Greyhound gets another strike

I rolled out of bed a few minutes before 5, groggy and not happy to be getting up so early when I didn’t really need to be Chicago so early in the morning. But I was flexible with my schedule in order to catch the 5:45 AM bus. I arrived a half hour early because I knew I had to buy a ticket and when I had been at a Chicago station the month before there was a line. As I walked up to the lobby of the station it didn’t look very promising, no cars in the parking light and absolute silence. I pulled on the handle, wet as it was damp from the morning dew. Nothing happened. I said goodbye to my friend and told him that I’d call if there were any problems. After 15 minutes of waiting, another guy pulled up in his car and waited along with me. It was 5:45, 5:55, 6:05. He went and checked another street where he found a city bus. He asked that driver about a Greyhound bus and he said “Oh yeah, that pulled out about 20 minutes ago up there on 3rd street!”

3rd street! For some reason due to the bus not being able to turn around very easily, the bus decided to stop a couple blocks totally out of view of the current station. There was no sign about lobby hours, change of location, even a number to call if there were any problems. I even tried calling the Greyhound station in Chicago and what was I told? Nothing because they never picked up the phone. Frustrated I told my friend to come back and pick me up because I had “missed” or rather, never seen, the bus. The only saving grace about that experience was that knowledgeable of Greyhound's less then stellar track record, I didn’t book the ticket online, so I wasn’t out any money, just a few hours of sleep and inconveniencing my friend.

It wasn’t until an hour later when I returned to the same station, (shared by Amtrak, there was a train up to Chicago) that I found out that day was the first day that Greyhound was stopping their lobby service in Lafayette. “Oh, why that’s convenient to know”, I thought. Sure enough as I entered the station I saw a sign inside the building about 4 x 6 inches saying “Greyhound buses are boarding on Third Street until further notice”. Next time. Well maybe there won’t be a next time. I’ve now lost all confidence in Greyhound to deliver service, punctuality or certainty of having a seat. If I do have to travel long distance and flying is too expensive in the future I’ll either go Amtrak or Megabus-a new express and cheap bus service that opened a few years back.

“If I was in China this NEVER would have happened! I’d be lining up, or mobbing, behind 500 people waiting to get my ticket punched, down the platform and onto the train. And if I ever miss it, in 30 minutes time there’s bound to be another train/bus going the same place.

Oh well, just over 3 weeks and I’ll be back in the land of bike armadas perusing the streets, cattle chute train station lines, early morning taiqi in the parks, and color-enhancing pollution-sure to take any uneventful journey on the road and turn it into a ride through exhaust pipe (the picture was taken after a 3-hour leg of a weekend bike tour in China). 中国加油！