Greyhound takes a necessary route

Greyhound, the “Big Dog” in country music, will be a lot less country come August. Service cutbacks announced last week will eliminate 260 stops in 13 states across the bus line’s Northern Region, a territory that stretches from Washington to Wisconsin, and south as far as Utah and Colorado. Only 99 locations, one-quarter of the system today, will remain open after Aug. 18. Some of those will get less service than they do now. “You can’t get there from here” will suddenly ring true for many towns, and not just small ones. Of those 99 stops that will remain open, 75 are in cities with populations of more than 100,000. Count many in Montana, Idaho and Washington, among those who will be left standing at the station. The Silver Valley, for example, will be bypassed entirely when stations in Mullan, Wallace and Kellogg are closed. Same thing for many of the cities in Eastern Idaho. And it will be many a mile between rest stops in Montana, where residents of 14 towns from Wibaux to St. Regis will have to rely on neighbors, or their thumbs. Fortunately, the cuts in Eastern Washington were less widespread. Greyhound says it considered the reductions for a year before making an announcement and, from a business standpoint, you almost have to wonder what took them so long. If you are betting on greyhounds, the dogs offer better odds than the company, a loser of $29 million in 2003. Results were worse in 2002 for the subsidiary of Laidlaw International Inc., which is also a major provider of school bus service. Greyhound spokeswoman Kim Plaskett says the Northern Region, despite its vast size, contained only 10 percent of Greyhound’s locations nationwide, and generated just 2.8 percent of passengers. Last year, the company transported 592,753 passengers in Washington. She did not have a breakdown for Idaho or Montana, nor for Spokane. Greyhound says it will increase service out of Spokane by 30 percent after Aug. 18, but that’s not what Northwestern Trailways Executive Vice President Bill Brannan sees on an updated schedule he received Saturday. The changes are important to Trailways, he says, because they will disrupt connections, especially for anyone headed from Coeur d’Alene south to Lewiston or beyond. The two bus lines, which accept each others tickets, have tried in the past to coordinate their schedules with each other and with Amtrak rail service, he says. Brannan says Trailways traffic on scheduled routes has been steady at about 70,000 passengers per year. Charter traffic is much higher. Although Greyhound says its withdrawal from some markets will make way for other transportation companies, Brannan does not expect Trailways to pick up service east of Spokane. When Trailways tried to move into some areas during a strike and bankruptcy that convulsed its competitor in the early 1990s, Greyhound threatened to no longer honor the other line’s tickets. “That’s not good for the customers, or anyone,” he says, adding that Trailways would step in only in the unlikely event Greyhound was to drop routes along Interstate 90 entirely. Brannan says he understands Greyhound’s decision to concentrate on heavily traveled markets. Still, he adds, “The people in Montana are going to greatly suffer because of the service reduction.” Jon Cantamessa is a Shoshone County commissioner, and owner of the Excel market in Wallace that doubles as the Greyhound stop. Losing service will hurt the Silver Valley, he says, especially those residents who used the bus to get back and forth to Coeur d’Alene and Spokane. “The people who use the bus can’t get to those stations very easily,” Cantamessa says. “I’m guessing most of those people would be stuck.” In Idaho, in Montana, in 260 communities from the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean, thousands too poor to own a vehicle or too old or ill to operate one will become just a little more stuck next month, a little more isolated. The business case for cutting service may be incontrovertible. The social case is another matter. Greyhound will move on to other regions as executives scrutinize the line’s route structure. Maybe they will learn something from their experience in the Northern Region that will stay their hand elsewhere. Personal vehicles should not be the only transportation option for small towns. After all, everybody knows big dogs belong in the country.