Buses Are Traveling a Rough Road

Intercity bus travel peaked 50 years ago, the industry has been struggling ever because of declining ridership, shrinking service and a bad rep.

Boarding in Washington, D.C.

I was in Washington, D.C. until late in the evening and wanted to get back to New York rather than stay the night. I had taken an Amtrak train down earlier that day, but the last train to New York was at 10 p.m., which I couldn't make, and there were no late flights. I decided to take an overnight bus. How bad could it be? 

I bought a one-way ticket with Greyhound on-line. It cost $38. I even got to select my seat in advance. The seating chart showed the bus empty, which I thought odd. I chose an aisle seat in row 8.

Washington D.C. bus station

The bus station in D.C. is attached to Union Station, the train station. It's a magnificent building, its colonnaded exterior is an architectural gem. The interior, which was renovated in the 1980s, features a beautiful vaulted ceiling. There are shops and stores. But when I arrived at 11 p.m., everything was closed. The train station was empty and silent. A maintenance guy rode a mobile sweeper. Its beeps echoed off the walls and ceilings.

I followed the signage which led me out the back in the direction of what appeared to be an open-air garage. A crazy person came toward me and started to say something, but I shook my head and he stopped. 

I approached an area of a parking lot where I could see buses were parked. On the way, I passed a small waiting room. Every seat was full. The occupants looked tired and forlorn. The buses I had seen were dark. Nearby, there were small knots of men and women, dressed shabbily and standing beside sacks or bags. It was cold, only a few degrees above freezing. 

Washington, D.C.

I wandered around until I found the Greyhound ticket office. Two people were inside. I went in. They were conversing and didn't or wouldn't look at me. I went to the counter to ask where the 12:15 a.m. bus would be leaving from. The clerk laughed at me and mumbled something, most of which I didn't understand except "E-4." I peered up at the monitors showing arrival and departure times, but they were either from earlier in the day or the next day. It was impossible to tell which. 

E-4 turned out to be a lane separated by a rope line from E-3 and E-5 -- who knew? There was no bus there, only a guy sitting on a blue duffel bag. He was smoking a cigarette and intently watching on his iphone what sounded like BBC News. He coughed loudly, a phlegmy noise that seemed to rise from deep within a very congested chest, reached into his pocket for a grubby handkerchief, blew into it, then put it away. I took a few steps away. 

Waiting for bus, Washington, D.C.

As midnight approached still, no bus. I was joined in line by a young woman in her 20s who had with her two large suitcases and a drum which hung by a strap from her neck. She asked me if this was where the New York bus was leaving from. I said yes. She stuck earbuds in her ears and conspicuously avoided eye contact with anyone.

The BBC viewer and I were getting increasingly annoyed at the delay, a shared ire that helped us bond. He told me he had started the day in Atlanta and was going to New York to connect to another bus to Buffalo. It would take him roughly 24 hours.

The departure time came and went. No announcement. No one who looked like an employee anywhere in sight. Finally, a woman in a private security uniform came by and told us cryptically that "they" were trying to locate our bus. A few minutes later, she returned. A knot of passengers gathered around her. She told us our bus had been found and was en route, She said it would arrive at 12:40 a.m. As she spoke, I  noticed an old, seemingly befuddled woman approach her from behind. The woman tugged at the security person's belt next to her holstered pistol, a move that alarmed me. The uniformed woman wheeled around, furious, and glared at the old woman.

"Don't touch my belt," she said.

The old woman said she just wanted to know where the 1 a.m. bus was leaving from.

Eventually, a Greyhound bus pulled in, parked and disgorged its passengers. But it was the 1 a.m. bus, not mine.

Around 1:15 a.m., a second Greyhound bus arrived, screeched to a stop, and opened the door to let its passengers out. I heard shouting and cursing. It was the driver arguing vociferously with one of the passengers. .  

We finally boarded. Every seat was soon taken except for the one next to me. The seating was a little cramped but not uncomfortable, thanks to the open seat.

We pulled out of the station and onto the dark, quiet streets of the city, eventually connecting to the interstate heading north. I fell asleep at some point but was soon awakened by the blaring of hip-hop. The young man across the aisle from me was watching a music video, his screen so bright it illuminated the entire cabin. I put on headphones and played jazz at a low volume to drown it out.

We reached Newark, N.J. just before dawn

I must have dozed again. When I awoke we were parked somewhere. It turned out to be Baltimore, though it didn't look like any part of Baltimore I recognized. The front door of the bus was open. People were getting off, then new ones were boarding. A woman with three small children boarded. The driver stopped her in the aisle and I could see them engaged in an intense conversation. I took off my headphones. The driver was angry, again, and ordered the woman to go back into the terminal and wait for the next bus. I had no idea what the dispute was about.  Abruptly, the driver changed his mind and told her to take any available seats. She objected. Apparently she had reserved specific seats and now they were occupied. The driver became enraged anew and once again told her to get off the bus. The woman refused. The standoff lasted a few tense minutes before the driver relented. The woman and her kids found seats. The driver sat down behind the wheel but we didn't move. Finally, a passenger near the front got up, went to him and said something.  Soon, the driver backed the bus out and we were on the road again. 

Except for the passenger behind me repeatedly hitting my seat - my seat back was stuck in a semi-reclining position but it couldn't be adjusted - the rest of the voyage passed uneventfully. We arrived in New York City a little after 7 a.m., more than two hours late. I clambered off, dazed and groggy.

Almost there. My bus arrived in NYC after dawn, more than 2 hours late

Once upon time, bus travel was a key piece of the nation's transportation network. It was especially important for people in small towns far from airports or train stations. The country was crisscrossed with bus routes and millions of people took them.

Bus ridership peaked in 1970, when 130 million passengers took intercity buses. I remember as a kid hearing the catchy Greyhound jingle, "Take Greyhound and leave the driving to us." But increasingly, people were choosing to drive themselves or take a plane. As ridership declined, bus lines responded by increasingly focusing on express service between big cities. Service to smaller cities and towns was cut back. The number of stops fell precipitously from 23,000 in 1965 to fewer than 6,000 in 1991. As many cities declined economically, so did their bus stations. Many of them, such as New York City's Port Authority Terminal, turned seedy and dangerous.

Pittsburgh bus station, 1943, photo credit: polkbritton

In 1982, Congress deregulated the intercity bus industry, intending to spur competition which was supposed to improve service. It didn't work. In 1990, Greyhound filed for bankruptcy protection. Smaller competitors went extinct. Bus travel acquired the downmarket popular image that persists to this day. According to some reports, most riders of intercity buses earn less than $40,000 a year. The people who rely on them tend to be minorities, the poor, students and people with physical disabilities. The airline and rail industries have powerful lobbyists and advocates in Congress. The bus industry doesn't. Covid was a huge blow to all forms of transportation. Ridership declined 65 percent.

The website governing.com says, unlike airlines and trains, the bus industry "received no direct aid from the Trump-era CARES Act or the Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act."

"The business traveler who's riding on an airplane has a bigger voice than somebody from a poor, rural part of the country who needs basic transportation," governing.com quoted Peter Pantuso, president of the American Bus Association as saying. "I always tell people we are like wallpaper. We just blend into the background.”

Disembarking at New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal

Ridership has rebounded since the worst of the pandemic, but is still 15 to 20 percent below its pre-pandemic levels. Last year, an estimated 40 million to 50 million passengers took intercity buses.

According to a report on NPR, a quarter of the companies that existed before Covid lost their operating authority and some are unlikely to ever re-open. The industry has also been hit with an acute driver and mechanic shortage as many drivers retired during Covid. Bus fleets are aging. And now the latest blow has been the closing of many indoor bus stations. After Flix, a German company, bought Greyhound in 2021, it began selling about three dozen Greyhound stations to an investment firm that is closing many of them to clear the sites for real estate development. In some cities, Greyhound buses now leave and depart from street corners, just like many discount carriers, like Megabus.

"The national (bus) network is unraveling in ways that can really hurt mobility for disadvantaged groups, because there's no other option between many cities," said Joseph Schwieterman, professor of transportation at DePaul University.

Lately, some bus lines are trying to attract passengers with amenities such as wifi and movies, and on some long-distance routes with luxury class seating and even sleepers, seats that fully recline. Atlanta and Los Angeles are opening new, modern bus stations. But even with such improvements, it will surely take a lot more to erase the public image of bus travel as unpleasant, slow and downmarket. 

In TakeYourBag.org, an online travel blog, a British woman named Alice who traveled around the U.S. by bus in 2018 with her new husband, warned prospective bus riders: "You have to be prepared. The toilets won't always be decent. The wifi might not work all the time. You might have (you will have) crappy seat neighbors who will speak loudly on the phone, eat with their mouth open, fart, listen to music without headphones, etc. You will get woken up by multiple stops on an overnight bus. You get hungry or thirsty because you miscalculated your reserves and needs. Bring your own toilet paper."

Still, bus travel is an adventure. Intrepid Alice said her three months of bus travel in America were "tiring and a  little crazy,” but ultimately she said she had an "amazing time." No one ever said that about flying.