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University of Guelph builds GO hub

SeanTrans said:
In Kitchener, Greyhound is pulling its terminal out from the GRT facility downtown on Charles Street and moving it to Sportsworld, so they can have a park-and-ride. Ticket sales will be there. Only GRT 52 serves it. Many, if not most, buses will be pulled from downtown. What a stupid move, not only screwing your student and other car-less passengers, but making transit connections horrible for the sake of park-and-ride customers.

I wonder if this is the market Greyhound is after now - they've got the mentality that GO had (at least they're slowly breaking out of that mentality, but very slowly!).
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Are they insane? The last time I rode the bus to KW the overwhelming majority of their passengers were students.
 
I posted this earlier in the main GO service improvements thread

gotransittokdub.jpg
 
Hipster Duck said:
Are they insane? The last time I rode the bus to KW the overwhelming majority of their passengers were students.
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Greyhound, I am now convinced, doesn't want to run buses anymore.

In the past few years, they've steadily cut back service on the Troonto-Peterborough-Pembroke local, and even the local from Peterborough through Madoc to Ottawa. It is no longer possible to go to Bancroft, for example, on a weekend without taking Friday off, because the buses don't run on Saturday. And they no longer sell tickets in Bancroft either; you have to board the bus and then jump off in Peterborough to buy them.

Furthermore, I've noticed that their buses are in worse and worse shape: banged up, dented, scraped. I wonder whether they're skimping on preventative maintenance.

It would be interesting to go though the corporate news and find out whether Greyhound has bought one bus company too many and gotten in over their head with debt.
 
SeanTrans said:
In Kitchener, Greyhound is pulling its terminal out from the GRT facility downtown on Charles Street and moving it to Sportsworld, so they can have a park-and-ride. Ticket sales will be there. Only GRT 52 serves it. Many, if not most, buses will be pulled from downtown. What a stupid move, not only screwing your student and other car-less passengers, but making transit connections horrible for the sake of park-and-ride customers.
Click to expand...

I can attest that this is not true. There *were* rumours that Greyhound will be leaving Charles Street, but the Mayor of Kitchener and company management said there would be no reduction of service to the downtown terminal. They would be serving a new stop at Sportsworld, apparently for better 401 access for their buses to London and other points.
 
GO expands operations in Guelph and then suddenly there is movement to more park-and-ride. Just confirms what I have been saying all along, that expansion of GO only increases automobile dependency, whether directly or indirectly.
 
doady said:
GO expands operations in Guelph and then suddenly there is movement to more park-and-ride. Just confirms what I have been saying all along, that expansion of GO only increases automobile dependency, whether directly or indirectly.
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What are you talking about? Guelph has had service for a full school year now. Kindly explain how "suddenly there is a movement to more park-and-ride"?
 
SeanTrans said:
In Kitchener, Greyhound is pulling its terminal out from the GRT facility downtown on Charles Street and moving it to Sportsworld, so they can have a park-and-ride. Ticket sales will be there. Only GRT 52 serves it. Many, if not most, buses will be pulled from downtown. What a stupid move, not only screwing your student and other car-less passengers, but making transit connections horrible for the sake of park-and-ride customers.

I wonder if this is the market Greyhound is after now - they've got the mentality that GO had (at least they're slowly breaking out of that mentality, but very slowly!).
Click to expand...

I've also wondered if this suburban-terminal trend is meant to address the "image problem" of coach travel (slummy inner-city terminals, slummy inner-city passengers)--pretty inept, and strangely dumb-American, if I say so...
 
My thoughts exactly, adma. I spoke to the ticket agent at the bus terminal, and he was infuriated and baffled by the Greyhound decision. He told me that none of the buses will serve downtown Kitchener. Some will still continue to the University of Waterloo to serve the student market.

I completely agree that most of the Greyhound buses are in really poor condition.
 
SeanTrans said:
This says otherwise - ticket sales at the Cambridge and Kitchener terminals will cease for Greyhound. I've stood in long lines at Kitchener to buy either Greyhound tickets, or waited to buy either a GRT map, or a Hamilton Coach Canada ticket with people buying Greyhound to Toronto tix.
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Despite what people are saying, I'm 99% sure that Greyhound will still be serving Charles Street since that's what all the newspaper, and non-terminal ticket agents have been saying.

All that link you posted means is that they won't have their ticket terminals anymore at either the Ainsile or Charles Street terminals meaning they'll have to be bought from the driver or a local ticket agent. UW sells them @ the turnkey desk and I believe WLU has one somewhere in the Student Union buidling (but that place just confuses me). Ainsile Terminal isn't Greyhound terminal for Cambridge anyways- that's up on Langs Blvd at B&J's smoke shop which hasn't made any noise that it will be closing up shop. All that serves Ainsile are buses going out to the rural towns, and buses going to Hamilton. Neither service are contracted by Greyhound from what I know- I think they're just run by Pinetrails (or something like that) and Cherry Bus Lines.

EDIT. Here's the article from The Record
Greyhound says bus service to core will continue TheRecord.com - Local - Greyhound says bus service to core will continue

Jeff Outhit
RECORD STAFF

KITCHENER

Greyhound says it will continue running all its buses from downtown, after adding a Sportsworld Drive terminal in July.

"We will continue to have every schedule operate through downtown," senior vice-president Stuart Kendrick said yesterday.

Pending negotiations, the company hopes to continue using a platform at the Grand River Transit terminal on Charles Street.

Kendrick apologized for confusion over Greyhound's relocation plans, which have left passengers and politicians uncertain about the future of downtown buses.

"If there is a reduction in the bus service from the downtown, that is unacceptable to me," Kitchener Mayor Carl Zehr said yesterday.

Greyhound says it is adding the Sportsworld site near Highway 401 to improve service for commuters who can park there for free.

After July 20, tickets will no longer be sold at Charles Street and parcel courier service will no longer be available.

But passengers will be collected downtown even if they have yet to purchase tickets, Kendrick said.
 
Maybe they'll still stop at Charles Street, but if people can't buy tickets there, it'll be a big problem. If they let them buy from the driver, it'll take forever, and nobody will be able to get discounted (i.e. student) fares.
 
Something's still not right. The GRT staff there sell Greyhound tickets as well as Coach Canada, Cherry and their own fares. There's the upper ticket booth, with limited hours just for GRT tickets and passes, then there's the two lower windows that sell all basic fare media and their maps and open 7 days a week.

I can see why they would want to move the parcel express service, but why they'd yank the Greyhound ticket sales as well is strange.

Are they going to pick up passengers from Charles Street and kick them off at Sportsworld to buy tickets and board again?
 
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