Private buses are back,
but will government leave them alone?
Looking forward to attending FIFA World Cup 26? There’s “an easy and affordable way to move between host cities to see the matches.” FlixBus, the world’s largest motor coach service — it has a presence in more than 40 countries —“will connect every … host city across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico,” offering “fans a budget-friendly and reliable alternative for traveling between matches, avoiding high airfare, airport hassles and heavy congestion.”
The company’s October announcement came as no surprise to the wonks who study the neglected stepchild of intercity travel. Buses, given up for dead two decades ago, are back.
Post-World War II prosperity spurred Americans to choose automobiles and jetliners for trips between metro regions. Buses suffered, bigly. According to research by DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development, “U.S. cities lost nearly one-third of their scheduled intercity service between 1960 and 1980 and more than half of the remaining services between 1980 and early 2006.” Not even the Bus Regulatory Reform Act, signed into law by Ronald Reagan, seemed to help. In 1992, the General Accounting Office noted that Greyhound, “the only remaining nationwide provider of scheduled, regular-route … service,” filed for bankruptcy two years earlier.
But right as the industry’s obituary was being written, a dramatic revival dawned. Sparked, in part, by the “Chinatown bus lines” that entrepreneurs founded to link cities along the Northeast Corridor, Americans revisited an old habit. In 2005, The Washington Postreported that “budget carriers … have become increasingly popular, picking up passengers at designated curbsides and offering round-trip fares as low as $35 between Washington and New York.”
New entrants and incumbent firms forced to step up began to provide service that wasn’t merely affordable, but convenient, and much less icky. As The Wall Street Journal put it, the “new breed of buses … has a cleaner, more-luxurious feel — whether it’s cup holders at seats, spiffier bathrooms or tables that allow commuters to spread out and get some work done on the ride.” Wi-Fi was another major inducement.
Even lockdowns couldn’t stop the turnaround. Chaddick’s number-crunchers documented how the “intercity bus industry … rebounded more slowly from the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic than Amtrak and commercial airlines for a variety of reasons, including traveler apprehension about contracting the virus on bus trips … and anxiety about conditions in urban bus terminals.” Some high-profile motorcoach companies didn’t survive. BoltBus, which served both the Pacific Coast and Northeast, folded in the summer of 2021.
But in its latest annual assessment of the industry, Chaddick predicted ridership growth of “4% in 2025, a rate substantially above the projected 2.4–2.8% growth of domestic auto and air travel by the U.S. Travel Association.” Expanded routes “in the Sunbelt and Southwest,” researchers believed, would “lay the groundwork for a particularly strong year in these warm-weather areas.”
Even when intercity bus travel — which moves substantially more passengers than Amtrak — experiences a setback, the marketplace compensates. In August, Midwest-focused Burlington Trailways shifted to charter-only bookings. Greyhound replaced the company’s scheduled routes from Des Moines to Chicago and Denver. Jefferson Lines assumed the “operation of intercity bus service between Omaha and Chicago.” Last year, after Megabus’ parent company filed for Chapter 11, Peter Pan took over between New York City and Washington, D.C. To the west, Fullington Trailways, the American Bus Association recounted, “captured several critical routes, adding daily service” to Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and State College.”
The flexibility sorely lacking in government transportation manifests itself in other ways. Boosted capacity for special events is one example. Per Secret Los Angeles, in April, FlixBus expanded routes “to the Coachella Valley just in time” for one of the nation’s highest-profile music extravaganzas. The company added “more direct routes that’ll take you straight to … the official festival shuttle drop-off spot,” and in addition, “you’ll have the option to get dropped off in downtown Indio or even Palm Springs if you’re planning to hang around outside the festival grounds.”
Commercial bus operators have proven adept at identifying emerging markets, too. Companies catering to Latino customers are thriving. Tufesa serves California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Limousine Express, “established in 1966 to provide low cost transportation with few stops” between El Paso and Los Angeles, has grown to “40 locations and continues to expand,” thanks to “affordable prices and few stops.” Direct trips include Bakersfield to Sacramento, Tucson to Phoenix and Albuquerque to Las Cruces. Tornado Elite touts “maximum comfort, fewer stops, individual entertainment, and exclusive restrooms for ladies and gentlemen” to its destinations, which include Monterrey and El Paso.
Unfortunately, as with other forms of travel, government cannot leave well enough alone. Mass Transit is delighted over “the success of state-supported intercity bus systems.” Colorado, Ohio and Virginia run their own routes. Other states forge “partnerships” with companies. New Mexico recently initiated a Greyhound line between Albuquerque and Durango, Colo. Hey, it was a priority of the “Statewide Public Transportation Plan,” so it had to be done.
The Thoreau Institute’s Randal O’Toole considers such subsidies “disturbing,” because government-backed “buses tend to follow political routes and run with far more empty seats.” (“It would be better,” O’Toole believes, “to just give the riders Priuses to drive around in” given the costs of the subsidies.) Combine the state “public investment” committed to intercity buses with Amtrak’s uncuttable federal largesse, and the robustness of commercial motorcoach companies is all the more remarkable.
Buses may never be cool. But the comeback of an intercity travel option once headed for oblivion is something to celebrate. Politicians and planners should cease their interference with passengers and profit-seekers, and let America’s bus boom fully bloom.
D. Dowd Muska is a researcher and writer who studies public policy from the limited-government perspective. A veteran of several think tanks, he writes a column and publishes other content at No Dowd About It.
