> The threat of a closure has reached a stress point in Chicago because Greyhound, the largest intercity carrier in the United States, no longer owns its terminals in the city and dozens of others. Greyhound, owned by German company Flix Mobility (which also owns FlixBus), has sold its terminals to investors for lucrative redevelopment in recent years, including dozens to investment firm Alden Global Capital. Alden is best known for buying up local newspapers like The Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and The Baltimore Sun, cutting staff, and selling some of their downtown buildings.
There was a point in my life where I rode Greyhound and Megabus to save money. There's already very little dignity to be found in long-distance bus travel, and removing facilities where people can rest during layovers just drives what little remains completely into the dirt. But hey, it may be unraveling the fabric of society, but at least we increased shareholder value.
Is there some rule that CTA can’t have a station in a building with a bar? Because most of the loop subway stations skirt that pretty close.
There is a bar in the pedway between the lake redline stop and the Washington blue line stop for instance. And the merchandise mart has several bars and a brown line stop.
I’d guess that the CTA doesn’t have a presence at Union Station because of the way we carved up regional transit, not because of done alcohol policy.
I don't know about CTA, but Greyhound absolutely will not tolerate it.
I can either use Trailways or a two hour drive to Aurora Metra from where I live (I've grown to prefer Aurora). When Trailways stops at the Napierville Metra, the driver commonly says that anyone who enters the bar at the station will not reboard the bus.
Aurora is also absolutely superior when I need to use O'Hare.
That also doesn’t account for the CTA Union Transit center which is a bus terminus across the street from Union Station (and next to an outdoor pavilion with 2 bars).
> and removing facilities where people can rest during layovers just drives what little remains completely into the dirt.
To be clear the bigger problem is that Greyhound will have to cut service in Chicago dramatically - they really need a terminal to support larger operations, they can’t have dozens of buses sitting in the road. There will be a few routes that dump people on the street, but companies like Megabus will probably cut service entirely.
Flixbus/Greyhound will do as they have done in other cities, and rent a large parking lot, plop a trailer house and a few port-a-potties and call it a station.
Hah, I'm amazed FlixBus got that big. Their original model is Uber but for buses, i.e. sell tickets for bus rides, and instead of owning buses, they pay bus companies to drive the routes for them (also having their buses be covered in their corporate vinyl wrap).
Somewhat relatedly, I was in London several years ago, and their buses had a logo that said "Arriva - a DB [Deutsche Bahn] company". I found it funny that the Germans managed to "rule" over England (well, London - well, their bus network) after all.
> Alden is best known for buying up local newspapers like The Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and The Baltimore Sun, cutting staff, and selling some of their downtown buildings.
How does that work?
I mean... were the companies sold for less than the realestate was worth?
Generally, you split the company and the real estate. Then you force the company pay rent on the real estate. Then you jack the rental rates to extract the cash out of the company. Then you put the company into bankruptcy. Then you walk off with the real estate.
Anything with old real estate is subject to this. Massachusetts had a similar issue with selling off a bunch of the old Catholic hospitals. The company bought the hospitals, extracted the real estate, and now they're closing all the hospitals. Oops.
There was a point in my life where I rode Greyhound and Megabus to save money. There's already very little dignity to be found in long-distance bus travel, and removing facilities where people can rest during layovers just drives what little remains completely into the dirt. But hey, it may be unraveling the fabric of society, but at least we increased shareholder value.