America's most affordable travel option is disappearing

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

In today’s episode of eating the poor: Have you noticed your city’s bus terminal lately? No? That’s because it may no longer be there. Greyhound and other major private bus services are quietly vacating their terminals. Already the bus terminals in cities like Cincinnati, Louisville, Philadelphia, Houston, Portland, Charlottesville, and Tampa have shut down. Even ones that act as major hubs like Chicago and Dallas have disappeared. Hedge funds have been buying up the centrally located transit hubs for redevelopment purposes. It just happened again this past April in Cleveland.

Intra- and intercity bus service often go unnoticed by the general public but are critical for a significant portion of our population: most bus riders earn less than $40,000 annually and are disproportionately people of color, disabled, or unemployed. Bus lines provide a real, tangible benefit to millions of people and it's by far the most cost-effective way to travel, as flights are expensive and American trains provide limited service. However, bus service is consistently underfunded. This has led to fewer people being able to use the services, which have made terminals vulnerable to closures.

As a result, bus terminals have been closing at a rapid pace. Each closure unravels service for other city bus services and routes, and thus has caused a perpetuating death spiral for the whole industry. As disastrous as the terminal closures have been for the people who depend on bus service, their demise has been a gold mine for the investment firms that are acquiring them, usually in prime locations downtown, for pennies on the dollar.

It’s bad enough that hedge funds are buying up hundreds of thousands of starter homes across the nation just so they can gouge people on rent, but do they have to take away our mass transit options, too?

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/11/2226847/-America-s-most-affordable-travel-option-is-disappearing

[underpants]

1. Yep the one in Richmond is probably leaving downtown

It’s zoned for condos too because if a tree falls in Richmond someone starts putting up condos.

So bus riders may have to Uber to the bus station I guess or get a ride.

[hlthe2b]

2. This is beyond inexcusable. I hope it is not too late for something to be done.

[Initech]

3. Hedge funds - another reason why we can't have nice things.

[mopinko]

4. we're maybe loosing ours in bloody chicago.

A longtime Greyhound station in the southwest corner of Chicago’s Loop business district is for sale in a deal that could bring in a two-tower multifamily development with more than 1,100 units while leaving an uncertain future for bus riders in the city.

Connecticut-based Twenty Lake Holdings has hired JLL brokers to seek a sale of the 2-acre site at 608 W. Harrison St. as a redevelopment play.

Twenty Lake is believed to be seeking $30 million or more in a sale, most likely to a developer of apartments looking to ride the wave of billions of dollars in real estate investments in a once-sleepy pocket of the Loop along the high-traffic interchange of interstates 90, 94 and 290.

The site could be developed into a pair of apartment high-rises as tall as 450 feet with a combined 1,145 units, according to a preliminary massing study conducted by Solomon Cordwell Buenz and cited in JLL materials presented to prospective buyers.

https://www.costar.com/article/1912836388/greyhound-station-in-chicago-could-be-replaced-by-more-than-1100-apartments

we absolutely do not need any more downtown apts. there is an aggressive plan in the works to convert a bunch of office bldgs already and the mayor wants more.

and good lord willing and the creek dont rise, 1 of them will b tsf’s eyesore of a tower.
every time i look at it i remember that it was planned to b the new tallest bldg, then 9/11 happened.
most unremarkable bldg in the whole downtown.

[LiberalFighter]

5. Something needs to be done about hedge funds.

They will destroy America.

[MadameButterfly]

7. I can't believe there's no public funding for busses, and every time I hear the words hedge fund

I know something that matters to the rest of us is being taken away.

I used to be annoyed with Bernie and ACO for calling themselves socialists because I thought it limited their potential and surely we needed capitalism for competition and innovation. But more and more i see the point. An economy dominated by rich people who are only in it for themselves will eventually destroy it for everyone else.

Maybe you don't have to call it socialism, but capitalism isn't working either. Maybe we need a new word. Culturalism, perhaps.
Under Culturalism, entities required for the public good are protected somehow from hedge funds and the like.

[dalton99a]

9. +1.

[BlueTsunami2018]

6. The bus station is gone in Philly but you can still use the busses.

They just have different pick up and drop off spots. I recently went up to Manhattan for a concert, $23 round trip.

[Marcus IM]

8. Suddenly people don't like capitalism?

Those hedge funds pay for retirements and nursing homes.

What's not to like?

So, a bunch of people get screwed over. What else is new?


It's a feature not a bug.

[OMGWTF]

10. I had to take a Greyhound from Portland, Oregon to Centralia, Washington where the drop-off was at a gas station.

The Greyhound station in Portland was the most depressing place I have ever been. There are hordes of homeless people camped out in front of the station and once you get inside, it's dark and very bleak looking. Then the bus was three hours late leaving because two drivers in a row didn't show up for work, so they had to drive someone to Portland from Seattle so he could drive the bus back to Seattle. The person in the ticket booth in Portland was unhelpful and any announcements on the PA system were a garbled mess so no one knew what was going on. The entire experience sucked.

[JoseBalow]

11. And hitchhiking has been criminalized in most places

The best cheapest options left anymore are bumming rides via the Craigslist rideshare community, and most people offering rides there are looking to get paid too much, under the guise of deferring their fuel expenses.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

12. Hedge Funds

need to fuck off and die already.

These are the true parasites of American Society, they don't own anything, they buy and sell and flip things for PROFIT!!!!

[lastlib]

13. Shakespeare had the right idea, just the wrong group:

"First thing we do, let's kill all the *billionaires*." There, I fixed it for him.

THEN we can go after the lawyers..... - - - -

[Warpy]

14. It was the ONLY option for a lot of rural people

and prices have been skyrocketing in recent years, going up with the price of fuel but never going back down again when energy prices did, funny how that works.

I think that's what's killing them off: greed. That's certainly not an isolated story, is it? We needed a windfall profits tax a long time ago, keep the rich from thinking windfall profits due to fluctuating energy prices were somehow normal.

[TexasBushwhacker]

15. I used to take the bus when I was in college

in the mid to late 70s. Got my wallet lifted once at the bus station. I didn't have credit cards and for some reason I had put my cash and drivers license in the front pocket of my jeans.