being reliant on bus/train companies that can stop serving your town is exactly why an automobile is valuable and essential to anyone not living in a city.
      - 8y ago
Latteland 8y ago
It's unclear how much the bus was losing per year per person potentially served. Also, instead of traveling cross country all the way by bus, why can't they just keep a feeder pattern to big cities once every few days. That should save money. The goal should be provide transportation where there isn't something else, not independently cover the country.
pj_mukh 8y ago
Can Flix help?[1]. New investment, renewed vigour to innovate. If they can convert a good percentage of people who would now take their car because Greyhound's are so uncomfortable, they maybe profitable in these rural routes. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/greyhound-bus-routes-flixbus-1.4886264 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/greyhound-bus-routes-flixbu...
jorblumesea 8y ago
This basically mimics the decline of most rural areas in the US as well as parts of Europe. Declining services, population and job opportunities, even to the point where there's a marked difference in life expectancy. Unfortunately the future of the world seems like it's city based.
- rocky1138 8y ago
  Unfortunate, in your opinion. Personally, I love dense cities and really dislike suburban and rural living. Everything is so convenient and there is always something to do that doesn't require driving for 20+ minutes.
  - ajmurmann 8y ago
    It's also more sustainable. Especially the suburbs only work financially because all the infrastructure is subsidized by the urban core. On top of that public transit which is a lot better for the environment is much more viable in a proper city.
  - volkl48 8y ago
    I don't think that it needs the qualification. You're looking at it as either/or. It's unfortunate that there's a decline in the lifestyle choices that will offer you opportunities and much of a future. In the past, the city, the suburbs, and the rural areas were all viable options for making a good living and being in a healthy community.
  - acheron 8y ago
    Hell is other people.
- oftenwrong 8y ago
  The past of the world was city based as well. Low-density human settlement as the norm is, at least for now, unsustainable. We are living in an experiment.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Tiktaalik 8y ago
British Columbia's social democratic NDP government quickly stepped in with their own bus service to serve the north though I'm not sure if it's intended to be permanent. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-northern-bus-transit-may-2018-1.4683199 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-northern-... It could make sense for the government to step in here with a publicly owned transit service if there is a real market failure here in that it's not at all profitable to serve the sparsely populated North.
- GhostVII 8y ago
  It sounds like it isn't designed to be permanent: "'This is an interim solution to cover the loss of Greyhound while we work with communities,' said Transportation Minister Claire Trevena, who said B.C. Transit would be spending $2 million to operate the service starting June 4." I'm kind of surprised they aren't making it permanent though - $2 million seems pretty cheap, and making it government-run ensures it won't be taken away again.
  - uiri 8y ago
    making it government-run ensures it won't be taken away again. It only ensures that it won't be taken away again until the next time the province elects a majority Tory government.
    - BeeOnRope 8y ago
      To be fair, it has been about 90 years since the last time the Tories were elected in BC, and with no functioning Tory party in BC it doesn't seem like that will happen again any time soon.
      - vkou 8y ago
        In BC, the Tories call themselves the "BC Liberal" (In-name only) party. Their policies are very similar to the federal CPC.
nn3 8y ago
So is population dropping? Or just ridership? Or did Greyhound suddenly have higher costs? None of that is answered in the article, unless I missed it. <speculation:> I assume operating such a bus line is not all that expensive, and costs shouldn't have been rising because fuel is still cheap. So ridership must have been dropping. So apparently they didn't need it all that much, otherwise enough people would have continued riding so that it would have stayed profitable. That's the morale I guess: if you value something use it more often.
- jessewmc 8y ago
  You missed it, all answered in the article
- wcarss 8y ago
  Thanks for not understanding the problem and making a trite snipe at the rural people of Canada. People who live in these places do absolutely use these buses, and some people do need them, but (while I'm not sure about service cost) the prices go up regularly, many buses are packed, slow, and chronically late, and the population is in fact falling dramatically in rural Canada as the elderly move to care homes in the cities where their children already live -- it's not necessarily about choice, but about demographic and geographic change over decades. If there is a moral here it is not "use it or lose it". Perhaps instead it is merely that we won't be able to rely on even the services we feel are essential, as the world changes around us over time.
  - nn3 8y ago
    If they are packed how can they be losing money? Perhaps I'm wrong but its clear you are not right either.
    - WaylonKenning 8y ago
      One packed bus does not make a service, if it's unreliable. And over those distances, they may not be profitable at the ticket prices they charge. And they may not be commercially viable if the ticket has to recoup all the costs + profit. That's why, sometimes governments operate services, even at a loss, as a benefit, to their citizens.
bmurray7jhu 8y ago
In the US, private operators of rural intercity bus service are eligible to receive operating subsidies under 49 § USC 5311(f). [1] Greyhound has written a manual for state and local governments that want to apply for a Section 5311(f) grant to fund Greyhound service. [2] [1] https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/grants/formula-grants-rural-areas-fact-sheet-section-5311 https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/grants/formula-grants-ru... [2] http://extranet.greyhound.com/revsup/rfs/rfs-handbk.pdf http://extranet.greyhound.com/revsup/rfs/rfs-handbk.pdf
dev_dull 8y ago
> Some analysts see it as yet another indicator that rural Canada is not only struggling, but slowly decoupling from the country’s thriving urban cores. Sad story heard in a lot of towns around the US as well. What can a town do when all manufacturing/blue collar work was offshored a decade ago? And people think Russian Facebook ads are what propelled Trump to the whitehouse.
- mschuster91 8y ago
  > And people think Russian Facebook ads are what propelled Trump to the whitehouse. It's not just "legal" ads that helped Trump. The bigger problem was the Russian propaganda and lies that (still) get spread virally over Facebook.
flyGuyOnTheSly 8y ago
I'm surprised our federal government didn't offer to heavily subsidize the bus routes. There really isn't any other way to travel across Canada at a fair price anymore. We subsidize almost all forms of transportation, from the tiny GO railway system in the GTA at $2/ride, to VIA rail's cross-country treks at hundreds of dollars per ride. Perhaps the numbers are really that dismal that subsidies didn't even make sense?
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  > Perhaps the numbers are really that dismal that subsidies didn't even make sense? There's the question! I also wonder if it isn't a chicken-egg problem. Or maybe I should call it a Field of Dreams problem (if you build it, they will come). It would be a boon to living in this country if it were easier to travel without spending large amounts on flights. I'd certainly see more of it, myself. The fact that travel is so expensive or prohibitive can be pretty isolating. My own family lives but two hours away (in rural ON) and I see some of them maybe three times a year. My girlfriend's family is in Victoria (BC) and she sees them more often than that these days...
- xattt 8y ago
  GO is distance-based, though the fare is fixed to the TTC fare within the borders of Toronto ($3.75). This was part of an effort to encourage people to use existing infrastructure and take the load off the TTC.
jungletime 8y ago
I'm Canadian, and I tried taking a greyhound bus from Chicago to Detroit. I travelled all over the world, and apart from childhood memories of communism, and my recent visit to India. Never had I seen so much disorganization. The bus station was totally overcrowded, with confused passengers. The attendants were screaming into the PA and it was hard to discern which bus line was for which bus over all the peaking and distortion. So I got in the information line, so I could know which ticket line to get into, so I could get into the right line for my bus. So many lines, and its going slow, and I know my bus will leave in an hour. I'm waiting impatiently, soon I'll be next. What happened next, was a Kafkaesque moment. I literally saw a guy get escorted out of the "Information" line for asking a benign question, one too many times. There was a cop already there outside, seemingly ready for such moments. And promptly put cuffs on the guy. When I asked if I could still catch my bus, I was told "I was bamboozled", and laughed at. I was confused, not wanting to argue, I stepped out of the line. Bathroom smelled of urine and vomit. It was mostly poor black people at that Greyhound station, being treated terribly by other black people. I missed my bus, and ended up booking a Megabus, 6 hours later. It was a 5 hour trip, my lower back took a beating sitting over a wheel well. Never again. If you're rich and want to check your privilege, and have a lower class, "Coming to America", kind of experience. Try taking a Greyhound Bus in Chicago. Highly recommend it for that purpose.
- umichguy 8y ago
  Always take the Amtrak train between Chicago and Detroit - so much nicer and easier. In my opinion, better than a car on a long weekend when the roads are jammed.
ajcodez 8y ago
I think the GO train in Ontario and MegaBus between cities may have taken a lot of the better routes from Greyhound too.
mathattack 8y ago
I used to take Grayhound to college. I have much less nostalgia. I remember them as long rides in very smelly buses, that usually had a start or stop is a very seedy neighborhood.
davidblair 8y ago
One of the strangest business practices Greyhound has is the $18 Gift Ticket Fee [1]. Want someone to buy a ticket for you online? That will cost an extra. Think you can avoid it buy going to the station and buying it in person? Nope, the fee still applies. [1] https://www.greyhound.com/en/help-and-info/ticket-info/cardholder-not-traveling https://www.greyhound.com/en/help-and-info/ticket-info/cardh...

123 points by macbookaries 8y ago

>> Greyhound’s decision to write off much of the Canadian frontier Frontier? This isn't 1827. If Canada has a frontier it is The North, not Alberta. Canada has significant problems when it comes to servicing small rural communities. Take the 82 year-old "cattle and grain farmer from Langenburg, Saskatchewan" who lives 11 hours outside Edmonton. Getting him health care is a huge problem, a much greater issue than him visiting relatives in the city. Greyhound didn't just disconnect small towns. It disconnected Vancouver form Kamloops, two large urban areas. It just disconnected Vancouver from Whistler. Those two cities hosted the 2010 winter games. If that link cannot be made profitable, there is no hope for connecting Langenburg. (I took the Vancouver-Whistler route many times as a kid. It was horrible. Four hours in a bus station and then a horrible bus to complete a journey that could be done in an hour by car. When I turned 16 I bought a car and never looked back.)

grawprog 8y ago
Last time i took the vancouver-whistler route it was an hour and a half - two hours or so on the bus and like 20 minutes wait at the station on main st. This was 2 or 3 years ago now. But oh man were the greyhound staff ever rude and because the first driver on the way out half tore my return ticket i had to beg the driver in whistler in let me on the bus with the ticket i had. He was really close to making me go buy a new ticket even after explaining. There was also only 2 or 3 departure times both ways.
- felipemnoa 8y ago
  >>But oh man were the greyhound staff ever rude I personally saw this behavior in greyhound lines, and it wasn't even an outlier, it seemed to be the modus operandi. I thought it was horrible at the time and made me never want to ride the bus again. In fact, I avoided it as best I could.
fouc 8y ago
It does seem weird for them to drop perfectly good routes like Vancouver-Whistler, but it makes sense when they're shuttering their whole western operations. I think it's still alright, gives the chance for a new company to come in and fulfil that demand.

cmrdporcupine 8y ago

When I moved to Toronto from Edmonton -- back in the 90s .com boom -- I did it via Greyhound. Under $100 to make it across the country, with all my vinyl records and a few other possessions in boxes under the bus. 50+ hours, reading Dune while popping sleeping pills and muscle relaxants to stay sedated and comfortable, most of that in the wide swathes of northern Ontario... lakes, trees, rocks, lakes, trees rocks, repeat. Can't say it is the best of memories, but pretty profound ones. It was my future wife (then a good friend) who met me at the bus station off Dundas Street.

dman 8y ago
Sounds memorable - Any pictures of the journey?
- cmrdporcupine 8y ago
  None, pre-digital camera days and I never owned a film camera and didn't buy any disposables. I had very little money that I didn't spend on techno records.
  - modzu 8y ago
    so any memorable techno tunes from the trip/times? haha
    - ethbro 8y ago
      Sand^H^H^Hnowstorm?
steve_adams_86 8y ago
I love this excerpt of your life. I was pretty young at that point, but had similar experiences (though shorter trips) going up and down BC as a teenager. Instead of techno records I had CDs in a case on my lap. Eventually (after 4 or 5 years) someone was decapitated on a bus and my parents insisted I take a car. Strange times and a much worse ending than yours. I'm sometimes nostalgic for the trees, rocks, lakes, etc. No concerns other than my discman running out of batteries or running out of change for drinks at bus stop vending machines. edit: Remembering now that toward the end I had an iPod mini. That would have been 2008. The problem with the iPod was that you couldn't swap batteries.

themodelplumber 8y ago

Does The Guardian have any kind of political agenda in writing articles of this kind? For example, "encourage left-leaning folks to remain on the island instead of brexiting over to Canada" or something like that. I don't have a dog in the fight; was just curious given how much nation-on-nation journalism (even in the commonwealth) is political or agenda-motivated nowadays.

icebraining 8y ago
I mean, I can't say I know, but what about this particular article raises that question? They write about issues from all over the world[1], this doesn't seem any different. Plus I doubt most "brexit refugees" were planning on eloping to isolated regions of Canada. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world https://www.theguardian.com/world
- gerdesj 8y ago
  Plus I doubt most "brexit refugees" were planning on eloping to isolated regions of Canada You'd be surprised how appealing BC looks to some of us here. Mind you, it (BC) looks bloody gorgeous all the time but as you say Brexit has nothing to do with the big country.
mprev 8y ago
It’s no longer the Manchester Guardian. It’s positioned as a global English language newspaper. Coverage of domestic issues in Australia, the US and Canada, at least, is routine.
Symbiote 8y ago
They have regular articles about middle class British people moving elsewhere in the EU since the Brexit vote. Just one example, as I'm not very successful at searching for them. https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/mar/24/meet-the-brexiles-who-voted-with-their-feet https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/mar/24/meet-the-brexi...
KineticLensman 8y ago
Guardian reader here (although I only read it, I don't meta-read it). If I picked up any agenda it was just that of being resigned to rural decline as the world changes.

murderfs 8y ago

I remember reading that Greyhound had a pretty sizable dropoff in ridership after a passenger was decapitated and cannibalized on one of their buses. Googling finds this: https://globalnews.ca/news/4331224/greyhound-bus-beheading-ridership/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4331224/greyhound-bus-beheading-r...

Waterluvian 8y ago
I think the reason is just that modern times has people needing to travel less. And there's a critical point where it's no longer profitable to run a bus at all.
- mcguire 8y ago
  I don't think anyone travels less today.
- tallanvor 8y ago
  People are traveling more, not less. But bus service has to compete against cars, planes, and possibly trains. In these rural parts of Canada, it's not that the average person is traveling less, it's more that there are fewer people there and more of those who remain have their own transportation.
Spooky23 8y ago
Not sure about Canada, but in the US the Chinatown busses have impacted the formerly very profitable routes to many destinations. A legit company has to expend money on maintenance, etc, while the quasi-legal busses are fairly unsafe and fuel all sorts of illegal and quasi-legal activity.
- woodruffw 8y ago
  Anecdotally (15 years of riding buses up and down the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic), I've never noticed a big difference in driver quality or safe driving practices between Chinatown buses and the big names. Then again, I have no idea how well they maintain their buses.

moltar 8y ago

Greyhound didn’t innovate. The buses look like they are super old. No wifi. Exorbitant prices. It’s a terrible experience. Pay a bit more and you can take a train. I’ve been on a government bus in Thailand. The seat reclines into almost laying position, comes with built in massager, video games and stewardess service. The cost of non-stop 9 hour ride was $20.

traek 8y ago
> Greyhound didn’t innovate. The buses look like they are super old. No wifi. Exorbitant prices. It’s a terrible experience. Pay a bit more and you can take a train. I don't think this is salient to the discussion specifically of Greyhound shuttering service in rural Canada. There are no train lines that operate connecting most of the outposts described in the article to urban areas.
- frabbit 8y ago
  To add to that, in some places there were both bus and trains and first the train lines were shut to passengers and then the bus service decreased until it was unattractive, and then they shut the bus lines. Specific example that I know of is Acadian Lines operations in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick(1). The availability of hugely subsidised gas and automobiles has seen people hoodwinked into taking their lives in their hands by driving insanely long distances in frequently dangerous weather. It is all part of costs being displaced onto individuals (who often welcome the displacement as they believe it increases their freedom). Some of those costs are of course also externalized into environmental impacts. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadian_Lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadian_Lines
  - yellowapple 8y ago
    I'd come at this from the opposite perspective: being reliant on bus/train companies that can stop serving your town is exactly why an automobile is valuable and essential to anyone not living in a city.
    - 8y ago

Latteland 8y ago

It's unclear how much the bus was losing per year per person potentially served. Also, instead of traveling cross country all the way by bus, why can't they just keep a feeder pattern to big cities once every few days. That should save money. The goal should be provide transportation where there isn't something else, not independently cover the country.

pj_mukh 8y ago

Can Flix help?[1]. New investment, renewed vigour to innovate. If they can convert a good percentage of people who would now take their car because Greyhound's are so uncomfortable, they maybe profitable in these rural routes. [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/greyhound-bus-routes-flixbus-1.4886264 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/greyhound-bus-routes-flixbu...

jorblumesea 8y ago

This basically mimics the decline of most rural areas in the US as well as parts of Europe. Declining services, population and job opportunities, even to the point where there's a marked difference in life expectancy. Unfortunately the future of the world seems like it's city based.

rocky1138 8y ago
Unfortunate, in your opinion. Personally, I love dense cities and really dislike suburban and rural living. Everything is so convenient and there is always something to do that doesn't require driving for 20+ minutes.
- ajmurmann 8y ago
  It's also more sustainable. Especially the suburbs only work financially because all the infrastructure is subsidized by the urban core. On top of that public transit which is a lot better for the environment is much more viable in a proper city.
- volkl48 8y ago
  I don't think that it needs the qualification. You're looking at it as either/or. It's unfortunate that there's a decline in the lifestyle choices that will offer you opportunities and much of a future. In the past, the city, the suburbs, and the rural areas were all viable options for making a good living and being in a healthy community.
- acheron 8y ago
  Hell is other people.
oftenwrong 8y ago
The past of the world was city based as well. Low-density human settlement as the norm is, at least for now, unsustainable. We are living in an experiment.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Tiktaalik 8y ago

British Columbia's social democratic NDP government quickly stepped in with their own bus service to serve the north though I'm not sure if it's intended to be permanent. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-northern-bus-transit-may-2018-1.4683199 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-northern-... It could make sense for the government to step in here with a publicly owned transit service if there is a real market failure here in that it's not at all profitable to serve the sparsely populated North.

GhostVII 8y ago
It sounds like it isn't designed to be permanent: "'This is an interim solution to cover the loss of Greyhound while we work with communities,' said Transportation Minister Claire Trevena, who said B.C. Transit would be spending $2 million to operate the service starting June 4." I'm kind of surprised they aren't making it permanent though - $2 million seems pretty cheap, and making it government-run ensures it won't be taken away again.
- uiri 8y ago
  making it government-run ensures it won't be taken away again. It only ensures that it won't be taken away again until the next time the province elects a majority Tory government.
  - BeeOnRope 8y ago
    To be fair, it has been about 90 years since the last time the Tories were elected in BC, and with no functioning Tory party in BC it doesn't seem like that will happen again any time soon.
    - vkou 8y ago
      In BC, the Tories call themselves the "BC Liberal" (In-name only) party. Their policies are very similar to the federal CPC.

nn3 8y ago

So is population dropping? Or just ridership? Or did Greyhound suddenly have higher costs? None of that is answered in the article, unless I missed it. <speculation:> I assume operating such a bus line is not all that expensive, and costs shouldn't have been rising because fuel is still cheap. So ridership must have been dropping. So apparently they didn't need it all that much, otherwise enough people would have continued riding so that it would have stayed profitable. That's the morale I guess: if you value something use it more often.

jessewmc 8y ago
You missed it, all answered in the article
wcarss 8y ago
Thanks for not understanding the problem and making a trite snipe at the rural people of Canada. People who live in these places do absolutely use these buses, and some people do need them, but (while I'm not sure about service cost) the prices go up regularly, many buses are packed, slow, and chronically late, and the population is in fact falling dramatically in rural Canada as the elderly move to care homes in the cities where their children already live -- it's not necessarily about choice, but about demographic and geographic change over decades. If there is a moral here it is not "use it or lose it". Perhaps instead it is merely that we won't be able to rely on even the services we feel are essential, as the world changes around us over time.
- nn3 8y ago
  If they are packed how can they be losing money? Perhaps I'm wrong but its clear you are not right either.
  - WaylonKenning 8y ago
    One packed bus does not make a service, if it's unreliable. And over those distances, they may not be profitable at the ticket prices they charge. And they may not be commercially viable if the ticket has to recoup all the costs + profit. That's why, sometimes governments operate services, even at a loss, as a benefit, to their citizens.

bmurray7jhu 8y ago

In the US, private operators of rural intercity bus service are eligible to receive operating subsidies under 49 § USC 5311(f). [1] Greyhound has written a manual for state and local governments that want to apply for a Section 5311(f) grant to fund Greyhound service. [2] [1] https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/grants/formula-grants-rural-areas-fact-sheet-section-5311 https://www.transit.dot.gov/funding/grants/formula-grants-ru... [2] http://extranet.greyhound.com/revsup/rfs/rfs-handbk.pdf http://extranet.greyhound.com/revsup/rfs/rfs-handbk.pdf

dev_dull 8y ago

> Some analysts see it as yet another indicator that rural Canada is not only struggling, but slowly decoupling from the country’s thriving urban cores. Sad story heard in a lot of towns around the US as well. What can a town do when all manufacturing/blue collar work was offshored a decade ago? And people think Russian Facebook ads are what propelled Trump to the whitehouse.

mschuster91 8y ago
> And people think Russian Facebook ads are what propelled Trump to the whitehouse. It's not just "legal" ads that helped Trump. The bigger problem was the Russian propaganda and lies that (still) get spread virally over Facebook.

flyGuyOnTheSly 8y ago

I'm surprised our federal government didn't offer to heavily subsidize the bus routes. There really isn't any other way to travel across Canada at a fair price anymore. We subsidize almost all forms of transportation, from the tiny GO railway system in the GTA at $2/ride, to VIA rail's cross-country treks at hundreds of dollars per ride. Perhaps the numbers are really that dismal that subsidies didn't even make sense?

52-6F-62 8y ago
> Perhaps the numbers are really that dismal that subsidies didn't even make sense? There's the question! I also wonder if it isn't a chicken-egg problem. Or maybe I should call it a Field of Dreams problem (if you build it, they will come). It would be a boon to living in this country if it were easier to travel without spending large amounts on flights. I'd certainly see more of it, myself. The fact that travel is so expensive or prohibitive can be pretty isolating. My own family lives but two hours away (in rural ON) and I see some of them maybe three times a year. My girlfriend's family is in Victoria (BC) and she sees them more often than that these days...
xattt 8y ago
GO is distance-based, though the fare is fixed to the TTC fare within the borders of Toronto ($3.75). This was part of an effort to encourage people to use existing infrastructure and take the load off the TTC.

jungletime 8y ago

I'm Canadian, and I tried taking a greyhound bus from Chicago to Detroit. I travelled all over the world, and apart from childhood memories of communism, and my recent visit to India. Never had I seen so much disorganization. The bus station was totally overcrowded, with confused passengers. The attendants were screaming into the PA and it was hard to discern which bus line was for which bus over all the peaking and distortion. So I got in the information line, so I could know which ticket line to get into, so I could get into the right line for my bus. So many lines, and its going slow, and I know my bus will leave in an hour. I'm waiting impatiently, soon I'll be next. What happened next, was a Kafkaesque moment. I literally saw a guy get escorted out of the "Information" line for asking a benign question, one too many times. There was a cop already there outside, seemingly ready for such moments. And promptly put cuffs on the guy. When I asked if I could still catch my bus, I was told "I was bamboozled", and laughed at. I was confused, not wanting to argue, I stepped out of the line. Bathroom smelled of urine and vomit. It was mostly poor black people at that Greyhound station, being treated terribly by other black people. I missed my bus, and ended up booking a Megabus, 6 hours later. It was a 5 hour trip, my lower back took a beating sitting over a wheel well. Never again. If you're rich and want to check your privilege, and have a lower class, "Coming to America", kind of experience. Try taking a Greyhound Bus in Chicago. Highly recommend it for that purpose.

umichguy 8y ago
Always take the Amtrak train between Chicago and Detroit - so much nicer and easier. In my opinion, better than a car on a long weekend when the roads are jammed.

ajcodez 8y ago

I think the GO train in Ontario and MegaBus between cities may have taken a lot of the better routes from Greyhound too.

mathattack 8y ago

I used to take Grayhound to college. I have much less nostalgia. I remember them as long rides in very smelly buses, that usually had a start or stop is a very seedy neighborhood.

davidblair 8y ago

One of the strangest business practices Greyhound has is the $18 Gift Ticket Fee [1]. Want someone to buy a ticket for you online? That will cost an extra. Think you can avoid it buy going to the station and buying it in person? Nope, the fee still applies. [1] https://www.greyhound.com/en/help-and-info/ticket-info/cardholder-not-traveling https://www.greyhound.com/en/help-and-info/ticket-info/cardh...