Biggest reverse culture shock I experience when planning trips back home from greater Nuremberg to Texas: it is pretty much impossible to get from city to city without a car, even if you have a high tolerance for long, convoluted bus routes.
Germany’s transportation systems aren’t perfect, but it’s at least possible to live a mobile, middle class life without a car.
This makes me curious to see what greyhound would look like if Amtrak purchased it. Use existing train stations where they're built, somewhat decent brand recognition, connection with trains, potentially having busses to fall back on when trains don't work.
Maybe not what you meant, but a lot of train stations are also bus stations.
For example, you can go from Boston to Worcester via Commuter Rail (amtrak also stops there but for a different route) or via Bus. Bus is usually faster but they're always late, so I used to take the commuter rail.
Boston's South Station, which is linked to New York City via Amtrak (slow train and Acela) also has a bus terminal next to it which goes to many more destinations.
You can also take the Amtrak from Boston North Station up through Portland, ME to Brunswick. The station in Portland also is home to a bus company (not Greyhound), which also goes to Boston & other places.
Anyways, in short most cities connected by amtrak are also already connected by bus, so a greyhound acquisition isn't necessary (and some locations aren't desirable, the Portland one is in a terrible spot)
I consider greyhound an essential service but it is fully private.
They can sell off their stations piece by piece, gut whats profitable, stop service, etc. leaving downtowns or just stopping service to a destination is the same thing. What can be done to stop this? Why should it be stopped?
I also consider greyhound bus stops social blight, they're pretty scary because of the clientelle.
This will be a pollarizing post, but whats there to be done with this?
Can you force greyhound not to sell their real estate? Nationalize it? Subsidize it more to keep their real estae. Enforce that they have minimum for a bus stop in the USA? Is there a minimum for the local transit authority that has bus stops e.g. a literal sign and maybe a shelter and a bench?
Greyhound is not the problem here and not sure why you are expecting them to solve this (a social problem). Forcing them will just ensure that once they fail no other private entity will get in this space ever again.
That sounds pretty condescending. Do you mean "poor people"? I'm not familiar with the company (as an EU citizen), but I believe a good public transport is something that should be encouraged and supported, not scoffed at.
It's an interesting experience; I think tourists should try it at least once.
We (as recent immigrants) used Greyhound some 20 years ago for a trip from San Jose to Las Vegas. My recollections were:
* Several of the stations were in very scary areas of the cities (I particularly recall the one in Los Angeles).
* Most of the passengers seemed quite decent people, but very poor.
* In many of the Central Valley stops, there was indeed somebody in clean but shabby clothes with minimal luggage waiting to board, with an uniformed officer next to them making sure they got on. Many of these cities house state prisons, and the practice seems to be to supply prisoners who served their sentence with a one way ticket somewhere.
* There were no problems with violence or disruptive behavior; the passengers pretty much kept to themselves. And there was a complete absence of the entitlement problems that sometimes plague airline travel.
I've heard since that Greyhound on the East Coast was a bit less blighted than on the West Coast.
Twenty years ago I had a bus ride scheduled from the LA station. It was so frightening that I paid for a flight the next day rather than get on that bus.
Poor people generally fly budget airlines like Spirit or spend a few extra dollars to ride with a more reliable bus company. Greyhound is the safest way to get from state A to state B with an arrest warrant. It’s often exactly as bad as advertised. A Greyhound rider should not be surprised to encounter suffering, disease, violence, or intense emotional disturbances on a 20+ hour journey.
Poor people aren’t necessarily scary, but scary people (meth heads and folks with untreated mental health issues) are overwhelmingly poor. People tend to paint with a broad brush, unfortunately.
Germany’s transportation systems aren’t perfect, but it’s at least possible to live a mobile, middle class life without a car.