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51 Comments
Topics: Transportation

51 Responses to “Megabus – King of the Road”

1. Kevin says:

   August 18, 2011 at 2:56 pm

   I like Megabus. I’ve never taken a transfer, though, and have only ridden to Chicago. I’m curious if you can explain your experiences with the timing of transfers.
2. The Urbanophile says:

   August 18, 2011 at 2:58 pm

   I’ve never transferred. I don’t think that’s a particularly viable market, IMO. Even with European style true HSR, I’ve read that transfers are pretty rare, IIRC only around 5% of traffic.
3. BruceMcF says:

   August 18, 2011 at 3:18 pm

   This is a confusing argument to follow.

   As far as I can make out, step one of the argument is a claim that when discussing the costs and benefits of city buses, the costs of the stops and the costs of the substantial wear and tear that city buses should not be included because:
   … “if an anti-transit writer tried to disparage investment in city buses with the arguments raised against Megabus, they’d be laughed out of the house by the urbanist/sustainability crowd.”

   No matter how widespread the belief that the benefits of providing city buses justify the costs, that does not imply that the costs do not exist.

   Indeed, one of the gimmicks of the particular BRT version of the our-mode-Uber-Alles disease that plagues transit discussions is to assume those costs away, at which point many of the same “urbanist/sustainability crowd” that you are using as your benchmark in step one would point out that the full costs have to be considered.

   Its certainly the case that Megabuses running on Interstate Highways enjoy the same subsidized use of the Interstates as all heavy vehicles do, since damage done to roads does not scale linearly with motor fuel consumption, but rather as a third power law relationship of weight per wheel.

   And its certainly the case that per-seat-mile emissions of both pollutants and greenhouse gases of Megabuses are greater than the per-seat mile emissions of Midwest Regional Rail System model services, and that while the MRRS model services can be upgraded to electric traction at an incremental fraction of their original capital cost, for operating capacity and operating speed benefits as well as substantial efficiency gains, electrifying Megabus type services would be a much more expensive prospect.

   Now, the points may be raised by people for all sorts of reasons, and there is likely to be some measure of concealed or ill-considered antipathy motivating the desire to put the spotlight on those costs … but the costs are real.

   And trying to make the case in terms of trying to shame people into not pointing out that those costs exist, “or else you are agreeing with anti-transit activist attacks on city buses”, rather than in terms of the benefits of the Megabus type services justifying those costs, does not seem to be an approach with much promise of helping to build a consensus in support of the services where the benefits do in deed justify the costs.
4. The Urbanophile says:

   August 18, 2011 at 3:21 pm

   Well, Bruce. All I know is that the proposed Midwest HSR system will be well into the billions of dollars. The modest upgrades to the Chicago-St. Louis line already funded are less than the cost of the entire Dan Ryan reconstruction – that for a route that carries over 300,000 vpd. I’ve yet to see anything that quantifies Megabus externalities to the public, but I have a hard time believing the cost is greater than just building the Midwest HSR system, much less operating and maintaining it.
5. Jeramey Jannene says:

   August 18, 2011 at 3:23 pm

   I’ve transferred quite a few times on Megabus in Chicago, bouncing all around the Midwest when the service was new in 2006/2007. It was a lot of fun back then because the buses were mostly empty. I even took the Megabus from MKE to CHI for lunch a few times, just because it cost less than taking an MCTS bus to lunch inside of Milwaukee ($1 each way versus $1.60).

   Comparing the Megabus to Amtrak’s Hiawatha (I will ignore the long distance trains as I think they’re a different beast) between Milwaukee and Chicago yields a couple observations, but I’ll dwell on only one. You get what you pay for with each service.

   Megabus is cheap, but frequently packed to the brim with fairly small seats.

   The Hiawatha is likewise frequently quite full, but with significantly bigger seats (and leg room), a more comfortable ride, better on-time performance (in my countless trips, allowing a 15-minute window), and real stations at each end (try waiting for the bus in freezing weather or rain, it sucks). To get that higher quality you pay more, it’s that simple.

   There is a lot Megabus could do to improve their operations, most important I think is adding a real time tracking component so customers can find out where the buses are (and why they are leaving late). Not knowing is easily the most frustrating part of my Megabus experience (delays seem to be fairly frequent). Hopefully the private market innovates to provide these things. Their track record is good on responding to demand (adding and cutting routes, and even an entire west coast network was cut), but their customer service is lacking. Also, reserved seating would be a welcome perk, at least for part of the bus (for long trips by myself I could gladly buy the seat next to me if available to have extra space).

   Megabus doesn’t provide nearly the same quality as Amtrak’s state supported inter-city routes do (CHI to STL, MKE, and DET), but it costs less. As long as they continue to innovate, they will hopefully push Amtrak to continue to do so as well.

   It would be extremely foolish to saddle Megabus and other inter-city operators with more costs to do business, but I think it’s equally as foolish to say they provide everything with equal quality that a train provides.
6. Alex B. says:

   August 18, 2011 at 3:57 pm

   Aaron,

   You state that many urbanists revile Megabus and similar intercity operators, but you don’t provide any sources to back up that claim. Can you point us to some examples?
7. Rob says:

   August 18, 2011 at 3:59 pm

   I’m an urbanist. I hate Megabus. And I don’t think the reason should be puzzling at all.

   For me, it’s simple: Megabus is a very poor quality service. I’ve had bad enough experiences that they’ve left me with a really sour taste in my mouth, enough so that I feel no need to support them or defend them in their quest to reshape intercity travel. If they’d made me happy customer, or hell, even a satisfied customer, I might feel differently.

   All modes of travel are subject to delay, but with Megabus, you’re always completely in the dark. Megabus is terrible at communicating with its customers. It’s terrible at communicating with its drivers. This is easily the most frustrating thing about the service. Airlines tell you your flight status. Trains tell you your trip status. Even city buses in some places now tell you where they are and when they’re coming. The fact that Megabus cannot do this is amazing, frankly.

   Megabus is “cheap” – no doubt. “Cheap” isn’t synonymous with value. In the case of Megabus, I find the quality of service so cheap and so poor that I’d happily pay for an alternative. I got burned by Megabus once, and decided they deserved a second chance. When I got burned by them a second time, I decided it was time to start voting with my wallet. I’ve ridden Megabus about a half-dozen times, and I won’t give them any more business.

   The free wi=fi and power outlets is the biggest hoax that Megabus has going. Every time I read a post about Megabus, it inevitably mentions these amenities; but again, whether or not they will actually work on the bus you’re going to ride is a roll of the dice. If it works, it’s ok, but definitely don’t plan to get any work done while you’re riding Megabus.

   Now, you could argue that the market will decide whether Megabus survives. If you dig into the company’s history, you’ll see that they’ve already started and abandoned service in a number of cities. Most recently, the slashed a lot of their Pittsburgh and Detroit service, and those are just two that I know of. It’s very hard to tell what Megabus’s service map might look like a year from now.

   Megabus is supposed to be the bus service that Greyhound never was. But I feel like Megabus is becoming more and more like Greyhound, rather than the other way around.
8. Wad says:

   August 18, 2011 at 4:36 pm

   I rode Megabus twice during its failed stint in California.

   I liked the service and wanted Megabus to succeed. Unfortunately, it quit about a year after it started. An executive said it proves Californians can’t be pulled from their cars.

   To paraphrase WWE owner Vince McMahon, Megabus screwed Megabus. Just looking at the California intercity bus market, we have a major presence in Greyhound, as well as about 10 ethnic intercity bus services.

   Megabus also did no advertising or marketing — people only heard of it when it announced that service was being canceled — and since tickets were online only, it lost a lot of the cash market.
9. Jeramey Jannene says:

   August 18, 2011 at 5:19 pm

   I would echo the service complaints Rob has. I just don’t know why Megabus/Coach USA can’t fix them.

   They’ve also largely gutted service from Milwaukee to Chicago. I have two hunches why (it’s likely some combination of the two).

   1. Need for buses for increased Indianapolis-Chicago service that started running in greater frequency at about the same time.
   2. Competition from Amtrak Hiawatha that makes 7 round trips between the Chicago and Milwaukee each day.
10. Christine says:

    August 18, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    I love Megabus! It’s practically the only way to get out of Cleveland if you don’t have a car.
11. The Urbanophile says:

    August 18, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    Thanks for the comments.

    @Jeramey, thanks for the comments. The Hiawatha is definitely quality service, if a bit pricey. Definitely hurts Megabus viability to MKE. They’ve also got good reliability as you note, which is not the case on other routes Megabus competes with like Chicago-Detroit.

    @wad, California strikes me as a bad Megabus market generally because it’s dominated by two gigantic metros rather than a hub and satellite system like the Midwest. Also, Megabus has failed on other routes (e.g., Louisville) and pulled back frequencies on others. So the financials can’t be that great. We’ll see how it goes with them.

    @Alex B., that statement was based largely on the visceral reactions I get when I tweet about Megabus. It has generated more outright negativity than any topic ever. For example, after tweeting a link to this article today, someone literally tweeted to me “seriously, are you a paid spokesman for Megabus?” For the record, No. But it’s almost unheard of for someone to imply I’m a paid shill on anything, and if you look at the totality of my writings, it’s obviously ludicrous.
12. CityBeautiful21 says:

    August 18, 2011 at 10:02 pm

    Aaron,

    Thanks for responding to Alex B. I’m an urbanist blog uber-trawler and I don’t see a lot of griping about Megabus in the urbanist set; in fact, many of them are trying it out. Sorry your tweeps are so hostile on the subject but I think that may be just as much about the medium as Megabus.

    Where I think your piece is soft above (and you made a similar argument with your “HSR is Dead” post recently) is lumping all the 110-mph projects in as like outcomes of dubious value. This just isn’t so.

    I strongly encourage you to get more familiar with the Charlotte to Washington DC Southeast High Speed Rail project which has received $545 million in HSR stimulus funds.

    You complain that 110-mph top speed does not make a good investment, but when I load up the Megabus website for Charlotte to DC trips, the shortest trip is 7:50 to 8:00 with only 2 intermediate stops (Durham, Richmond).

    The SEHSR project is targeting trip times in the 6 hour to 6:30 range (yes, the website says 6:10-6:50 but the track engineers have had some things go right and faster avg speeds are looking more likely) with more stops than Megabus, which will be achieved by AVERAGING near 75-85 mph in the Charlotte-Raleigh section and near 100 mph between Raleigh and Richmond. (Megabus also stops in Durham, not in Raleigh, skipping the biggest Triangle city and the state capital, SEHSR will hit both) Bottom line: SEHSR presents a savings of 2 hours of travel time over today’s Megabus times while serving more stations, and I believe it is a game changer for the air/rail/auto/bus market in CLT-DC corridor if it is built.

    Looking west, even without any improvements, the current Amtrak Cascades schedules between Portland and Seattle are 40-45 minutes faster (today) than the bus with 79 mph service except for the evening run when traffic is much lighter. In NC, Charlotte to Durham is 2:23 on the Amtrak Piedmont (and pretty reliable) and 3:00 on Megabus today at 79 mph max speed for the train.

    The interstates of the Cascades corridor and in NC are destined to slowly expand the travel times of Megabus via Interstates. If NC and VA execute their travel time goals, the average speed of SEHSR between Raleigh and Richmond will be faster than the average speed of the Acela, which has proven its market value even if it could be much improved.

    You won’t hear me slamming Megabus, but as congestion grows, its value WILL deteriorate as travel times lengthen. The attractiveness of the better HSR proposals, even at only 100 mph max speed, is a permanent shrinking of the space-time continuum via major city pairs *AND* intermediate cities on the ground with reliable travel times for decades to come.

    If the Midwest projects aren’t going to have the time-superiority of the NC/VA and WA/OR projects, maybe those Midwest plans should be retooled, perhaps in the image of other, faster, 110-mph based services.
13. Kevin says:

    August 18, 2011 at 11:53 pm

    I recently took Megabus from Chicago to Indy and was very disappointed. We left Chicago 1/2 hour late for no other reason than one passenger was late and the driver made the bad decision to wait. This is exactly what deters people from using mass transit. This was the most frustrating part of using Megabus for me. The driver did not seem concerned about keeping on schedule. Also, I sent a message to Megabus asking if this was common protocol and never received a response. I don’t plan to ever use the service again. One last thing, the Internet service worked about 20% of the time.
14. Curt says:

    August 19, 2011 at 9:20 am

    I dont get what the fuss is about. While I agree that we should be pumping more money into mass transit so as to start down the road of roads/transit equality, MegaBus fills a niche; and as Aaron points out, it is privatley held.

    They being the case, I have ABSOLUTELY no quams with them using the roads and not having to pay for pick ups on curb sides. Living in the city, one has to get used to the fact that there are going to be vehicles clogging up the street. Whether its a truck delivering goods, a city bus, a light rail vehicle or even a horse drawn carriage (where is the outrage for the traffic slow down they cause? *i say in jest*).

    The point is, they are providing a valuable service to people that should be considered no different than over the road trucking, private automobiles or Greyhound. If people do not like Megabus, they will vote with their wallet but obviously, enough do.

    Nice column Aaron
15. Rob says:

    August 19, 2011 at 10:53 am

    I’ve been thinking about this a bit. Here’s why I’m worried that Megabus might not ever be able to improve itself.

    Let’s assume Megabus is currently selling its seats at their revenue maximizing price-point. In other words, if they lower prices, they might fill more seats, but will make less money. And if they raise prices, they’ll get more per ticket, but might sell fewer seats, and also make less money.

    Let’s further assume that the way Megabus can improve its reliability, reduce delays and better communicate with customers is to invest more money into these initiatives. In this case, they’re stuck, because their current level of revenue doesn’t give them to flexibility spend on these types of improvements.

    It’s easy for me to sit here and say, “hey, I’d happily spend $30 instead of $20 if Megabus could deliver a better quality service.” But Megabus may never charge that much money for pure economic reasons.

    Some people might call this business efficiency. Others might say its a race to the bottom.
16. John Morris says:

    August 19, 2011 at 11:01 am

    So far, about 8 trips to NYC on Mega Bus and only one-pretty bad experience with a two hour late departure and very poor communication.

    I don’t want to go into how many times the Amtrak train was more than an hour late to Pittsburgh.

    As far as the traffic issue goes–isn’t one possible solution special prefered highway bus lanes?

    I mean since the “free highways” are operated according to “the “public interest” and the general benefit vs. impact is so much better than cars, this should be a pretty easy case to make.

    Another huge factor here is that many of the best-really prime transport right of ways like route 80 into the midwest are occupied by highways. This gives big leg up to bus over rail.
17. Alex B. says:

    August 19, 2011 at 11:07 am

    Aaron,

    I ask about where the criticism comes from because I think you’ve represented it here a little stronger than I’ve heard. Perhaps that’s something that gets lost in Twitter’s short, choppy communications.

    I think there’s an element of truth to all of the concerns about MegaBus and other intercity operators that you summarize, but most of the critiques aren’t nearly as hardline as you might expect from reading this post.

    For example, in DC, the move to charge intercity buses for occupying public curb space is part of a broader initiative that also covers new loading zone permits, new parking pricing, etc. It also represents the very real challenge that many of these operators create by using curb space to load/unload – they end up dwelling for far longer than any transit bus, often the locations they choose (without permits) are not the best locations when balancing a whole host of other city concerns (congestion, transit bus stops, loading zones, etc). DC was lucky to make good use of a rare downtown surface lot close to Metro to serve as a makeshift terminal for Bolt and MegaBus for years, but that lot is now a construction site.

    The permits and fees aim to ensure that these buses operate in locations that still serve their customers but also take their externalities into account. Likewise, the fee isn’t intended to be punitive (I believe it’s still less than the terminal fees), but to take a broader range of costs into account.

    Stepping back a bit, the reason we have bus terminals is because these kinds of curbside loading uses do indeed have external costs for the city as a whole. To the extent that the bus operators try to evade the fees associated with using a bus terminal by using curb space instead is a challenge.

    Anyway, I think the broader point is that these services are not beyond critique, both from the customer side (as noted in several comments above) and from the city’s side. Your last paragraph is a fairly accurate summation of the real issues and potential solutions – I just don’t see the hyperbole from the earlier parts of the post (drawing the conclusion that people don’t like private sector solutions, for example, is a huge stretch in my mind). Again, perhaps that’s just inherent to a medium like Twitter.
18. Julia says:

    August 19, 2011 at 1:37 pm

    My only problem with Megabus is its lack of options from Indianapolis. Just Chicago, Cincinnati and Columbus. What about St. Louis, Louisville, Lexington? Or Minneapolis?

    What would REALLY be great is if Megabus ran a connecting shuttle to Bloomington, IN to pick up the college crowd. My son goes to IU and travels to Chicago all the time, and he is by no means the only one–but he doesn’t have a car or an inexpensive, reliable way to get to Indy. (ok, there’s the Bloomington airport shuttle, but at $15 each way plus bus fare back into the city to get the Megabus, it’s hardly a deal) A Bton-Indy route that connects with regular Indy-Chicago runs would be a huge moneymaker for Megabus.
19. Beta Magellan says:

    August 19, 2011 at 2:05 pm

    It’s worth noting that some of the activist hostility towards MegaBus simply echoes institutional hostility towards intercity bus operators—the City of Chicago’s been trying to make institute intercity bus terminal integrated with Union Station for years (if not decades), but they’ve generally been thwarted by Amtrak (the current bus terminal plans are for CTA circulator buses and line-haul routes that terminate at Union Station, but I wouldn’t be surprised if CDOT tried offering up space for intercity operators). Milwaukee’s Intermodal Terminal makes waiting for a bus more comfortable, and I was surprised to hear that they were scaling back their Milwaukee-Chicago operations (though I never took the bus, I’m also an NEC native who thinks of trains as the default way of getting from city-to-city).

    And Aaron, I met a friend a couple of weeks ago who, who’d just hopped off the Cleveland-Chicago MegaBus, tell me he really wanted HSR in the Midwest, so, at least in one instance, your predictions in the second-to-last paragraph have already proven correct.
20. George Mattei says:

    August 19, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    It’s not suprising Megabus is bringing new demographic markets to intercity bus routes. As a frequent rider of Greyhound in New England back in my college days, I can tell you its quality of service and the quality of its buses were quite low. There was also Peter Pan, which was much better, but still just a regional carrier and has some Greyhound-like qualities.

    I have never ridden Megabus myself, but I have several friends that tell me it was a pretty good service. The buses certainly look like they are MUCH nicer than Greyhound.
21. John Morris says:

    August 19, 2011 at 4:51 pm

    “And Aaron, I met a friend a couple of weeks ago who, who’d just hopped off the Cleveland-Chicago MegaBus, tell me he really wanted HSR in the Midwest, so, at least in one instance, your predictions in the second-to-last paragraph have already proven correct.”

    Chances are very high your friend wants good HSR at a Mega Bus price and that’s the likely rub.
22. K. R. says:

    August 19, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    A few thoughts…

    First of all, I have mixed feelings about Megabus. On one hand, the service is generally good as far as low-cost carriers are concerned, and the convenience of downtown pickup and/or dropoff locations makes sense from a logistical standpoint (jobs, geography, etc).

    Then again, there’s limited connectivity between routes (in the Midwest, Megabus is basically a shuttle to and from Chicago), and there’s few connected transportation options once you disembark at most destination cities (even Greyhound has taxis waiting outside of its terminals). For example, unlike airports or hotels, taxis don’t usually congregate outside of City Hall in Indianapolis, and you generally have to have one dispatched to you (although I have seen people hail taxis in the street in downtown Indianapolis before).

    I tend to believe that intercity bus service actually helps high-speed rail because it shows that there is, indeed, a market for dedicated intercity travel. But, as is the case with Megabus, such a system would effectively operate as a shuttle to and from the dominant city in each region, making it more of a hub-and-spoke system like the airlines rather than an interconnected route network like Greyhound.

    I don’t think it’s fair to compare intercity travel in the Midwest versus that found in the East, because

    1) BosWash already has high speed rail and multiple express bus services that have been around for decades;
    2) the short distance between those cities generates the strongest city-city business connections in the world and thus the strongest business travel market in the world;
    3) the municipal rail systems connect with Amtrak and intercity bus routes in each of the cities;
    4) the cities are more or less arranged in a straight line along a single route.

    I’m not implying that intercity travel is somehow doomed in the Midwest, but understand that the distance between the cities, weaker business connections, and the lack of a real transit culture create a different type of clientele than one would find in the East, which unfortunately does influence perception. You’ll find a lot more business travelers on a New York-Philadelphia Megabus route, whereas you would find a lot more cheap-way-to-visit-extended-family-in-Milwaukee type travelers on a Chicago-Milwaukee Megabus route.
23. Wad says:

    August 20, 2011 at 1:57 am

    @Aaron, in post 11, you said California is a bad market for Megabus. On the contrary, Megabus is inept.

    There are about a dozen intercity bus carriers in California. Greyhound does tremendous business in L.A. and the Bay Area, and California having the nation’s largest inmate population helps out as well.

    There’s even a system that confines itself to the Central Valley and the desert and avoids big cities altogether.

    The market is also shared with ethnic carriers serving Mexican and Asian communities. Crucero (Mexican Greyhound) has remade itself in the Megabus mold by offering the $1 fares and WiFi access.

    These have also been around longer than Megabus, and certainly stuck around longer.

    Megabus failed in California because it never made any concerted effort to understand the market. At best, the buses were half-full (some Las Vegas trips sold out).

    It did zero marketing or advertising. It had relied on press releases and word of mouth to build its ridership. The rough age breakdown of Megabus riders was 25 and younger and 55 and older.

    Even if this were Megabus’ natural market, it could have reached out to the college-age and senior market through targeted newspaper and newsletter ads and promotions.

    Second, Megabus made a key mistake in routing by only serving global destinations (L.A., San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Bay Area).

    The L.A.-to-San Diego trips could have stopped at Disneyland and served Orange County and its 3 million residents (as well as 2 universities).

    The L.A.-Phoenix and Vegas trips could have stopped somewhere in the Inland Empire, which combined have 4 million residents. That’s larger than some of the Midwestern metros Megabus serves now.

    The L.A.-Bay Area bypasses the center of the state, where about 6 million people live.

    Also, the Bay Area could have served as a secondary hub with service to Sacramento and Reno, and possibly even Portland in about 8-10 hours.

    Megabus was just too stupid in California. Luckily, other intercity carriers know better.
24. Wad says:

    August 20, 2011 at 2:07 am

    @K.R., the Midwest would actually have the best travel options with regards to high-speed rail.

    If you made Chicago the hub city, and built a network of lines radiating 500 miles from it, the Midwest would easily have the most robust route network. You could go as far as Minneapolis, Kansas City, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Detroit, as well as connect points in between. For longer trips, Chicago would also connect with trains that could reach Dallas, Atlanta and D.C. or New York hubs.
25. John Morris says:

    August 20, 2011 at 9:04 am

    @BruceMcF

    To mee your comment comes off as very off base.

    Yes, there are real costs associated with bus travel and perhaps in many places their loading and off loading should be moved a bit-hardly a big problem.

    Making comparisons vs. hypothetical rail alternatives that for the most part do not exist yet in any substantial degree is nuts. Mostly Mega Bus competes against private cars on most routes–and is so much better in it’s impact it’s hardly worth talking about.

    The other great thing about Mega Bus is that it serves the young/student/broke market that many cities like Pittsburgh and Cleveland are starting to do much better at attracting and retaining.

    Right here-right now, it likely offers the best shot at a truely comprehensive system capable of serving a very large number of markets.

    The real enemy of true urbanists is the car, not the Mega Bus.
26. The Urbanophile says:

    August 21, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    BTW, there’s some interesting commentary on this topic going on over at Streetsblog:

    http://streetsblog.net/2011/08/19/whats-troubling-megabus-haters/
27. Michael Lewyn says:

    August 21, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    I’m am urbanist, and I love Megabus. The only thing I don’t love is that there isn’t more of it!

    But then again, I’m probably more pro-bus than most. When I lived in Jacksonville I rode Greyhound (mostly to my parents’ house 400 miles away) so many times that I earned “frequent rider” free tickets. So if I am basically OK with Greyhound, I’m certainly not going to pick at Megabus!
28. Danny says:

    August 22, 2011 at 7:05 am

    The complaints about bus companies being subsidized are among the most hilarious unintentional comedies I have ever read.

    If the government raised gas prices to $100 per gallon today, the party at Megabus Headquarters would be bigger than the party at Greenpeace Headquarters. They, like every other shared transit system, benefit greatly from high gas prices. Anybody who was paying attention to them from 2007-2011 knows exactly what I am talking about.
29. JD12 says:

    August 22, 2011 at 8:41 am

    Instead of fighting Megabus and other similar low-budget operators, perhaps cities should find underutilized transit facilities and work with the providers to move their operations into these. The greater Washington area has numerous outlying Metro stations with large busways that are not fully utilized. Boston and Chicago also have outlying bus-rapid transit facilities. In the Metro New York area, Megabus has begun operating into the Secaucus Junction rail station across the river in New Jersey. Pick a station with frequent service to other parts of the region and relatively convenient for drop-off and pick-up. I suspect a significant percentage of current Megabus and Boltbus bus customers (and even the Chinatown bus customers) are traveling away from the downtown drop-off points.
30. John Morris says:

    August 22, 2011 at 9:29 am

    Right now, I would guess there are only a very small number of urban areas where the Megabus is having a big negative impact with it’s pick up and drop off location.

    NYC with it’s very large number of riders and very tight demand for land is the exception. Mostly the much more typical “donut” cities offer lots of available locations. It’s not a problem in Pittsburgh at all.

    I do think critics are not taking seriously the real negative impacts of people driving instead.
31. Julie says:

    August 22, 2011 at 2:05 pm

    “As for subsidies from free use of curbside real estate”

    Someone in Philly explained to me that Megabus is disliked because it locates its stops near the train stations so that passengers can take advantages of the restrooms, concessions, etc., without Megabus having to pay its share of their use like they would if they actually stopped at a terminal. That’s why it’s not valid to compare the subsidies for a public bus system with those of a private bus system: Megabus is in it for a profit, and if some of that profit comes at taxpayer expense, that’s a problem.
32. JA says:

    August 22, 2011 at 2:24 pm

    I have not heard ANY such comments from the urbanist/sustainability community, although that doesn’t mean they’re never made.

    A robust inter-city bus system should not be viewed as a negative or as a competitor to better rail service. Unlike trains, buses can be put on the road in almost no time and with no explicit public investment. As bus travel gets more respect, it may build a market for rail investments. And if it doesn’t? It still creates options for those who don’t have a car, and displaces car trips by those who do (although cheap bus service also induces some trips). Isn’t that what the “urbanist/sustainability” community should be all about?

    I lived in San Francisco/Oakland for six years, and was frustrated by the lack of decent bus service in California compared to Boston/New England, where I’m from and where I live now. Two examples:

    –One Thanksgiving three of us, none of us car owners, wanted to travel down to LA to spend the holiday with friends. Flights were expensive on short notice, and trains and buses were slow and inconveniently scheduled. We ended up renting a car. When I want to travel to New York from Boston (a roughly analagous trip) I can choose from several competing bus companies that, between them, run a bus pretty much every 30 minutes. I could also take the train, but with the inexpensive bus service there’s no reason to drive. It takes 5-6 hours to drive from San Francisco to LA. Why can’t there be a bus every hour for a reasonable price?

    –On a more regional level, traveling between Boston and Portland, Maine is about like traveling from San Francisco to Santa Cruz. Or at least it SHOULD be. But I can catch one of five trains a day between Boston and Portland OR take one of the frequent bus departures. San Francisco to Santa Cruz, operated by Greyhound, is poorly served, with (last I checked) only a couple of buses per day that take much longer than driving.

    So what’s the problem? Give people options and they will use them. If a bus company can serve a route where there’s demand, let them…encourage them! All of this works–in the long run–in favor of breaking down the dominance of the automobile.
33. cph says:

    August 22, 2011 at 3:37 pm

    I’ve never ridden Megabus; their California operation fizzled out before I could give them a whirl. A few of my friends have, though, and Mega canceled a return trip on them (Phoenix, I think)

    Curbside loading: I can understand how it can be a problem in some places. This reminds me of the early bus companies from the 1910s. They would load at curbside, usually in front of a hotel, soda fountain, or other business (that also sold tickets). Eventually the clutter of buses and passengers became too much, and cities started requiring intercity buses to provide off-street loading areas. (This was true for Downtown Los Angeles, which will not to this day allow curbside intercity bus loading. Megabus used LA’s Union Station.)

    Comparing intercity to transit bus operations isn’t quite apples-to-apples; for one thing, most transit bus stops don’t have *that* many people waiting around them at any given time, especially if service is frequent (15-min or better). For the record, there have been instances of transit stops being relocated or removed at the request of nearby businesses or residents….

    Subsidized by highway funding? Just like everything else on the road. Even when just looking at heavy vehicles alone, intercity buses are relatively infrequent compared to trucks.

    Private sector solutions? Bring ‘em on, we need all the help we can get. They can often think out of the box, and serve markets that transit agencies, or established companies (e.g. Greyhound) overlook. I’m reminded of the many private buspool routes that flourished in LA in the 70s and 80s. These mostly served aerospace plants and other businesses outside of Downtown LA.

    I don’t think Megabus and the like will obviate the need for high speed rail. They’re much slower, for one thing. From what I can see, the attraction of the curbside carriers are:

    1. Cheap fares

    2. They’re not Greyhound, which has seemingly relegated itself to serving the down-and-out.
34. John Morris says:

    August 22, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    “Megabus is in it for a profit, and if some of that profit comes at taxpayer expense, that’s a problem.”

    Not to be snide, but what planet are you living on? A vast array of businesses in modern America get some type of subsidy.We really need some degree of realistic context here. Mega Bus and it’s competitors are in most places the only affordable alternative to driving.

    If we were talking about a situation in which there was true market tolling on roads, congestion pricing, no government endorsed free parking-perhaps we could have this conversation.

    Do you realise the relatively tiny number of cars it takes at rush hour to create much larger problems?
35. John Morris says:

    August 22, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    @cph

    I find the ban on curbside loading in L.A. pretty funny. this is also the city that also has or had some of the largest mandatory parking minimums in the country.

    It’s OK to turn half the downtown into mandatory dead space for the convenience of drivers but some pedestrians on the sidewalk in a line is a big problem.
36. John Morris says:

    August 22, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    JD12 says

    “Instead of fighting Megabus and other similar low-budget operators, perhaps cities should find underutilized transit facilities and work with the providers to move their operations into these.”

    Every city is different, but in the case of NYC, Pittsburgh, Philly and Boston-there is no real equivelent in terms of dense central transit connections outside the downtown/midtown.

    Putting main bus stop in a really off location will go a long way towards destroying the value of the service and radically undermine the market. My best guess is that a Secaucus stop would add 40 minutes to someone traveling to Queens or Brooklyn. My best guess is that it’s would add a transit change for most riders.

    I will admit that finding a perfect place for this in central Manhattan is quite a puzzle. Even in Manhattan, however, the net benefits of their service are likely very large.

    In most other cities, I seriously doubt this is or should be considered a big problem and I doubt one needs to move anything more than a few blocks one way or the other to clear up any congestion issues.
37. B! News Transportation says:

    August 22, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    We share the frustration you have with progressive transportation advocates who hate on intercity buses.

    The conversation should be about promoting and improving all intercity travel options while prioritizing public subsidies where they’re needed most.

    That means finishing a higher speed Midwest rail network now. The current $1.1 billion project on the Chicago-St. Louis corridor will connect cities along the corridor with newer trains, faster service (110mph) and reliable on-time-performance. Amtrak is seeing record ridership and modest investments to keep up with demand and improve the existing service are wise investments. Conversely, spending hundreds of billions outfitting the Midwest with 300mph bullet trains doesn’t make much sense today, but we should at least make the very small investments necessary to start the planning for these super fast trains if/when the day comes that we need them.

    That also means we need to stop hating on intercity buses like Megabus. Having Megabus, Bolt et al serving Midwest cities is going to help our regional economy. But let’s not kid ourselves that these bus operators are operating without a serious public subsidy. Besides for the free public right of way and lax regulatory environment (let’s not wait for the next crash to be reminded again about how easy it is to operate a commercial bus operation), intercity bus companies only pay 30% of the federal diesel excise tax. Your post failed to mention the fact that intercity bus operators pay only 7.3 cents of the 24.3 cents diesel tax. There’s more than enough justification for mass transit buses to get a break on diesel taxes, but I find it hard to swallow these very profitable operations should be paying only 30% of a tax that funds the public roadways they depend on…. especially now that the highway trust fund is teetering on insolvency.

    Another benefit of having a vibrant bus and rail system for short intercity travel is reducing the need for short-haul air service. Too many people still fly from Springfield/Milwaukee/Peoria/St. Louis/Minneapolis to Chicago. An improved rail network and frequent intercity bus system should move enough of these air passengers to other modes. Doing so will free up air space for longer-haul flights and decrease congestion in the already congested skies.

    Ideally, travelers should have the option of taking a train from Chicago to major Midwestern cities at a time competitive with car travel. Taking the bus from Union Station to Springfield may be a good idea if you’re leaving on a Saturday morning when the Stevenson is free and clear, but getting back to Union Station on Monday morning may make for an uncomfortable stop and go bus ride in morning rush hour traffic. Having the option to take either or both at a reasonable price is a good sign we’re heading in the right direction. But I fear we won’t get there unless we focus more of our time on improving passenger rail and less on hating on intercity bus.
38. Alissa Conaty says:

    August 23, 2011 at 8:42 am

    I’m a regular traveler between Chicago & Milwaukee, and consider Amtrak the only feasible option. Even with their prices creeping up by a dollar here and here (still cheaper than driving & parking for the weekend).

    Megabus is always overfull, which doesn’t make for a comfortable ride. The power outlets didn’t work last time(s) I rode the bus. And unlike Amtrak, you can still get stuck in highway traffic (one of the reasons I don’t like driving that route).

    The reason I borderline “hate” Megabus though?
    They use the same stretch of sidewalk for all their pickups. That block is theirs in people’s minds. There’s nothing else there (other than a city bus stop at the end of the block), and there can frequently be found huge groups of people waiting for their bus.
    And when the groups leave, all their garbage is left behind.
    Large & small, trash as far as the eye can see. It’s the most disgusting block in the general area (which is saying something). And it stays there. Megabus doesn’t care. Doesn’t make an effort to encourage their riders to pick up after themselves. Doesn’t have a driver help pick up the larger garbage. Doesn’t ask the city to place more garbage cans there. They’ve staked out this block as their own bus stop, but don’t give a fig about being a good neighbor. They pick up their paying fares, and drive off with no thought to what (impression) they’re leaving behind.
39. Andre says:

    August 23, 2011 at 11:37 am

    I live in DC and don’t like the the curbside loading. These busses pull over to pick up passengers in the middle of very busy streets. They should absolutely pay a fee for the right to do that. They take away one lane and slow everyone else down. Street vendors pay to run a business from public sidewalks. These bus companies should do the same.

    BTW, I’m on a bike, not a car, but one less lane makes a big difference.
40. Alon Levy says:

    August 23, 2011 at 11:57 am

    The hidden subsidies – not paying enough for road wear, trying to piggyback on Amtrak stations without paying rent, taking valuable road space – are merely annoying; I ride taxis and cars with impunity. What keeps me off of Megabus is multiple horror stories from people I know about being left outside in the heat or in the rain for an hour just waiting or queuing to board. Amtrak’s punctuality is horrific, but it strands me on a climate-controlled train with good seat pitch, or in a climate-controlled train station with seats and wi-fi.

    The main use of Megabus is that it’s really cheap for a session of pure pain. If your kink is queuing, staying in the heat, and being bounced around on a bumpy ride, you can satisfy it for $5/hour, while a dominatrix will charge $100/hour or something.
41. Eric H says:

    August 23, 2011 at 2:19 pm

    The curbside congestion near Union Station is more than just a cosmetic issue. There are already a lot of buses trying to stop near Union Station–CTA, employer shuttles, etc.– and adding more adds to the congestion in the area, which makes every bus run late, including Megabus. (On a Megabus trip I took from St. Louis, the designated loading zone was plugged up, and my bus ended up dropping us in a CTA stop, with the driver literally throwing bags to the sidewalk–presumably trying to clear out before he got ticketed.)
42. John Morris says:

    August 23, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    Yup Alon, I did have to stand for two hours for the late arrival of a bus in the sun. Fortunately the weather was very comfortable and nice.
43. Neil says:

    August 24, 2011 at 1:11 pm

    I think that the concerns regarding Megabus’ quality of service will be addressed once competition starts getting into the market. Right now Megabus is pretty much a monopoly in the Midwest, (with Greyhound being so far behind that its not even an option, though their new express service is in a lot of ways better than Mega). The thing is when a company is making a lot of money this will attract more companies into the business, the market will correct in the long run but at least this will allow for more innovation to capture riders and thus, better service.
44. John Morris says:

    August 24, 2011 at 2:11 pm

    I’m a bit lazy but what are the numbers that “a lot of money is being made”. My guess is this is a pretty price sensitive and low margin business.
45. Alon Levy says:

    August 24, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    Neil, to clarify, the horror stories about Megabus that I know of are all from people who live in New York, where there’s ample competition. I think the only reason Megabus started to offer wi-fi was competition from Bolt, but in terms of reliability and not making people queue outdoors, they’re all deficient.
46. Neil says:

    August 25, 2011 at 3:38 pm

    Whose to say that this growth doesn’t attract a “Southwest Airlines” of the intercity bus world, a low cost carrier known for good customer service. In short, profit driving increased competition is a good thing.
47. Alon Levy says:

    August 25, 2011 at 4:02 pm

    The problem is that Megabus is supposedly this Southwest Airlines. Chinatown buses have been offering $10 one-way service to Boston for over a decade; Megabus is just a higher-priced, non-ethnic version of the same thing, marketed to a slightly more upscale and less daring clientele. It can get better – that’s why Bolt exists – but there’s a limit to how upscale the buses can get when Amtrak can offer better service for $49-68 one-way.
48. Wad says:

    August 26, 2011 at 1:46 am

    Neil, there is a Southwest Airlines of the intercity bus world: Southwest Airlines.

    And because of that, Greyhound is now Con-Air on wheels.
49. Chris Barnett says:

    August 26, 2011 at 8:35 am

    I seldom laugh at posts on The Urbanophile, but Wad’s above almost made me snort my coffee this morning.
50. Neil says:

    August 26, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    In terms of changing the industry and being low cost yest they are a Southwest Airlines, but in terms of customer service and satisfaction they’ve got a ways to go.

    I’m cheering for them, but it strikes me their business model doesn’t emphasize it because in the UK they are completely low cost, and I’m sure there are other carriers that strike more of a balance. The fact of the matter is that the US hasn’t experienced even a base level European style private bus line so Megabus seems better than it is in the grand scheme of things. I’m hoping someone else comes along and bests them at their weaknesses .