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Need a way to find the best bus fare to Buffalo?
By adamg on Mon, 08/12/2013 - 10:40am
Xconomy reports on another Boston-based travel startup, this one called Wanderu, which is aiming to build a national system for bus companies to put their scheduled and booking systems online in a single interface. It's currently limited to the northeast, but $2.5 million in venture capital could help it expand nationwide.
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Comments
Come and find the best fare
Come and find the best fare out of 3 bus companies!
There's only 3?
Well for a few years there was a huge number of them that made it hard to track all the options. It was a big wave of start-up that get to grow because it started by servicing an enclaves of immigrants. Then 26 got shut down in one go in 2012. Then the original company got shut down a few months back. And finally it's largest rival did too.
So its back to 3 companies with some lines with some branded differently so it looks like there's more. But hey! It's still more than 2 companies like in the 90's - the 3rd one is a multinational that happen to join in the last decade.
There are still plenty of
There are still plenty of Chinatown buses, just not to Boston.
Want to go from NYC to DC? Or Philly? Or about 60 other cities in Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New York State, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, or Virginia? You can do it by Chinatown bus.
But not to Boston. It's probably because Boston and Cambridge have strong-armed several companies off the street over the years, even though Federal and Massachusetts laws give interstate buses the right to stop on city streets with no local interference, and new companies are afraid to challenge them.
The South Station bus terminal's gates are all controlled by existing companies. They'd rather have a gate sit empty most of the day than allow more service to be run by their competitors.
No, it was DOT shutdowns...
... as has been documented nearly everywhere, the Boston-NYC Chinatown busses failed inspections, repeatedly. Finally, the Feds shut them down.
I would like to see some of them come back, but they have to not drive busses with broken frames, missing floor panels, or non-functional toilets. And not capsize them on the ramps, or crash them into Toll Booths, eh?
I know that the FMCSA shut
I know that the FMCSA shut down Fung Wah and Lucky Star. My post was asking why no competitors have started service between NYC and Boston after that shutdown.
And if you didn't like riding their buses, competition would have provided an alternative. Vamoose tried to stop in Harvard Square a few years ago, but Cambridge forced them out.
Besides the South Station incumbents (Greyhound/Peter Pan, their subsidiary Boltbus, and Megabus which partnered to use DATTCO's gates), the only company on the route is Go Buses. And they don't stop on the street -- just Alewife and Riverside, because the T lets them stop on their property.
You might think leaving from Alewife saves time on the road, but it doesn't. Alewife to 95/90 takes the same time as South Station to that point, and then you waste 20+ minutes on the Riverside stop.
Buses falling apart
Are you saying you'd rather be allowed to take a bus that was so poorly maintained that its frame was cracked and falling apart? According the Globe from 2/26/13, Fung Wah was cited for "23 instances of cracked, loose or broken frames" and they only had 28 buses. Plus, their drivers "ranked in the bottom 3 percent of drivers nationwide".
I'll thank Boston and Cambridge for those strong-armed tactics.
They also forced out Vamoose,
They also forced out Vamoose, Peter Pan, and Entertainment Tours.
The remaining companies have raised their prices, and they're sold out on weekends up to a week in advance. If this causes people to drive instead, we all lose.
It needs some work. I
It needs some work.
I searched for NYC to Boston. It told me to take Megabus from NYC to South Station, then walk through the Ted Williams Tunnel to Logan, and then take a Concord Coach bus from Logan back to South Station.
I think I'll stick with http://gotobus.com (based in Porter Square!) and bus companies' own sites for now.
Also it seems you have to
Also it seems you have to type the name of the bus terminal, instead of a city? So that's another thing you have to research first...
Sob Story Guy, cheapskates,
Sob Story Guy, cheapskates, and hobos everywhere rejoice!