Week 4: Fuuuuuutuuuure!

Much like that one iconic GIF of Squidward in future shock, the intercity bus industry is being dragged kicking and screaming into the future. Our saga through time continues into the 21st century!

We ended last week with curbside buses, but it’s always worth talking a little bit more about them. As a reminder, curbside buses…. operate like normal buses…. but from a curb. Instead of a station building. It’s quite simple, really! These began to shake the industry in the early 2000s with the rise of “Chinatown” buses, a catch-all term for a very particular segment of bus companies operating on the Northeast Corridor between Boston, NYC, and DC. They were characterized by dirt cheap fares, shady business operations, and little regard for safety. They existed in a different regulatory universe than the major players at the time (Greyhound!), but still competed for the same passengers. Despite originally only existing within a small ethnic enclave to serve that specific community, it didn’t take long for others to catch on. Greyhound’s market share on the corridor collapsed, and a seismic shift had begun.

I liken it to a concept I learned in biology class: ecological succession. In ecological succession, after a natural disaster or similar event, different waves of organisms will colonize and populate the land. This bus industry, hear me out, works the exact same way. The Chinatown operators were first to arrive, and now are the foreign established operators. The playing field has expanded. Europe’s Megabus, a long-established operator with a frankly horrifying mascot, enters the American market, offering $1 fares and is able to deliver. Curbside’s efficiency and straightforwardness make it incredibly easy for new operators to enter the market and build profit margins.

Greyhound is the last to respond, launching the short-lived Boltbus service in an attempt to capture even a bit of this market. Even with Greyhound’s marketing laser focused throughout its history on low fares, it faces serious competition in a struggling market for the first time in ages.

But the industry, as a whole, is growing for the first time in many decades. In 2006, service levels began growing for the first time in over four decades, and curbside models were to thank.

Continuing on with last week’s discussion on stations, what’re we to do with them? These stations were centralized hubs for bus travel in cities, providing amenities that the curb never could and never will. Some places have been redeveloped, some turned into museums, while some have just sat there rotting.

Last year, though, Chicago offered a groundbreaking option: public terminals. A move made mere months ago would put Chicago’s Greyhound endangered bus depot soon in the hands of the city as an asset for economic development. And I believe this is one of the keys to re-establishing bus travel as a serious option for many Americans. It’s a strategy long-employed by rail — which is, admittedly, not the perfect analog, but holds many similarities.

So, given everything, our bus industry is in an era of change. Next week’s entry will be on the theory of cities, where we’ll start creating recommendations to bring in a second golden era of bus travel. I’m just glad I’m out of the historical archives!