Monday, June 27, 2005
Greyhound Takes New Direction
Story linked fron the Dallas Morning News
It is, perhaps, appropriate that the first entry in this journal is not about a particularly romantic form of transportation. It takes a special kind of person to enjoy a Greyhound bus trip. To be most specific, it takes a skinny person – which I am not.
More than 20 years ago, I had the brilliant idea of riding the grey dog from Spokane, Washington to Oklahoma City. It was exhausting and I got a mild case of laryngitis from being exposed to the winter weather changing buses somewhere near Billings.
While I lived in Clinton, Oklahoma, I often caught an early morning run to the big city where my brother lived. It took about 2 ours, which is about all a young healthy person can endure.
Greyhound provides an absolutely essential part of the national transportation service available to small towns, but it has been working hard to cut off as many of those little communities as possible. It hurts the poor and also small businesses that depend on the intercity buses for package express service.
It sucks to be poor and it sucks to be Greyhound, which has been bleeding money for some time. It may be a great idea to add some amenities in larger towns, but that will be small comfort to those stranded by service cutbacks.
It is, perhaps, appropriate that the first entry in this journal is not about a particularly romantic form of transportation. It takes a special kind of person to enjoy a Greyhound bus trip. To be most specific, it takes a skinny person – which I am not.
More than 20 years ago, I had the brilliant idea of riding the grey dog from Spokane, Washington to Oklahoma City. It was exhausting and I got a mild case of laryngitis from being exposed to the winter weather changing buses somewhere near Billings.
While I lived in Clinton, Oklahoma, I often caught an early morning run to the big city where my brother lived. It took about 2 ours, which is about all a young healthy person can endure.
Greyhound provides an absolutely essential part of the national transportation service available to small towns, but it has been working hard to cut off as many of those little communities as possible. It hurts the poor and also small businesses that depend on the intercity buses for package express service.
It sucks to be poor and it sucks to be Greyhound, which has been bleeding money for some time. It may be a great idea to add some amenities in larger towns, but that will be small comfort to those stranded by service cutbacks.
