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America's Greyhound bus stations are disappearing

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Re: America's Greyhound bus stations are disappearing

#41

Post by bsder »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #25
kibwen wrote: post #3

> 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 i…

> 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.

Re: America's Greyhound bus stations are disappearing

#42

Post by elashri »

Marsymars wrote: post #27
tehjoker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but also airlines will completely fail without government support. The only aspect of aviation that is private is the buying a ticket and purchasing and operating planes, creating a thin fiction of a free market. Everything else is supported. The airports, the airline manufacturers (that also make expensive weapon systems via govt. contracts), the fuel system (supported by endless diplomacy, monetary policy, and…

> The airlines are critical to a big country like the US when our passenger rail networks are so slow, so the government supports it. How does this follow? If they're critical and highly subsidized, that implies the value that people get out of tickets is much higher than what they're paying, so people should be willing to pay much higher prices if subsidies are ended.

They are critical because of the lack of practical alternative means. There is no train rail system that reach the same level of coverage. Even if you forget about the price and time, there isn't a usually route using rail system for most A-B points.

Re: America's Greyhound bus stations are disappearing

#43

Post by chrchr »

briandear wrote: post #9
Reason077 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting how airports, especially regional airports, are often heavily subsidised in the US. But bus terminals, apparantely, are something that the private sector should provide without government support. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

[flagged]

There's no reason buses need to be terrible. Intercity bus service in Mexico is practically luxurious, with big reclining seats that you can actually sleep in and thick curtains that close. In the U.S., there was a startup offering overnight trips between Los Angeles and San Francisco with sleeping pods. They shut down at the beginning of the pandemic, but imagine how nice it would be to wake up at your destination refreshed instead of fighting through LAX at dawn and squeezing into a 737 for one of those "cheap" flights.

I often take Amtrak from Portland to Seattle instead of flying. Theoretically it is a short flight vs a four hour train trip, but consider that the train station is centrally located on both ends, and you can enjoy the decadent spaciousness of even a coach seat on Amtrak, while breathing nice fresh sea level air the entire time, and Amtrak wins easily.

Re: America's Greyhound bus stations are disappearing

#44

Post by dh2022 »

undersuit wrote: post #12
briandear wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

But I might want to spend 4 hours on a bus and I can't now. I have to take 2 1.5 hour flights thanks to the Delta hub.

Or you can drive if it the Delta hub is too much trouble.

Re: America's Greyhound bus stations are disappearing

#45

Post by [deleted] »

baggy_trough wrote: post #39
linotype wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc... Oil is made over millions of years and we’re on track to deplete it in under 200 years. We’ll never completely deplete it because the oil that’s left will be uneconomical to extract, but that’s functionally the same thing.

They said the same “50 years to go” thing in the 70s. Yes, of course the naturally occurring supply is finite. But we don’t know where the limit is.

[deleted]

Re: America's Greyhound bus stations are disappearing

#48

Post by undersuit »

dh2022 wrote: post #44
undersuit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I might want to spend 4 hours on a bus and I can't now. I have to take 2 1.5 hour flights thanks to the Delta hub.

Or you can drive if it the Delta hub is too much trouble.

I don't want to drive to the Delta hub; I don't want to drive. The bus is fine, there's a short stop on the way where I used to buy a milkshake.

Re: America's Greyhound bus stations are disappearing

#49

Post by tobi1449 »

briandear wrote: post #9
Reason077 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting how airports, especially regional airports, are often heavily subsidised in the US. But bus terminals, apparantely, are something that the private sector should provide without government support. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

[flagged]

Nothing you're listing here requires a heavily subsidized regional airport, just a regional airfield ...

Re: America's Greyhound bus stations are disappearing

#50

Post by sevensor »

searealist wrote: post #40
sevensor wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for saying this, I was hoping somebody would bring class into it. Intercity bus lines aren’t subsidized because poor people ride buses between cities, and as a society we prefer not to subsidize poor people’s physical mobility. Physical mobility is a prerequisite for social mobility, after all.

I suspect you are not aligned with me. I am saying that lower-class people, on average, have behavior that middle-class people don't want to be exposed to. Look at some of the stories in this thread.

I’ve been my share of 15 hour bus rides. Greyhound. Megabus. Changing buses downtown at midnight. Mostly it’s just people trying to get around. Worst that ever happened is I got scammed out of $20 when I was a kid and I’d never heard “I’m trying to get back to Virginia but I’m $31 short” before. I mean sure, there might be a junkie taking way too long in the bathroom, but people intent on doing you actual harm are pretty thin on the ground.
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