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It sounds like you were a few years too late to appreciate Fung Wah. $5 Chinatown to Chinatown (Boston and NYC) and no shenanigans with buying tickets in advan

It sounds like you were a few years too late to appreciate Fung Wah. $5 Chinatown to Chinatown (Boston and NYC) and no shenanigans with buying tickets in advance. They were absolutely crushing the competetion and growing. Then they had a couple accidents and had the microscope of state scrutiny put on them (no low margin business without insane economics of scale can survive that scrutiny at least in MA) which drove them out of business. Then Megabus and all the other discount bus lines that are owned by the major bus lines showed up to fill the vacuum. Don't get me wrong, Fung Wah had some growing pains and the fact that their service was the kind of thing that the upper middle class love to hate did them no favors (cue jokes about sitting beside someone who is transporting live chickens) but it's a classic case of corporate interests and (hopefully well meaning but) misinformed regulators destroying a business that provided great utility to lots of people who couldn't afford anything else.

ramphastidae 7y ago
This is dangerous misinformation. Fung Wah was incredibly irresponsible, repeatedly ignored the law and regulation, the drivers were often unlicensed and the buses unmaintained, they ignored street laws and designated pick-up areas and was generally a menace to NYC. The reason was NOT "the microscope of state scrutiny" as you say, but because Fung Wah actively blocked regulators from accessing safety records after it was discovered that 21 out of 28 of their buses had multiple structural cracks in them. You can also see what this comment flippantly refers to as "a couple accidents" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fung_Wah_Bus_Transportation#Safety-related_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fung_Wah_Bus_Transportation#Sa... Anecdotally, I have taken Fung Wahs that have pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of a highway to pick up random passengers, have broken down before even leaving the city, and where the driver has abandoned the vehicle in the middle of traffic to get in a fistfight with another driver. Take off your rose tinted glasses. Fung Wah being shut down isn't an elitist conspiracy — they were completely irresponsible, riding their buses was dangerous, and the rise of Megabus and Boltbus in their wake is unequivocally a good thing.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Yeah, they were a shitty low class bus line with all the baggage that comes with that but they offered $5 tickets and that's what people could afford. Being able to go between Boston and NYC for $5 made a heck of a lot of people's lives better. >Megabus and Boltbus in their wake is unequivocally a good thing. Only if the difference between $5 and $15 (or even $35, which is what the Megabus website is telling me a Boston-> NYC ticket for today costs) is not meaningful. $15 tickets and Fung Wah coexisted. Clearly there was no shortage of people willing to take on the extra risk of riding Fung Wah in order to save $10. As far as I care that makes it a useful service you can hemm and haw about whether or not it was justified but the fact of the matter is that said useful service no longer exists thanks to the state. >Fung Wah being shut down isn't an elitist conspiracy — they were completely irresponsible, riding their buses was dangerous, This is exactly what I mean. If you don't care about the difference between $5 and $15 then of course you don't see any reason for Fung Wah or any similiar service to exist because it is all downside.
  - ramphastidae 7y ago
    > This is exactly what I mean. If you don't care about the difference between $5 and $15 then of course you don't see any reason for Fung Wah or any similiar service to exist because it is all downside. No. You are making a lot of assumptions about me as well as twisting my words. Fung Wah being gone is good because it threatened the lives of their passengers. That feeling doesn't change whether my income level rises or not, and even if you disagree, you have no basis to make your claim. Do you also chastise people who believe in regulation of alcohol production and sales? Regulation undoubtedly drives alcohol prices up, but it also prevents a lot of people from going blind from tainted batches like in Russia.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
    >Clearly there was no shortage of people willing to take on the extra risk of riding Fung Wah in order to save $10. How many of them knew what the risk was?
    - 7y ago

ramphastidae 7y ago

This is dangerous misinformation. Fung Wah was incredibly irresponsible, repeatedly ignored the law and regulation, the drivers were often unlicensed and the buses unmaintained, they ignored street laws and designated pick-up areas and was generally a menace to NYC. The reason was NOT "the microscope of state scrutiny" as you say, but because Fung Wah actively blocked regulators from accessing safety records after it was discovered that 21 out of 28 of their buses had multiple structural cracks in them. You can also see what this comment flippantly refers to as "a couple accidents" here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fung_Wah_Bus_Transportation#Safety-related_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fung_Wah_Bus_Transportation#Sa... Anecdotally, I have taken Fung Wahs that have pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of a highway to pick up random passengers, have broken down before even leaving the city, and where the driver has abandoned the vehicle in the middle of traffic to get in a fistfight with another driver. Take off your rose tinted glasses. Fung Wah being shut down isn't an elitist conspiracy — they were completely irresponsible, riding their buses was dangerous, and the rise of Megabus and Boltbus in their wake is unequivocally a good thing.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Yeah, they were a shitty low class bus line with all the baggage that comes with that but they offered $5 tickets and that's what people could afford. Being able to go between Boston and NYC for $5 made a heck of a lot of people's lives better. >Megabus and Boltbus in their wake is unequivocally a good thing. Only if the difference between $5 and $15 (or even $35, which is what the Megabus website is telling me a Boston-> NYC ticket for today costs) is not meaningful. $15 tickets and Fung Wah coexisted. Clearly there was no shortage of people willing to take on the extra risk of riding Fung Wah in order to save $10. As far as I care that makes it a useful service you can hemm and haw about whether or not it was justified but the fact of the matter is that said useful service no longer exists thanks to the state. >Fung Wah being shut down isn't an elitist conspiracy — they were completely irresponsible, riding their buses was dangerous, This is exactly what I mean. If you don't care about the difference between $5 and $15 then of course you don't see any reason for Fung Wah or any similiar service to exist because it is all downside.
- ramphastidae 7y ago
  > This is exactly what I mean. If you don't care about the difference between $5 and $15 then of course you don't see any reason for Fung Wah or any similiar service to exist because it is all downside. No. You are making a lot of assumptions about me as well as twisting my words. Fung Wah being gone is good because it threatened the lives of their passengers. That feeling doesn't change whether my income level rises or not, and even if you disagree, you have no basis to make your claim. Do you also chastise people who believe in regulation of alcohol production and sales? Regulation undoubtedly drives alcohol prices up, but it also prevents a lot of people from going blind from tainted batches like in Russia.
- PaulDavisThe1st 7y ago
  >Clearly there was no shortage of people willing to take on the extra risk of riding Fung Wah in order to save $10. How many of them knew what the risk was?
  - 7y ago