Week 11: Debrief

This entry is a hodgepodge of non-video related things, intended as a corollary to the prior entry, Week 10. What did I leave out? What would I have done differently?

Cut for time

I would have loved to tell a story on Greyhound’s strange corporate amalgamations and the specific reasons for its bankruptcy in the early 90s. It was, in the end, not integral to the main plot point or argument. As elaborated on previously, Greyhound Dial held assets all the way from bus travel to meatpacking to financial services, and exploded in beautiful fashion in the 90s.

Terminals, as a concept for bus travel, were widely maligned for most of Greyhound’s history. The earliest complaints I had found on this were from around the immediate post-World War II, with the mian arguments being the terminals were terrible places for passengers but important for operators and parcel services. It’s hard to explain why publicly owned infrastructure makes for higher quality travel than existing terminals have been doing, and much of the context that would have made that point be clearer was cut in the end.

Chinatown buses have a slew of fascinating stories on them that I had barely even touched on. Personally, their rise (and, nowadays, fall) could have made for a completely independent project and rabbit-hole in and of itself. These lines have been, in more recent years, acquired slowly by the larger companies. One morbidly hilarious article title originated from Lucky Star, a Chinatown bus line, and its federal shutdown:

Boston-based bus company Lucky Star declared an Imminent Hazard to the Public, Ordered by USDOT to Cease Operations

And this, I feel, describes so much of the vibe of Chinatown buses.

On production

There were a slew of interviews I could not get for this project, for one reason or another. Dr. Joe Schwieterman, the leading academic researcher on intercity bus lines, is an outspoken advocate for retaining bus terminals on the national network. He never responded to my calls for an interview, unfortunately. Alex Berardi is a current marketing executive at Trailways of New York, and did not respond to my call for an interview.

Research-wise, I should have contacted Pacific Bus earlier and tried to get a sit-down interview with Eli Bail, their main Pacific Greyhound expert. Their archive is immense, and I believe if I had a few less stressful weeks to flip through it and digitize whatever necessary, this project’s historical portion and context could have been much clearer.

If I had given myself more time to complete the video, the very first thing I would have done is run the script a few times by my advisors and resources to check for inaccuracies. There were a few final mistakes, as indicated in Week 10’s blog, that frustrate me deeply looking back. Audio production, too, is something I should have cared more about. This is elaborated on in greater detail in Week 10’s blog

Some final thoughts

I believe this is the very last time I will be updating this project. It’s been an honor to pour time into understanding such a strange and wonderful part of the American transportation network, and I hope to see you again on the road sometime soon.