Greyhound pulling to a stop
Company will shut down nearly all routes in Western Canada as of Oct. 31, citing an inability to sustain service with low ridership
Travellers on the 2 p.m. ‘Hound out of Medicine Hat say they are astonished by the busline’s decision to close down routes throughout Western Canada this fall.
“It’s awful,” said Winnipegger Jason Bousquet, standing outside the Second Street Depot during a stop en route to his vacation at the Calgary Stampede.
“If you don’t have much money, how are you going to get around?”
Ajay Juba was travelling from Brandon to Lethbridge, where he’s scheduled to join a railway construction gang.
“It’s a five-hour layover in Calgary for a two-hour bus ride to Lethbridge,” he said.
“It’s crazy that they’re shutting it down, though. The bus has been jam-packed all the way.”
Greyhound Canada announced Monday it would close all routes between Sudbury, Ont. and Vancouver on Oct. 31. A U.S.-based Seattle-Vancouver route would remain in operations. Company officials told the The Canadian Press the decision was “regretful.”
“But simply put, the issue that we have seen is the routes in rural parts of Canada — specifically Western Canada — are just not sustainable anymore,” said vice-resident Stuart Kendrick.
He said 415 people will be out of work as a result of the decision, and two million consumers would be impacted.
The busline has operated in southern Alberta since at least the early 1930s.
As for the Second Street terminal in Medicine Hat, the company leases the property from local owners.
They told the News on Monday they have been mulling over options for redeveloping the property since the company broke with practise of signing five-year leases, with a singleyear deal in 2017.
“There’s been talk of them even moving out of downtown for several years,” owner Kerry Wilde told the News. “Hopefully something really exciting can happen with the property.”
The company is blaming a 41 per cent decline in ridership since 2010 as the primary culprit, followed by higher costs — a combination Kendrick called an “ongoing spiral.”
The Greyhound Trans-Canada Highway route stops in seven communities between Swift Current and Brooks, including Gull Lake, Piapot, Maple Creek in Saskatchewan, and Walsh, Medicine Hat, and Suffield in Alberta.
In 2012, the company announced it would shut down its Highway 3 route, serving Bow Island and Taber, and also cease making stops in a number of TCH communities, such as Tilley, as a way to reduce costs.
Since then, several companies in Medicine Hat offer door-to-door service to Calgary and Lethbridge.
This spring the province also announced new pilot programs for regional rural transportation networks and asked mid-sized centres in the province to submit proposals.