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Megabus Enters West Coast Markets—At What Cost?
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
According to several media reports, the no-frills intercity bus operator Megabus (noted for its limited $1 fares) will expand its US operations this August to add a Los Angeles hub serving six destinations, including Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. Current operations are confined to the Midwest, emanating from their Chicago hub.
However, articles in the Los Angeles Times, the San Diego Union-Tribune, and the local blog LAist all fail to mention that Megabus’ thus-far money-losing business model is predicated on no physical stations and bleak amenities (if any) at the curbsides they serve. Megabus parent company Coach USA is owned by Scotland-based Stagecoach Group, which recently admitted that Megabus’ first full year of operations lost $1 million (see NARP weekly news hotline #507).
As you can see below, Megabus’ Chicago location “adjacent to Union Station” crowds passengers onto an already-packed curbside location also served by Van Galder Bus Lines, CTA buses, shuttles, and taxis. This location is also right in front of the extremely busy Canal Street main entrance to Union Station for Amtrak and Metra passengers:
(images by Ross Capon)
Union Station owner Jones Lang LaSalle and main tenant Amtrak make abundantly clear that the shelter of Union Station proper is off-limits to Megabus passengers (a fact not immediately obvious on the Megabus web site):
It remains to be seen whether there’s a market for Megabus in California, which, besides Amtrak, Greyhound, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, and the new ExpressJet and Virgin America, also has an increasing presence of ethnic-targeted bus services.
Ultimately, the traveling public should take notice that Megabus is not completely upfront about the nature of its bare-bones operations, and yet still has been unable to turn a profit.
—Matthew Melzer
Posted by NARP
Tags:NARP Welcomes Back Staffer
Monday, July 30, 2007
I’m pleased to announce that former NARP intern Matthew Melzer has returned to the NARP staff to serve as Communications Associate.
While interning in our DC office in 2005, Matt gathered and analyzed information on rail advocacy and his experience here. He used this knowledge to write and publish his undergraduate thesis at the University of California, Santa Cruz on the history and near-term prospects of the rail advocacy movement. He earned a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Community Studies.
Matt then went on to serve as marketing and planning intern for Monterey-Salinas Transit in Monterey, CA, and worked as an ADA paratransit eligibility specialist there.
Matt will be primarily responsible for member and other external communications, including our weekly News Hotline and the monthly NARP News. He will also be the primary facilitator for our long-distance route teams effort. And of course, he’ll write entries for our blog.
Welcome back, Matt!
—Ross Capon
Posted by NARP
Tags:The National Network Will Help Us Build The Vision
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Political support exists for retaining Amtrak largely because there is a national network, skeletal though it is. Abolition of Amtrak and its existing but grossly inadequate service network would almost guarantee that few members of Congress from states and districts outside the NEC would find any reason to vote one dime for intercity rail passenger services. The NEC service would be in danger of collapse without national funding because it is so costly to operate and maintain that the directly benefiting states and cities could not afford it. But neither the NEC’s direct beneficiaries nor the nation as a whole can afford to let the NEC service collapse because that service is crucial to that region’s continued mobility and economic viability.
This marriage of convenience has kept the trains running, but getting adequate resources for the train system we really need will require a nationwide brain transplant on the subject of transportation planning and funding!!
By that I mean national recognition—by Congress, the federal bureaucracy whose various potentates appear to believe they best justify their continued employment by cranking out factually challenged but politically appealing anti-Amtrak diatribes, and all succeeding U.S. presidents—that this nation needs a comprehensive, heavily used rail passenger and freight network that is funded in much the same way as the national highway network is funded – and that is fully integrated into the national transportation matrix. The NARP Vision is an attempt to begin a dialogue about the details of such an expanded national system. S. 294 is a baby step toward the needed federal funding.
—Howard Harding
NARP Region 6 Director
Akron, OH
Posted by NARP
Tags:©2010 National Association of Railroad Passengers | » NARP website
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