Out rolls the old, in rolls the new
As final Greyhound trip pulls in today, new Rider Express route from Winnipeg to Vancouver will stop in the Hat
CALGARY The last Greyhound bus is scheduled to roll through Medicine Hat this afternoon as the long-serving national carrier closes its Western Canadian operations at midnight.
The loss spells opportunity for Regina-based Rider Express, which has announced it’s begun a Winnipeg-to-Vancouver route, running full-sized coaches that will stop in Medicine Hat twice daily at Husky near the Trans Canada Highway
Eastbound buses arrive and leave at about 2:30 a.m., while westbound buses are in Medicine Hat just after 1 p.m.
The company began operating a handful of 15-passenger minibuses on inner-provincial routes shortly after governmentowned Saskatchewan Transportation Company shut down its bus services in the spring of 2017.
Rider has acquired five fullsized 50-seat buses and plans to begin passenger service on a Vancouver-Calgary-Winnipeg route on the Trans-Canada Highway this week, followed in November by a Highway 16 route linking Edmonton and Saskatoon, said manager Shauna Hardy. Both routes will directly replace Greyhound routes.
The interest from Saskatchewan residents has been “overwhelming,” she said, adding the company is being asked to take on more routes but has so far declined.
A hodge-podge of public transportation services are already starting to fill the gap as Greyhound Canada moves steadily towards its midnight Halloween disappearance.
The company is laying off about 420 employees, and moving 70 or 80 of its 110 western buses to its ongoing operations in Eastern Canada.
It plans to lease or sell many of its owned facilities in major centres. In Medicine Hat, the company recently signed a series of one-year leases for use of the Third Street terminal downtown.
Elsewhere in Western Canada, the venerable national motor coach operator is being replaced by a mix of provincial government-subsidized services, Indigenous-owned bus lines, locally owned startups, flexible fleets of shuttle buses and a scattering of formal and informal ride-sharing services.
And passengers aren’t waiting for the last Greyhound Wednesday to check out new options — according to Stuart Kendrick, senior vice-president of Greyhound Canada, ticket sales have already fallen off to the point that some route frequencies are being reduced.
“Demand is quite low as we run into this last week or 10 days,” he said in a recent interview.
“You’ve got single-digit riderships on the schedule that we have left throughout Western Canada, so that’s probably about a 50- or 60- or 70-per-cent decline based on what corridor you look at.”
The company planned to stop selling tickets on long-distance routes a few days before the buses stop running to help ensure passengers aren’t left stranded and holding the unused half of a two-way ticket, Kendrick said.
In Alberta, the provincial government has launched pilot programs at a cost of $2.8 million to help five rural municipalities start inter-city bus services.
One focused on linking Medicine Hat and Lethbridge along the non Grey hound route of Highway 3 could begin operating in January, according to City of Medicine Hat transit officials, who are overseeing the contracted private sector contract project.
In May, Calgary-based Pacific Western Transportation was hired by the province of British Columbia to operate its BC Bus North service after Greyhound cancelled service to communities including Prince Rupert and Dawson Creek.
John Stepovy, the company’s director of business development, said the company is also expanding its Alberta offerings.
Indigenous-owned charter service Kelsey Bus Lines is being renamed Mahihkan Bus Lines and plans to offer daily passenger from northern Manitoba to Winnipeg, as well as freight service.
The fragmented inter-city transportation model that is emerging can be a positive change, said Barry Prentice, professor of transportation economics at the University of Manitoba’s Asper School of Business.
Greyhound likely failed in Western Canada in part because its costs were too high and it lacked the flexibility to respond to changing markets because it carried freight as well as passengers, he said.
“As long as they were in the market, it was hard for anyone else to come in. Now that they’re gone, it creates an opportunity,” he said.
Most new services are planning to pick up and drop off passengers at hotels, gas stations or tourist information centres. Prentice said that means they won’t be burdened with the costly terminal network Greyhound had to maintain.