Greyhound ends all services in Canada
It likely won’t affect most of us in Montreal, but Greyhound has ended all services in Canada and this will have deleterious effects on a big country with big distances between towns in many places. Tracey Lindeman has a Twitter thread about the consequences. CBC says hopefully that other bus companies may fill the gaps, but one reason Greyhound left was because so many of its routes were unprofitable. A major transit union has launched a campaign to press the federal government to establish a public inter-city bus system in Canada.
John B 11:38 on 2021-05-15 Permalink
If you like to visit Ottawa and don’t have a car this affects you. On Via’s normal schedule the last train leaves Ottawa at 4PM, so without Greyhound you can’t eat dinner then leave. Via is usually a lot more expensive than Greyhound was too on that route. You could sometimes get a Via ticket for $29 by buying way in advance, but on short notice $50 is more normal. Greyhound was ~$22 in advance, and $30-ish on short notice.
Losing a cheap, reliable-ish, method of intercity travel sucks. Part of our decision to not own a car is based on being able to rely on busses & trains, and with family in Ottawa I have actually ridden the Greyhound more in the past 5-ish years than most of my life before. In this situation, I think the government should push Via Rail to be more frequent and downmarket. There’s a train line, let’s use it. What’ll probably happen is one of the existing bus companies will start serving this route.
Interestingly, if you really really want to take a bus to Ottawa you still can. It takes 7 hours, costs $110, and you have to change busses in Grand-Remous
EmilyG 11:39 on 2021-05-15 Permalink
It will affect me. I loved going to Ottawa on the Greyhound. I’ll need to think of other ways to get there when we can travel again.
david12 12:10 on 2021-05-15 Permalink
The train is more costly, but far nicer.
GC 12:15 on 2021-05-15 Permalink
The bus to Ottawa also dropped you somewhere central. The train…not so much.
david12 13:00 on 2021-05-15 Permalink
This is true but there’s an s-bahn type train now that takes you right into town. They’re calling it the Confederation line, of course, since the thing was one of Stephen Harper’s big projects.
John B 15:50 on 2021-05-15 Permalink
The new s-bahn train helps a lot. I used it once, with a half-hour delay for the true Ottawa Experience(TM). The train is way nicer nicer than the bus, but at 2-3x the price it had better be!
GC 07:27 on 2021-05-16 Permalink
Oh, good point. It’s actually been a few years since I rode the train there, because of the inconvenience of the station. I’m glad to hear it’s better now.
EmilyG 11:37 on 2021-05-16 Permalink
I’d like to try that train.
(Once the pandemic is over.)
Ant6n 20:32 on 2021-05-16 Permalink
Nitpick: it’s not an S-Bahn (regional rapid transit built out of mainline rail) but a Stadtbahn (light rail that’s a combination of tram and metro, often with inner city tunnel and and Surface running outside, based on tram-tech).
As for Greyhound, how will we get to NYC?
John B 23:45 on 2021-05-16 Permalink
Greyhound USA will operate busses from Montreal to NYC & Boston.
Josh 12:01 on 2021-05-17 Permalink
davidnumbers: Yeah, sure, the public transit project in the capital of the country was a big pet project of the Conservative Prime Minister from Calgary. Citation needed. Federal Conservatives love public transit and they especially love it in *Ottawa*.