Why do some intercity busses drop you off on a street rather than a station?
Why do some intercity busses drop you off on a street rather than a station?
(note: this is in the US, idk if it's normal in other countries) I understand that some cities don't have a station, in which case it makes sense, but I'm visiting family in a small city (college town) that just updated the train/bus station a few years ago, but the only bus from my major city drops me off on a random side street northwest 3 miles away from the station with no bus service/businesses around.
Why do they do this? The town has a bus station! It's a major stop on the route! It's super inconvenient and doesn't make sense to me.
Because some intercity buses (Megabus) don’t want to pay for their own stations or even pay to use and existing intermodal facility.
That makes sense, as much as I hate it. It's odd though since the route used to be served by a local coach company in partnership with Greyhound and would stop both at the intermodal station in the college town as well as the bus depot in the main city. The new operater is FlixBus, who bought Greyhound and presumably could have used the station/depot if they wanted; they must have been trying to cut costs on the route.
It doesn't stop at the station at all?
In my country it's common that intercity buses start and finish at bus hubs but they commonly also stop at multiple points inside the city as well.
Nope, it's ridiculous. This route used to be operated by a different company that stopped at both the station and the depot a few miles away in another part of the city, but the new operater stops at neither.
I mean you answered your own question, it's in the US.
The us is pathologically bad with public transport and almost everywhere treats it like a treat given to a dog you barely care about enough to feed.
People need to hold municipalities accountable for things like this to not happen.
I'm firmly in the fuckcars camp and agree with you, I was more wondering why they made that decision. Someone else answered that they don't want to pay to use the station, so I guess my question to you then is what local municipalities can do to prevent this/promote better intercity travel. Are they able to require the buses to use the station (and pay for it's use)? I'm worried this coach company would just shut the line down.
I should also note that this is a popular transit route, there is an amtrak train that connects the cities as well, but only one train a day. I take the bus bc the train schedule is a bad deal if you're visiting the small city (arrive in the evening, depart in the morning). The bus isn't as popular as the train, so it seems like they're cutting costs wherever they can.