Greyhound

[goggolor]

Looks like we don't have a Greyhound thread yet, but it would be useful to talk about news like Greyhound service to Pearson or service changes. And hopefully one day the end of Greyhound's monopoly on highway service to Toronto.

I bought a return ticket to Toronto yesterday and noticed that the hidden "Service Fee" that used to get tacked on at the very end of the purchase process appears to be gone now! The Service Fee was introduced a few years ago at $5 ($2.50 each way), and rose to $7 last year. Given that the advance purchase price of a ticket to Toronto is as little as $23 (+tax) and even lower with companion fare, the service fee was a significant percent of the total ticket cost and hidden from consumers until the last second.

Maybe Greyhound is feeling the heat from other competition in the region?

[KevinL]

Hmm.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Now Greyhound will be cancelling trips between Guelph and Kitchener, announcement tomorrow at The Delta <br> Hotel at 7 PM#badgreyhound <a href="https://t.co/AaSZo5fTv3">https://t.co/AaSZo5fTv3</a></p>&mdash; Barbara Ann Sim (@SimBarbaraa) <a href="https://twitter.com/SimBarbaraa/status/935210297681264640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 27, 2017</a></blockquote>

[DHLawrence]

I guess GRT or GO can take the route over now.

Not sure why Greyhound is allowed to object to GO and VIA operating with subsidies when they're cancelling routes left and right. Time to stop letting them hold the province ransom.

[goggolor]

Hopefully that means better trips between Toronto and Kitchener - lately the evening busses I've been taking back from Toronto tend to go through Guelph, where they make stops at downtown and UofG. That plus the stop at the airport meant my bus home on Tuesday took over 2.5 hours in normal traffic.

I wish someone would just run a Kitchener - Toronto direct bus, even if it cost more - Greyhound runs to Toronto alway stops at SportsWorld to pick up at most a couple of passengers, delaying dozens of people who get on at Charles St. Maybe if Greyhound loses the monopoly one of the tech organizations can set up a more modern service that runs downtown-downtown.

[mpd618]

Maybe if Greyhound loses the monopoly one of the tech organizations can set up a more modern service that runs downtown-downtown.

Or, like, GO Transit could just offer that service.

[Waterlooer]

Do we know for sure that Greyhound is announcing it will cancel all Kitchener-Guelph trips tomorrow, or is this just a rumour?

[KevinL]

It's not ALL trips, just some.

Greyhound to cut 15 per cent of trips between Kitchener and Guelph

[danbrotherston]

Maybe if Greyhound loses the monopoly one of the tech organizations can set up a more modern service that runs downtown-downtown.

Or, like, GO Transit could just offer that service.

Why do we think it takes a "tech organization" to run bus service.

Frankly, it's something *only* the government can do.  I cannot for the life of me understand why we are so averse to proper highway side bus stop.  Winding through city streets for 5-10 minutes for every stop is ridiculous.  It adds at least 30 minutes to the KW->Square One 25 regular bus.

[MidTowner]

I think that the Guelph-Kitchener route in particular would be better operated by some combination of Grand River and Guelph Transit. It would be good to put some intermediary stops at key points along Victoria and Woodlawn. I think the number of commuters between the two cities justifies this.

It's surprising to me that this doesn't exist, really. Plenty of nearby cities as integrated as ours have services that cross municipal boundaries- the Burlington Transit 1 Plains, which allows Burlingtonians to commute by bus to downtown Hamilton (and gives Hamiltonians another option to access Go) is one example nearby.

[goggolor]

I didn't say it would take a tech organization to run a service... but that it would be a good option in addition to the public agencies that run similar services. But as long as Greyhound holds the monopoly on transit between the two cities there are no good options at all.

[Viewfromthe42]

It's a bit of a tradeoff. Greyhound probably has schedules that don't appeal to the ideal of either KW-Guelph or KW-Toronto users. But if you opened it for anyone to do, you'd probably find that while the most popular routes would get good service, less popular routes would see reduced/eliminated service. I really don't think that Greyhound chooses its schedules just to try to rile people up; if there's money to be made, they'll find the buses to make it. If there's not money to be made on a route, they'll stick to whatever the government forces them to. We've already seen tech buses, every single day to Google in fact. And they indeed only serve Googlers and only on their schedule. Great for those employees, worthless for 99%+ of us.

[nms]

Time for Superlinx? :-)

[Pheidippides]

Maybe tomorrow's release of 2016 census on journey to work and mobility will shed some light on the situation.

[goggolor]

It looks like Greyhound has cut service from Kitchener - Toronto recently - the 10:30 AM bus which I've been taking for day trips every few months for almost 20 years (and which was usually full) is no longer on the schedule. The 9:30 buses for some days next week are already sold out, and many of the other trips are 2h40 as they do the milk run through Guelph. May be time for me to switch over to the GO bus, or just stop going to Toronto until we get the 2-way all-day train service (any year now, right?)

[danbrotherston]

It looks like Greyhound has cut service from Kitchener - Toronto recently - the 10:30 AM bus which I've been taking for day trips every few months for almost 20 years (and which was usually full) is no longer on the schedule. The 9:30 buses for some days next week are already sold out, and many of the other trips are 2h40 as they do the milk run through Guelph. May be time for me to switch over to the GO bus, or just stop going to Toronto until we get the 2-way all-day train service (any year now, right?)

Weekdays the 30 bus is a pretty good option, connecting isn't bad.

I'm so disappointed in all these cuts from greyhound, it's like they have no idea how to run a company.