[tabi] Fw: [fcb-l] new bus service
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- Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2012 14:13:00 -0400
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From: Easy Talk
To: fcb-l@xxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2012 2:11 PM
Subject: [fcb-l] new bus service
BRUCE LIPSKY/The Times-Union
Arnold McDuffie waits to board a Megabus at the Skyway station near the Prime
Osborn
Convention Center. The bus was coming from Atlanta and headed to Orlando.
Ridership
for the express bus trips has steadily grown to where Megabus officials say
their
80-seat coaches are 75 to 80 percent full.
Information
Megabus and Greyhound serve the Jacksonville market.
Megabus:
us.megabus.com
Greyhound:
www.greyhound.com
By
Roger Bull
Dennis Loy's car was waiting back in Orlando, at the end of his bus ride.
He could have driven that car up to Jacksonville to visit his daughter at the
University
of North Florida. Instead, he took the bus.
And he was about to step on the double-decker Megabus to ride it back.
"My daughter's the one who told me about it," he said. "It cost me $24 for a
round
trip. It would have cost me $60 just in gas to drive."
Instead of driving, the 58-year-old pool designer does paperwork.
After decades of decline, intercity bus ridership is on the rise, in large part
to
people like Loy who simply choose to ride rather than drive or fly.
Intercity bus ridership grew 7 percent in 2011 and was the only major
long-distance
passenger transportation that grew significantly, according to a study by the
Chaddick
Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University in Chicago.
The biggest factor is what are called the curbside buses - those that pick up
passengers
not at a bus station, but simply at a designated place in town. Ridership for
those
rose 30 percent last year.
Megabus,
which started sending two buses a day through Jacksonville last November
, is the major player in the new wave of buses that are faster and cheaper than
those
of a decade ago. But even Greyhound has gotten into it with its Greyhound
Express
service.
And, no, it's not just because of the price of gas.
"It began with a large number of young people without any particular affinity
for
the automobile," said Joe Schwieterman, who directed the DePaul report. "They
just
wanted to go from Point A to Point B."
He said his surveys have shown that up to a third of bus riders chose it over
flying.
What really started the turnaround was the Chinatown buses in the Northeast,
said
Fred Fravel, a bus specialist from the KFH Group, Maryland-based transportation
consultants.
Those buses went from a neighborhood, not a bus station, in one city straight to
a neighborhood in another city.
"Those buses were discovered by the smarter students," Fravel said, "because the
travel times were similar to a car. And at the same time, they were cheap."
The problem with buses in the past was that they stopped at each town along the
way,
making a bus ride last up to twice as long as driving, he said.
"Who's going to ride a bus in that circumstance except those who do not have a
car
available?" Fravel said.
But using the Chinatown buses' example, Megabus, Boltbus and others created
express
services. Jacksonville to Orlando is a little more than two hours. They added
free
wi-fi and outlets to plug laptops in.
Schwieterman said his surveys show half the people on Megabus are plugged in,
twice
the rate of airline passengers.
And then there's the cost. Jacksonville to Orlando may be $12 on Megabus, but it
could also be less. There's a limited number of random $1 seats on each bus. The
earlier you book, the better the chance of getting one.
"This never would have happened so fast were it not for the Internet,"
Schwieterman
said. "Electronic ticketing, the schedules, word spreading on Facebook."
Still, buses have developed a stigma over the years. As more people got cars,
the
middle class which used to ride the bus abandoned it.
"The poorest group didn't use to travel at all," Schwieterman said. "But now
that's
what Greyhound is.
"And they're still dogged by, I don't know how else to say it, but an
unattractive
clientele," he said. "People have the image of a bus station as a guy walking
around
and smelling like wine.
"And that's reality as much as perception."
As Megabus, BoltBus and others moved into each market, they've generally avoided
bus stations. In Jacksonville, Megabus uses the Skyway Express stop near the
Prime
Osborn Convention Center.
And as they expanded outside the major Northeastern cities, they focused on
college
towns.
"Four years ago," Schwieterman said, "Megabus looked like a college charter. Now
it's more diverse."
Even the traditional giant in the field has gotten into the act. Greyhound
Express
expanded into Jacksonville in January. Greyhound has 22 routes a day out of its
station
in downtown Jacksonville; six of them are express.
It has the same $1 random seats.
Loy said when he first rode the Megabus up to Jacksonville, there were maybe 12
people
on it. Now the buses that roll in from Atlanta and Orlando each day are
double-deckers
that seat 80.
Bryony Chamberlain, the company president, said it's usually 75 to 80 percent
full.
But everyone hasn't found success. Red Coach
came into Jacksonville last year
, with one bus running north and south between Tampa, Orlando, Daytona Beach and
Jacksonville.
It only averaged about four riders a day and eight months later it was gone.
It's
still in 12 other Florida cities and could come back to Jacksonville, a
spokeswoman
said, but it would probably be for a longer trip, such as to Miami.
With all the growth in buses across the country, Fravel said there is one major
drawback
that few people are noticing.
When Megabus moves into a market, it takes a large chunk of the riders off the
buses
that stop in each town along the way. Then Greyhound adds express, and the
regular
buses have even few riders.
So Greyhound is dropping those routes.
"Look at the Pittsburgh-to-D.C. route," he said. "First we had Megabus, then
Greyhound
Express and all of a sudden we have towns in Western Maryland that don't have
bus
service.
"Two months ago, Hagerstown had five buses a day. Now the buses just go by the
interstate."
roger.bull@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, (904) 359-4296
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