4 ms·
> 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 t
by 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 agoTo 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 agoI'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.
- ajmurmann 8y agoYou can always buy the car when the service actually stops, no?
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoIf you have the money to buy the car. If you have access to gasoline through hours and hours of wilderness (hint: no gas stations). If the roads are passable. If you have a safe place to stop and sleep during your trip (hint: you don't).
- ajmurmann 8y agoAre you describing some kind of apocalyptic prepper scenario?
- vkou 8y agoNo, just some things that you want to think about before you drive on the Trans-Canada in the middle of January. I mean, you don't need to think about them for very long, but you do want to have a plan for being stuck for hours, or having to turn around in the middle of Nowhere, BC.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoCan a bus make it through those conditions? If not, you're screwed either way.
- ajmurmann 8y agoI have to think about having enough money to buy a new car when driving across Canada?
- icebraining 8y agoI don't see how this is relevant to the context of the reply. It was the grandparent post who said "an automobile is valuable and essential to anyone not living in a city". If there's no access to gasoline and the roads aren't passable, then it's not that valuable in the first place. In any case, I'm pretty sure a bus needs the roads to be passable as well.