Intercity Bus Services

[jaybe]

How intercity bus service is failing Ontarians

Interesting read. Frankly, this market seems ripe for a ride sharing App. There must be hundreds of individuals making daily trips between Hamilton and Guelph, as an example.

 

[Garuda]

Having a GO Bus on Highway 6 from Guelph to Hamilton/aldershot would be great. If the Kitchener train is delayed for any reason, a commuter could take the train to Aldershot then bus north to Guelph.

 

[Allandale25]

Not sure if this is the best thread. Just noticed this article:

http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/2018/05/04/mto-to-fund-owen-sound-to-guelph-bus-route

 

[reaperexpress]

Not sure if this is the best thread. Just noticed this article:

http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/2018/05/04/mto-to-fund-owen-sound-to-guelph-bus-route

What I'm interested to see is whether they charge HST on those bus tickets. We in southern Ontario have the privilege of travelling across the region tax-free on GO Transit, whereas more rural parts of the province need to pay tax on bus and train tickets because their services are operated by VIA Rail, Greyhound, Can-Ar, etc.

Maybe if we had made all regularly-scheduled intercity trains and buses tax-exempt like GO Transit, we wouldn't have lost so many of the rural bus routes. Surely getting bus and train tickets exempted from HST would be the first step to protect intercity transit service. It is simply wasteful to both subsidize and tax a market at the same time.

Fortunately, eliminating taxes is ideologically in-line with the incoming Conservative government, so there is some hope of success if transport advocates choose to head in that direction.

 

[christiesplits]

Big loss for northern communities:

Oliver Moore@moore_oliver
18 minutes ago

Breaking: Greyhound Canada plans to kill all its bus routes west of Sudbury, blaming low ridership. The only survivor will be Vancouver-Seattle, which is run by its US counterpart. Cuts would take effect 31-Oct

 

[Kitsune]

Well the government is going to have to do something - greyhound is the only service for many small communities and can be more reliable then Canada Post too.

 

[Sandpit]

Big loss for northern communities:

They might be calling the government's bluff. I can't imagine shutting down Calgary-Edmonton, Regina-Saskatoon, or Vancouver-Kelowna (among others). As for the smaller communities, I think this shows how Canada could benefit from a population of 50 million - a bigger market to sustain things like this.

 

[Mongo]

Greyhound Canada to end routes in Prairies, B.C.

Greyhound Canada says it is ending its passenger bus and freight services in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and cancelling all but one route in B.C. -- a U.S.-run service between Vancouver and Seattle.

[...]

All Greyhound routes in Ontario and Quebec will continue to operate except for one: the Trans-Canada, which links a number of smaller communities between Winnipeg and Sudbury, Ont.

This is life-threatening news for my younger sister, who lives in Dryden. She has a severe medical condition that requires specialized monitoring and treatment once a month, with the nearest available access in Thunder Bay, 350 km away.

She does not drive (nor could she afford to, being unable to work), and the only available means to get to and from Thunder Bay is the Greyhound bus service, which will be shut down in October.

 

[ShonTron]

They might be calling the government's bluff. I can't imagine shutting down Calgary-Edmonton, Regina-Saskatoon, or Vancouver-Kelowna (among others). As for the smaller communities, I think this shows how Canada could benefit from a population of 50 million - a bigger market to sustain things like this.

There are no buses between Regina and Saskatoon. The right-wing Saskatchewan Party destroyed the publicly owned STC last year and sold off the assets. You can’t get between the two cities without a car.

 

[Sandpit]

There are no buses between Regina and Saskatoon. The right-wing Saskatchewan Party destroyed the publicly owned STC last year and sold off the assets. You can’t get between the two cities without a car.

Yes I found out afterwards but didn't bother editing my post. A bit of a surprise, cause I thought STC was cut partly because it faced competition for its Regina-Saskatoon route. Also, there are two other companies running Calgary-Edmonton, which may have cut into Greyhound's profits enough that they would pull this move.

 

[MisterF]

They might be calling the government's bluff. I can't imagine shutting down Calgary-Edmonton, Regina-Saskatoon, or Vancouver-Kelowna (among others). As for the smaller communities, I think this shows how Canada could benefit from a population of 50 million - a bigger market to sustain things like this.

50 million is fairly modest actually; we're not that far from 40 million already. Let's fulfil Laurier's dream of 100 million in Canada! We could support it. The Windsor-Quebec Corridor alone could easily double in population, and even then it would still be less densely populated than Germany. Okay, 100 million will never happen in an era when families are so small, but it's interesting to think about.

 

[Garuda]

Found this news release (and map) from the Greyhound website
https://news.greyhound.ca/ontario

No wonder there services were poorly used - their "map" is just a jpeg with MS Paint lines painted on. If they hired a proper s GIS technician and programmer - it'd be more intuitive to plan trips via their bus. Ontario Northland does a really good job of visualizing their bus routes. Greyhound should have taken note.

"Greyhound Canada has taken the difficult decision to downsize its operations. The company has notified all proper authorities of its intention to discontinue some or all service – both passenger and freight -- Effective October 31, 2018.

In Ontario, we will operate substantially as we do today in the southern and eastern regions of the province with no changes in the Toronto and Ottawa areas.

There will be changes in the northern part of the province. Service will be discontinued on the Trans-Canada Highway, west of Sudbury.

Greyhound Canada will continue to operate in southern Ontario.



(Greyhound Canada)

All Routes TO and FROM the following Ontario stops will be discontinued

• Moth Lake
• Nairn Centre
• Naughton
• Nipigon
• Pass Lake Corner
• Pearl
• Port Mamanaise
• Raith
• Red Rock Jct
• Red Rock Lake
• Rossport Jct
• Sault Ste Marie
• Schreiber
• Serpent River
• Spanish
• Spragge
• Terrace Bay
• Thessalon
• Thunder Bay
• Upsala
• Vermillion Bay
• Wabigoon
• Walford Jct
• Wawa
• Webbwood
• White Lake Bridge
• White River
• Whitefish

• Agawa
• Batchawana Bay
• Blind River
• Bruce Mines
• Clearwater Bay
• Copper Cliff
• Desbarats
• Dinorwic
• Dorion
• Dryden
• Echo Bay
• English River
• Espanola
• Garden River
• Goulais River
• Granite Lake
• Harmony Beach
• Heyden
• Hurkett Jct
• Ignace
• Iron Bridge
• Kakabeka Falls
• Kenora
• Manitouwadge Jct
• Marathon
• Massey
• McKerrow
• Montreal River

All other routes in Ontario and Quebec will continue unchanged, including the following corridors:

• Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-New York
• Toronto-Niagara Falls-Buffalo-New York
• Toronto-London-Windsor-Detroit
• Toronto-Barrie, Toronto-Guelph/Kitchener/Cambridge, and all other southern Ontario services."

 

[nfitz]

Well the government is going to have to do something - greyhound is the only service for many small communities and can be more reliable then Canada Post too.

They should do something.

But even centrist governments have done nothing for the larger southern communities that have lost bus service.

Hard to think that a far-right government is going to do much - unless there there's a really simple Ontario Northland option.

Though I fully expect the PCs to be cutting some of the recent Ontario Northland bus services, that significantly expanded under are more reasonable government, rather than continuing the expansion.

They might be calling the government's bluff. I can't imagine shutting down Calgary-Edmonton, Regina-Saskatoon, or Vancouver-Kelowna (among others). As for the smaller communities, I think this shows how Canada could benefit from a population of 50 million - a bigger market to sustain things like this.

There's other services already between Calgary/Edmonton, and Regina/Saskatoon.

BC Transit already provides service with Kelowna - I'd assume that if nothing private materializes, that they'd add something back and forth to Vancouver ... though WestJet and Air Canada fly it as well, I believe. It's about the same distance as Toronto to Ottawa.

 

[dowlingm]

They might be calling the government's bluff. I can't imagine shutting down Calgary-Edmonton, Regina-Saskatoon, or Vancouver-Kelowna (among others). As for the smaller communities, I think this shows how Canada could benefit from a population of 50 million - a bigger market to sustain things like this.

That is only true if the population is distributed. Since internal mobility is a Charter right, that leaves incentives like moving government jobs into those regions or giving tax breaks to private enterprises.

 

[robmausser]

There are no buses between Regina and Saskatoon. The right-wing Saskatchewan Party destroyed the publicly owned STC last year and sold off the assets. You can’t get between the two cities without a car.

You can fly, but its expensive.