Chicago Organizes to Stop Greyhound Kicking Passengers to Curb

By Jim Mathews, President & CEO

On Tuesday of this week, Rail Passengers Association staff took part in an online discussion with Chicago-based transportation organizations, called "Chicago's Intercity Bus Hub Is at Risk." Hosted by our friends over at High Speed Rail Alliance, in coordination with Better Streets Chicago and DePaul University's Chaddick Institute, the webinar discussed Greyhound’s announcement that it will abandon its lease at its Harrison Street terminal at the end of September, and begin offloading its passengers onto the curb outside Chicago Union Station (CUS).

I’ll be blunt: Greyhound’s decision is a dereliction of its duty to treat its passengers as human beings, and it can’t be allowed to stand. It not only fails intercity bus passengers, it fails Amtrak, Metra, and Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) passengers, as well.

You don’t have to be a certified transportation planner to understand why it’s a bad idea to eject thousands of passengers onto the dedicated CTA bus lane on Jackson Boulevard outside Union Station. CUS is already bursting at the seams (and, it’s worth noting, currently a maze of construction as part of Amtrak’s station renewal program). The Greyhound “plan” acknowledges that the CTA bus lane is already over-subscribed; the company would reduce its Chicago frequencies by roughly a third so as to not completely overwhelm the station during peak hours.

Abandoning the Harrison Street terminal would also be a disaster for through-tickets and transfers. The terminal also hosts Baron Bus, Trailways, and FlixBus, and these companies will likely reduce or eliminate service if they are forced to move to curbside operations (Indian Trailways recently eliminated its Chicago to Michigan service).

And then there’s the issue of simple human decency. Dumping passengers out on the curb is a bad idea in the dog days of the summer, and it will be an even worse idea when the Chicago winter hits in earnest. Many of these passengers are elderly and have impaired mobility. It’s also common to see families with young children. Of course these people will seek shelter in the overcrowded CUS. That means this curbside model not only screws over bus passengers, it also screws over rail passengers!

This is particularly frustrating given the work that passenger advocates have expended to implement a plan for more and better train service out of the Chicago hub. Amtrak has been working with the City of Chicago, the State of Illinois, and the Federal government on the Chicago Hub Improvement Program — a long overdue upgrade for the fourth-busiest rail station in the U.S. More than 90 percent of Amtrak’s State Supported service outside of the East and West coasts, plus more than 50 percent of Long-Distance customers, ride trains that begin or end at Chicago Union Station. The station also serves more than 30 million Metra passengers each year, with a goal of dramatically expanding service by 2050.

Fortunately, local elected officials understand this. "If you've been by there during rush hour, you know just how packed it gets," said Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa during this week’s webinar. "Every single chair, every single table is full of people; the bathrooms are full." Now, Greyhound’s dereliction of duty threatens to throw the CUS improvement plan under the bus.

It’s the all-too-common result of the model used by Greyhound’s parent company, FlixBus; the “curbside operations model” freeloads off public investments in infrastructure. It’s a classic case of privatizing profits and socializing costs. Amtrak, Metra, and Greyhound passengers will be asked to deal with the chaos — “just until something else is figured out.” But then the “temporary” fix will become the new normal, and once again America’s passengers will be relegated to permanent third-class status.

That’s why, as soon as Rail Passengers learned about this, we began coordinating with our Chicago-based allies and Amtrak to see how we can help prevent this disaster from going into effect next month.

Fortunately, it appears that the coalition of transportation advocates and elected officials has gotten the attention of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration. The Mayor’s office is in talks with the CTA, the Illinois Department of Transportation, Greyhound, and Amtrak to fully understand the consequences of abandoning the Harrison Street terminal. I’m confident that, with a little public pressure from transportation groups like ours, the parties can find a way to extend the lease at the existing intercity terminal, buying time to come up with a long-term solution.

After all, it's a simple ask: Greyhound must do right by its passengers. We know an amicable agreement can be reached. But fair warning: we’re also willing to fight to defend our rights as equal citizens of this country!