In order to better compete with Megabus and Flixbus, Greyhound (which is owned by Flixbus) is selling or moving out of many of its downtown bus stations and loading and unloading passengers at curbsides. This is being derided as “taking mobility away from low-income people” and that moving stations from downtowns to suburban locations was a major hardship for passengers. But the alternative would probably be worse.
A modern Greyhound bus near Toronto. Photo by Secondarywaltz.
In 2007, FirstGroup, a British transit company, bought Greyhound for $2.8 billion plus $800 million in assumed debt for a total of $3.6 billion. Admittedly, this price included Laidlaw school buses, but Greyhound — the largest bus company in America — was the plum. Greyhound lost so much money over the next 14 years that, in 2021, FirstGroup sold Greyhound to Flix for a mere $172 million. This didn’t include the school buses or the real estate under many Greyhound bus stations, but FirstGroup remained responsible for $320 million in pension and other liabilities. Clearly, FirstGroup lost a lot of money on Greyhound. Continue reading
