Dead Dogs

[Amor de Cosmos]

Greyhound buses are becoming a thing of the past in Canada.

On a practical level this is pretty serious for a lot of people in many small (and not so small communities.) For example there's now no public transportation between Vancouver Island's two largest communities, Victoria (pop: 340,000) and Nanaimo (pop: 90,000) a distance of 110kms. More worryingly, rural residents in remote areas are left to depend on taxis or flagging a ride on the highway. This at a time when the disappearance of dozens of indigenous women over several decades in Northern BC is still unresolved.

[ursus arctos]

This is really bad, especially for remote First Nations communities that had relied on the service.

I am also concerned that it will result in a lot of seniors driving who really shouldn't be behind the wheel.

[linus]

We're 5-10 years away from driverless shuttle services, which will be scheduled with enough flexibility to accommodate for smaller point to point service in places with lower traffic. It's a bit similar to the transition from hub and spoke to point to point airline networks.

[WOM]

I'll take the over on that one...

[Amor de Cosmos]

We're 5-10 years away from driverless shuttle services, which will be scheduled with enough flexibility to accommodate for smaller point to point service in places with lower traffic. It's a bit similar to the transition from hub and spoke to point to point airline networks.

Even if that turns out to be so — and I do wonder who's going to pay for, and service, all those driverless cars — an awful lot can happen in five to ten years.

[Big Boobs and FIRE!]

Greyhound is owned by first group, who are my employer.

We get regular business briefings and with Greyhound, they basically infer that the majority of passengers are illegal ime grants. The trump administration has frightened them off from either wanting to move from their established location or doing it by public transport where they are much more susceptible to checks from authorities.

This has seen the business become a financial basket case, so no surprise that they are closing the least profitable routes.

There is also a new board in place at First, who have been tasked with sorting out the financial woes that beset the group. The big concerns are UK rail and North America bus (they have a number of other companies such as school transit) so there is the possibility of more cuts to come.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Presumably they lost a lot of ground to the Chinatown/Megabus operators in the big city to city markets too, which has impacted their overall profitability?

[Guy Profumo]

Greyhound buses are becoming a thing of the past in Canada.

On a practical level this is pretty serious for a lot of people in many small (and not so small communities.) For example there's now no public transportation between Vancouver Island's two largest communities, Victoria (pop: 340,000) and Nanaimo (pop: 90,000) a distance of 110kms. More worryingly, rural residents in remote areas are left to depend on taxis or flagging a ride on the highway. This at a time when the disappearance of dozens of indigenous women over several decades in Northern BC is still unresolved.

Greyhound’s cuts could strand residents of the many communities that dot the current bus routes, posing a safety risk, because people may be forced to hitchhike, and creating a thorny problem for governments.

Then run the services yourself?

[ursus arctos]

Amor’s getting on a bit, and has a lot of other responsibilities.

[Guy Profumo]

Amor’s getting on a bit, and has a lot of other responsibilities.

You know I meant the federal (?) or state government.

[ursus arctos]

That seems very much to be First/Greyhound's plan, as they have repeatedly referred to the possibility of aid from the federal and/or provincial authorities.

The four months notice they have given allow time for the terms of those to be negotiated.

BB&F, it wouldn't surprise me at all if a significant portion of Greyhound's US clientele are undocumented (particularly closer to the border on on routes to cities like New York and Chicago), but a significant number are poor and/or old citizens.

[adams house cat]

The Greyhound bus is iconic in North America. Featured in countless songs and movie over the years.

Many years since I rode the Dog but I remember enjoying it. Meeting people and seeing some scenery.

Apart from one terrible trip across Utah in July in a bus where the A/C had broken.

[Amor de Cosmos]

You know I meant the federal (?) or state government.

The logistics of setting up something like that in a country this size are mind boggling, and certainly can't be achieved in four months. Particularly as many of the routes have already been terminated (eg: the Victoria/Nanaimo run)

[ursus arctos]

I think that what they are looking for are large subsidies, rather than any kind of state ownership.

[Hot Pepsi]

I don't forsee any major subsidies coming from the US government any time soon. We can't even bother to invest properly in transit in the northeast or California, where the need is so glaring and the potential benefits are so clear. Old people do vote, rural areas have a disproportionate representation in government, and get a disproportionate chunk of any transportation spending due to pork barrel politics, etc, but I don't think that will be enough to overcome the general attitude, shared by most of the people who run this country, that if the invisible hand of the market can't make something happen, and its mostly brown and/or poor people who need it, then it isn't supposed to exist.

And there may be a tiny shred of truth in that. Just a tiny one. I mean, the rural population continues to decline. At some point, some small towns just cannot survive as small towns, can they?

[ursus arctos]

I would think that there are greater political possibilities in Canada, but you are right about small towns. The demographics of many are such that it is hard to see them surviving in twenty years.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Yeah, but this Province is littered with ghost towns. It's not a new phenomenon in a resource based economy, and even viewed as natural. Withdrawal of transportation services from longstanding communities however, some with over 100,000 inhabitants, is. Then there's the indigenous population of Haida Gwaii for example, who you can bet aren't about to leave their ancestral lands. BC Ferries — a crown corporation — runs a regular sailings to the mainland, but now there's no transportation link to take them anywhere. They're left to fend for themselves on notorious Highway 16, between Prince Rupert and Prince George where, it's estimated, at least forty women have disappeared since 1970. You can't just write these people and places off.

[WOM]

People always be lamentin' the demise of small towns. But if there was a reason to be there, people would be there. If there was a burning desire to be there, people would be there. But in the absence, people leave.

Personally, I love the idea of moving to a small town in my later years. But do I want to be surrounded by a bunch of racist, sexist alcoholics who are 'wary of outsiders' and think we should 'look after our own' instead of 'all these immig'ants' for the rest of my life? Ummm....no.

[WOM]

I think there's a distinction to be made between dead-end small towns being continuously 'serviced' on the provincial dime and native communities on traditional land. I think we have an historical duty to provide them with a base level (or better) of services that allow them to stay put while accessing first-world services like healthcare and, you know, groceries.

BC has a bit of a history of small towns that just sort of dried up when the timber (or silver or whatever) did. Like that whole town that was for sale a few years ago. But I'm not sure whose obligation it is to service every four-corners burgh from coast to coast. Maybe there are more 'innovative' ideas than coaches. Surely it's not outside our abilities.

[Lang Spoon]

Is that Scottish Bastards First Group that own Greyhound now? In the twenty years I’ve been away, they’ve turned Glasgow’s bus network from comprehensive and reliable to an expensive shambles with routes cut at a moment’s notice. Pricks.

[Amor de Cosmos]

People always be lamentin' the demise of small towns.

Are they? I can't say I hear that much. The small towns I'm familiar with vary a good deal culturally. Somewhere like Nelson in the East Kootenays, is based around the (now legal) cannabis industry, and has always had a kind of woodsy Santa Barbara vibe. Small communities on the Gulf Islands OTOH are more kind of friendly post-hippie DIY. While the Okanagan towns are more golfing and outdoor rec, power boats and ATVs.

Personally, I love the idea of moving to a small town in my later years.

Not necessarily a good idea. In your Golden Years you often need access to things small towns don't often have, eg: good medical facilities, and airports — so family can arrive swiftly if required.

[WOM]

Maybe I'm just tuned into it, but I hear it a lot. Honestly, since the late '80s in Peterborough (for the newly-wed and nearly-dead). No jobs, no opportunities, etc.

We hear the same thing in Minden / Haliburton today. But there's no industry (or even a movie theatre) so people just move away.

That said, we took a look around Midland, ON a few weeks back and half the (smallish) factories / industrial buildings had help wanted signs. So clearly it's not the same everywhere.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, but this Province is littered with ghost towns. It's not a new phenomenon in a resource based economy, and even viewed as natural. Withdrawal of transportation services from longstanding communities however, some with over 100,000 inhabitants, is. Then there's the indigenous population of Haida Gwaii for example, who you can bet aren't about to leave their ancestral lands. BC Ferries — a crown corporation — runs a regular sailings to the mainland, but now there's no transportation link to take them anywhere. They're left to fend for themselves on notorious Highway 16, between Prince Rupert and Prince George where, it's estimated, at least forty women have disappeared since 1970. You can't just write these people and places off.

100,000 people would seem to merit a bus, certainly.

A moral society would not "just write those people off," but a capitalist one does. The "creative destruction" necessary to keep the capitalist engine running is more destructive than creative for most of the people affected. That'd be fine if people were just autonomous units of labor and consumption, but it's not at all fine for actual human beings with real human needs. There's little room for ideas like "our ancestral lands" in the capitalist imagination. Hopefully there is room for it in the collective Canadian imagination of itself, but I don't have much hope for us.

People always be lamentin' the demise of small towns. But if there was a reason to be there, people would be there. If there was a burning desire to be there, people would be there. But in the absence, people leave.

Personally, I love the idea of moving to a small town in my later years. But do I want to be surrounded by a bunch of racist, sexist alcoholics who are 'wary of outsiders' and think we should 'look after our own' instead of 'all these immig'ants' for the rest of my life? Ummm....no.

I totally know what you mean. Big city life is too expensive and crowded - at least for me - but so many rural places are, I'm afraid, exactly how you describe it. The other alternative is to live in a smallish place that is so cool that it hurts - Boulder, Asheville, Burlington, Bend, Aspen, etc. But those places are getting very expensive, crowded, and the self-importance might get a bit insufferable.**

So I'm trying to split the difference. Where I live, I frequently come in contact with people who fit the stereotype of the racist redneck in the same hour I meet somebody who wears a scarf in non-scarf weather and uses summer as a verb. State College has a fair number of people that are seriously lamenting that Denny's went out of business here and that there are new apartment buildings downtown that are, gasp, over 8 stories tall. On the other extreme, there are people here who want us to be like Boulder, Madison, Ann Arbor (name a much larger university town), or even Pittsburgh.

Fortunately, I think, most people here are fairly content.

The worst places, IMO, are AA or even AAA cities that have a lot of crime and hassle, but the cool bands don't usually come there.

*If I were a wanky academic, I'd call it "late-capitalism" but that's much too optimistic.

** And I've noticed that upper middle-class or upper class white people seem to define a place as cool or desirable based on its offering of restaurants, cafes, and brewpubs. Occasionally they may mention art galleries that they hardly ever go to anyway. Is that really what life is all about? God, I hope not.

[WOM]

I'd be happy in a town that has decent grocery stores, a movie theatre, some kind of live theatre or concerts, and reasonably priced houses. University towns are pretty good for that: Kingston, Peterborough, London, etc. State College is that kind of place, in my limited experience. I wouldn't mind living in a town where they don't charge you to park, but that also has buses. And yeah, fewer people with the usual list of intolerances and whatnot. Can't you be a proud redneck and not a racist, too?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Maybe I'm just tuned into it, but I hear it a lot. Honestly, since the late '80s in Peterborough (for the newly-wed and nearly-dead). No jobs, no opportunities, etc.

We hear the same thing in Minden / Haliburton today. But there's no industry (or even a movie theatre) so people just move away.

That said, we took a look around Midland, ON a few weeks back and half the (smallish) factories / industrial buildings had help wanted signs. So clearly it's not the same everywhere.

I think that's maybe a difference between manufacturing and resource economies. Here, if the mine's tapped out, or the mill shuts down people tend to just move on. The town dies, c'est la vie.