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Speaking of transit between Toronto and London (and KW), I found out about a fairly new service this morning called Onex Bus. (Ironically, I was on the Via Bus Replacement between London and KW, and they used them as their charter)
https://www.onexbus.com/
They apparently runs several buses a day between London (Former Greyhound station) and Downtown Toronto, with stops at Woodstock, Sportsworld and Pearson.
I have a flyer somewhere, I can upload a photo of it if anyone wants.
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(09-19-2021, 06:49 PM)bgb_ca Wrote: Speaking of transit between Toronto and London (and KW), I found out about a fairly new service this morning called Onex Bus. (Ironically, I was on the Via Bus Replacement between London and KW, and they used them as their charter)
https://www.onexbus.com/
They apparently runs several buses a day between London (Former Greyhound station) and Downtown Toronto, with stops at Woodstock, Sportsworld and Pearson.
I have a flyer somewhere, I can upload a photo of it if anyone wants. I just bought a round trip ticket from them to go to London tomorrow. I am not happy that I have to go all the way to Sportsworld to get it. It takes almost an hour to get there in time to make the connection. I miss being able to get the Greyhound downtown.
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(09-19-2021, 06:49 PM)bgb_ca Wrote: Speaking of transit between Toronto and London (and KW), I found out about a fairly new service this morning called Onex Bus. (Ironically, I was on the Via Bus Replacement between London and KW, and they used them as their charter)
https://www.onexbus.com/
They apparently runs several buses a day between London (Former Greyhound station) and Downtown Toronto, with stops at Woodstock, Sportsworld and Pearson.
I have a flyer somewhere, I can upload a photo of it if anyone wants.
Yeah, I heard about them. I was excited but that excitement waned when I saw they had no weekend trips (at least last time I looked). Going down to spotsworld is a bummer too. At least if they went to Fairway they’d be one trip on the LRT but I’m not keen to make two connections just to get to London.
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(09-19-2021, 06:49 PM)bgb_ca Wrote: Speaking of transit between Toronto and London (and KW), I found out about a fairly new service this morning called Onex Bus. (Ironically, I was on the Via Bus Replacement between London and KW, and they used them as their charter)
https://www.onexbus.com/
They apparently runs several buses a day between London (Former Greyhound station) and Downtown Toronto, with stops at Woodstock, Sportsworld and Pearson.
I have a flyer somewhere, I can upload a photo of it if anyone wants.
Seems decent enough - they really need to clarify where their stations are, nothing on the pre-booking part of the website indicates that by 'Kitchener' they mean Sportsworld.
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(09-19-2021, 09:44 PM)KevinL Wrote: (09-19-2021, 06:49 PM)bgb_ca Wrote: Speaking of transit between Toronto and London (and KW), I found out about a fairly new service this morning called Onex Bus. (Ironically, I was on the Via Bus Replacement between London and KW, and they used them as their charter)
https://www.onexbus.com/
They apparently runs several buses a day between London (Former Greyhound station) and Downtown Toronto, with stops at Woodstock, Sportsworld and Pearson.
I have a flyer somewhere, I can upload a photo of it if anyone wants.
Seems decent enough - they really need to clarify where their stations are, nothing on the pre-booking part of the website indicates that by 'Kitchener' they mean Sportsworld. You have to book a trip to find that out.
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So the Onex Bus driver phoned me personally to tell me he would be 25 minutes late due to traffic on the 401.
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Wow, now that is service...
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(09-20-2021, 11:27 AM)Rainrider22 Wrote: Wow, now that is service... They are not running full size buses. It is a van that holds around 15 passengers.
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ok, nice little niche business then. I am still happy to hear that they take customer service importantly though.
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(09-20-2021, 11:41 AM)Rainrider22 Wrote: ok, nice little niche business then. I am still happy to hear that they take customer service importantly though. Yes. Greyhound was losing money on every trip that wasn't full, so running smaller vehicles makes sense.
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(09-20-2021, 10:46 AM)Acitta Wrote: So the Onex Bus driver phoned me personally to tell me he would be 25 minutes late due to traffic on the 401.
Uhh...was the driver....driving at the time?
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(09-20-2021, 11:44 AM)Acitta Wrote: (09-20-2021, 11:41 AM)Rainrider22 Wrote: ok, nice little niche business then. I am still happy to hear that they take customer service importantly though. Yes. Greyhound was losing money on every trip that wasn't full, so running smaller vehicles makes sense.
I'm not sure it makes that much sense, but it depends on the specific numbers: big buses have more capital costs of course, but a large fraction of bus cost is staff, and a small bus is just as expensive to staff.
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There's likely more fuel and maintenance costs involved in a large versus small bus, but I can't imagine it was all that great. Greyhound just never made a whole lot of money in Canada, at least compared to the USA. Fewer people, fewer cities, greater distances means they never had huge ridership numbers. When people travel a long distance here, they just fly, assuming they aren't really trying to save money. Trains don't even count because people only take those long distances for the novelty factor.
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(09-20-2021, 03:34 PM)ac3r Wrote: There's likely more fuel and maintenance costs involved in a large versus small bus, but I can't imagine it was all that great. Greyhound just never made a whole lot of money in Canada, at least compared to the USA. Fewer people, fewer cities, greater distances means they never had huge ridership numbers. When people travel a long distance here, they just fly, assuming they aren't really trying to save money. Trains don't even count because people only take those long distances for the novelty factor. When I first moved to Kitchener, a lot of people were using Greyhound to go to Toronto but it deteriorated over the years.
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(09-20-2021, 04:29 PM)Acitta Wrote: (09-20-2021, 03:34 PM)ac3r Wrote: There's likely more fuel and maintenance costs involved in a large versus small bus, but I can't imagine it was all that great. Greyhound just never made a whole lot of money in Canada, at least compared to the USA. Fewer people, fewer cities, greater distances means they never had huge ridership numbers. When people travel a long distance here, they just fly, assuming they aren't really trying to save money. Trains don't even count because people only take those long distances for the novelty factor. When I first moved to Kitchener, a lot of people were using Greyhound to go to Toronto but it deteriorated over the years.
Greyhound did little to update their service for decades. I'm sure they actually make a lot of money, but with the pandemic, and their lack of investment (i.e., infrastructure debt), there was little future prospect for earning. Most aspects of their service was terrible, but they had a lot of legacy artefacts (stations, customers) that were valuable and it is a shame that nothing was done to provide a real transition. I'm not sorry they're gone, but it really says a lot about our priorities that we did nothing to provide continuity of service.
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