HIXON (NEWS 1130) – Three people have been taken to hospital after a crash this morning involving a Greyhound bus travelling to Prince George from Kamloops.

It happened at around 8 a.m. near Hixon, south of Prince George.

“There were eight customers on board, plus the driver,” says Lanesha Gipson, who speaks for Greyhound. “There have been three injuries reported. Those three customers have been taken to a local hospital.”

“We are looking at everything from the time the bus left to the time the incident occurred,” she adds.

They were seriously hurt. The other six people have minor injuries.

Greyhound says it’s cooperating with police, and the company will also carry out its own investigation.

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VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) – BC’s transportation minister says it’s unacceptable that two young girls were left at a remote gas station by a Greyhound bus driver over the weekend. The Passenger Transportation Board has opened an investigation.

The 12 and 16-year-old girls were kicked off their bus from Prince George to Alberta after the driver discovered their tickets were expired. They were left at Greyhound’s stop at a gas station in Valemount after 3:30 a.m. The girls were told to wait there until the next bus arrived. A family friend drove through the night to reach the girls.

Transportation Minister Todd Stone says they will get to the bottom of this. “I’ve got to tell you, as someone with three young daughters of my own, I just cannot imagine finding out that my children were potentially left on the side of the road in the middle of the night because of a ticket not being valid.”

The province announced several safety upgrades for the Highway of Tears last year and Stone adds announcements on the implementation of those will be coming soon.

In a statement, Greyhound says the facility where the girls were left is staffed 24/7 and they were monitored the entire time they were waiting. It adds, they would’ve allowed the girls to continue the trip if the bus for the next leg hadn’t been fully booked.

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WINNIPEG (NEWS1130) – A man who was found not criminally responsible for beheading and cannibalizing a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus has been granted his freedom.

Manitoba’s Criminal Code Review Board has given Will Baker, formerly known as Vince Li, an absolute discharge, meaning he is no longer subject to monitoring.

Baker, a diagnosed schizophrenic, killed Tim McLean, a young carnival worker who was a complete stranger to Baker, in 2008.

Baker was initially kept in a secure wing of a psychiatric hospital but was given more freedom every year.

He has been living on his own in a Winnipeg apartment since November, but was still subject to monitoring to ensure he took his medication.

His doctor told the review board earlier this week that Baker has been a good patient and knows the importance of continuing to take his medication.

In a written decision, the review board said it “is of the opinion that the weight of evidence does not substantiate that Mr. Baker poses a significant threat to the safety of the public.”

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WINNIPEG (NEWS1130) – A man who was in the throws of a psychotic episode when he beheaded a fellow Greyhound bus passenger has received an absolute discharge from the Criminal Code Review Board.

The move means Will Baker, formerly known as Vince Li, is no longer subject to any monitoring. Baker has been receiving treatment for schizophrenia since being found not criminally responsible in the death of Tim McLean. Baker’s condition is a complex one that experts say is not always well understood.

Here are a few facts about schizophrenia:

What is it?

Experts say schizophrenia, which literally means separated from reality, is a blanket term given to a family of mental illnesses. Dr. David Bloom, chief of the psychotic disorders program at Montreal’s Douglas Institute, likens the variety of schizophrenias to the various types of cancer that exist. Bloom says not all causes are known, but elevated dopamine levels in the brain are directly involved in most.

How common is it?

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health says about one per cent of the population has the disease. Schizophrenia affects men and women equally, although symptoms tend to manifest themselves in men somewhat earlier — in their teens and 20s.

What are the key symptoms?

Symptoms tend to be consistent across the various types of schizophrenia, experts say. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health says there are two categories of symptoms — positive and negative. People showing positive symptoms can experience delusions, hallucinations and disorganized thoughts. Negative symptoms include lack of motivation, loss of interest in the feelings of others and reduced physical activity.

Is there a cure?

Experts agree no cure has been found, but some say medical advances can help keep the condition under control and allow people to lead full lives. They stress, however, that timely treatment is important.

What are the available treatments?

“Three-quarters of the patients will do quite well on quite standard anti-psychotic medications,” says Bloom, who adds most of those work by lowering or blocking dopamine in the brain. There are some schizophrenic patients who do not respond to such treatments because their dopamine levels are in check. Patients are also urged to tap into other treatments such as cognitive behaviour therapy and psycho-educational services. Bloom says forgoing psychological services is akin to undergoing a successful hip replacement but declining to follow up with physiotherapy.

Are there side effects?

Bloom says anti-psychotic medication can have very serious side effects that deter people from continuing treatment. These vary by medication but can include feeling sedated, mentally sluggish or “dead inside.” Physical symptoms also include tremors and muscle cramps, as well as sexual side effects.

Can patients stop their medication safely?

Not in most cases. Bloom compares schizophrenics to diabetics who are dependent on insulin for life. “For a schizophrenic-type illness, the chances of relapse are, not perhaps 100 per cent, but pretty close to 100 per cent.”

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PRINCE GEORGE (NEWS 1130) – University students in northern BC are just learning about the elimination of service Greyhound is proposing for various routes in that region. And without bus service to their hometowns, many students might not be able to go home as often as they want.

Greyhound is proposing to completely eliminate service between Prince George and Prince Rupert and Prince George and Dawson Creek. The company wants to ax nine routes in BC, six of them in northern BC as the company deals with plunging ridership. The routes that would be eliminated include the 718-kilometre run along Highway 16, the so-called Highway of Tears.

Karista Olson is the Aboriginal Representative on the Student Society at the University of BC.

Her home is near Hazelton, which is near the new BC Transit route, but she points out it’s a service that doesn’t run every day. “If I’m not able to line-up another student who’s going then my other option really is to just not go home. And when you come from a small tight-knit community that can be really impactful on a student’s well-being.”

The BC Transit service along Highway 16 was launched in response to the number of aboriginal women who’ve gone missing on the highway over the last few decades. The fare is only $5 from Prince George to Burns Lake, but that service is only offered Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Service is also offered between Burns Lake and Smithers Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Olson says the proposed changes with Greyhound will impact many people who rely on the service. “Even beyond those of us who are students. When I think of my home communities and how many people that still rely on hitch-hiking.”

British Columbians have until October 13th to comment through the Passenger Transportation Board.

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PRINCE GEORGE (NEWS 1130) — Four months after making a request to the B.C. Transportation Board to drop several routes, Greyhound Canada believes it has the solution to save inter-city bus service in rural areas.

The transportation provider is asking the B.C. government to create what it calls a Connecting Communities Fund.

“We’re drawing this directly from the U.S., where Greyhound does draw from this type of funding,” says Peter Hamil, Greyhound V.P. for Western Canada.

“The federal government allocates a certain portion of their transportation funding to rural communities. The issue here is there is no specific rural community fund.”

Hamil says they are not looking for a direct subsidy, adding that the transportation company might not even benefit from their request.

The fund would be made available to Municipalities and First Nations to seek bids from different transportation providers for inter-city routes.

“This is a general funding model that we believe is something that has to be done in order to make rural transportation sustainable,” says Hamil.

Greyhound has faced challenges in recent years, with diminishing ridership, escalating costs and the challenge of competing against government-subsidized fares. Greyhound has filed an application with the B.C. Passenger Transportation Board to eliminate service on five routes in British Columbia that have experienced a 51 per cent reduction.

Hamil says provincial and federal governments spend billions on urban transit services and B.C.’s rural communities deserve transportation investments too.

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KELOWNA (NEWS 1130) – BC’s Passenger Transportation Board is allowing Greyhound to cut several bus routes around the province, including point-of-service stops between Kamloops and Kelowna.

Points of service that will be eliminated on June 1 include Monte Lake, Westwold, Falkland and Oyama on the Kamloops to Kelowna route.

Greyhound is also allowed to eliminate seven routes in the province effective June 1st, in a bid to address a 51 per cent drop in ridership. Routes, including Vancouver to Victoria and Vancouver to Whistler, will also stop running at the end of May.

BC’s Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Claire Trevena has issued a statement expressing her disappointment with the reduced routes.

Greyhound’s decision to cut service in northern and interior British Columbia is unfortunate. People rely on Greyhound’s long-haul, inter-city bus service to get to and from major cities.

Eliminating and reducing service along rural and remote routes will leave people vulnerable, particularly Indigenous communities, women, seniors, children and those living with disabilities.

In the coming weeks, I will be speaking to local elected officials, First Nations and others affected by Greyhound’s upcoming service changes, so we can deliver long-term solutions that work for everyone.

It is vital that people throughout the province have access to safe, reliable and affordable transportation. In the short term, my ministry will be working with Greyhound to ensure buses remain running as we work with communities to develop long-term, viable solutions that address people’s needs.

We will be working closely with communities to find safe, reliable and affordable long-haul ground transportation — particularly in the North — to ensure continued bus service remains in place for those who depend on it.

Less than a year ago, the province brought in bus service to connect communities along Highway 16, also known as The Highway of Tears.

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OTTAWA – Greyhound Canada says it is ending its passenger bus and freight services in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and cancelling all but one route in B.C. a U.S.-run service between Vancouver and Seattle.

As a result, when the changes take effect at the end of October, Ontario and Quebec will be the only regions where the familiar running-dog logo continues to grace Canadian highways.

“This decision is regretful and we sympathize with the fact that many small towns are going to lose service,” Greyhound Canada senior vice-president Stuart Kendrick said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“But simply put, the issue that we have seen is the routes in rural parts of Canada, specifically Western Canada, are just not sustainable anymore.”

Kendrick said 415 people will be out of work as a result of the decision, which he estimates will impact roughly two million consumers.

The company is blaming a 41 per cent decline in ridership since 2010, persistent competition from subsidized national and inter-regional passenger transportation services, the growth of new low-cost airlines, regulatory constraints and the continued growth of car ownership.

Declining ridership is the primary culprit, said Kendrick, who called the combination of declining ridership and increasing costs an “ongoing spiral” that’s making it impossible for the company to continue operations.

He said the company has raised its concerns with provincial and federal officials over the years and wanted to ensure both levels of government were “fully aware” of the situation. Greyhound Canada has long advocated for a community funding model to allow any private carrier to bid on essential rural services, he added.

Kendrick said Greyhound Canada will continue to push Ottawa to look at improving transport in northern communities.

“There was a commitment to look at our issue, they’re well aware of it. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we’ve had problems but there was no funding commitment at that time,” he said.

“The company has experienced significant losses despite continued efforts to return to viability. In the affected regions, the company has run an operating deficit since 2004. We have had substantial losses over several years as a direct result of declining ridership.”

All Greyhound routes in Ontario and Quebec will continue to operate except for one: the Trans-Canada, which links a number of smaller communities between Winnipeg and Sudbury, Ont.

Kendrick said the decision will leave most of the affected communities with no other transportation options.

Greyhound Canada applied to provincial regulators last year to discontinue routes in northern B.C., including between Prince George to Prince Rupert, citing the problem of declining ridership. Those cancellations took effect June 1.

The issue of transportation along that route, which includes the notorious stretch of B.C.’s Highway 16 known as the Highway of Tears, was a major point of contention last fall during hearings at the national inquiry for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, where a number of women have gone missing.

Greyhound’s freight services will also be cancelled along those routes.

The latest cancellations are scheduled to take effect Oct. 31.

If you already have tickets for one of the cancelled route for dates after the 31st, you will be issued a full refund for your ticket. As for alternate options, Greyhound Canada’s website says depending on your community you can use Via Rail services or “other bus services”.

They also say there’s little chance of the decision being reversed.

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Greyhound announced Monday morning that it would be pulling out of Western Canada.

All routes through the prairie provinces are cancelled, effective October 31st. All routes in BC, except one U.S.-run route from Vancouver to Seattle, will be eliminated as well.

Sue McKortoff is the mayor of Osoyoos and she says this will have a massive impact on rural communities and smaller cities and towns like hers.

McKortoff says while she understands ridership has dropped over the years, the bus provided people with a vital connection to areas outside the Okanagan.

“And it’s not just to the passenger routes, but parcel delivery was a big part of what we had come to rely on. To hear that all these points are being, now, eliminated is awful,” she says. “I’m horrified.”

She says the news is disappointing, especially since they’ve been serving Canadians since “before she can remember.”

“Certainly at Christmas time, you had to book your spot in December [in advance] because it was busy! I’ve taken the bus to Vancouver and back many times. I rely on it as well.”

People can still use BC Transit to get to communities nearby, but McKortoff says this is a blow to their plan to reduce car traffic.

“We need to encourage people to get out of their cars. The mayors along Highway 3 are trying to make this a good route to go one. We’re trying to make it friendly for cyclists to go on, and stopping points to go to. Obviously buses are a huge part of that. We’re trying to encourage transit opportunities.”

She says and it will likely be a hot bottom issue at the annual meeting of the mayors in September, just ahead of the cancellation.

The Mayor of Kamloops, Ken Christian, says the news is shocking, but not completely unexpected because “Greyhound’s heart hasn’t been in it”.

“In particular, service to the smaller rural communities hasn’t really been part of their business model,” he says.

“There’s certainly concern for those employees that work for Greyhound that live in Kamloops, and there’s also concern for those people that rely on Greyhound to access Kamloops for medical appointment, for shopping, for those kinds of essentials.”

He says the express route between Kamloops and Vancouver was quite popular, and he’s hopeful a different carrier will adopt the service along that run.

“Now there’s opportunity for other private sector providers to pick up some of the profitable routes… I’m hoping that new companies with smaller kinds of buses will be able to service these markets more efficiently.”

Time for Uber and Lyft

Christian also says ride-hailing services need to be approved–something he says the provincial government has been way behind on.

The Consumer Choice Center’s David Clement is echoing Christian’s statements, calling for Uber and Lyft to finally be allowed in the province.

“I think when you couple together the withdrawal of Greyhound with the prohibition of ride-sharing, you create a really inaccessible province,” he says.

“[When you travel] to Vancouver you realize how hard it is to move around the city in a way which isn’t going to cost you a fortune, and now we’re going to extrapolate that problem province-wide.”

He says ride sharing should be approved immediately and there may be an avenue for Uber and Lyft to provide longer-distance options like they’ve done in other areas.”

Greyhound cited plummeting ridership numbers for the cancellations–they had already cut back on routes they deemed not profitable.

Clement says if we’re hoping for any other company to take over inter-city routes, the government should look at their own policies that may be making Greyhound-like services undesirable.

“Things like gas taxes, or any other burdensome regulatory structures. Do those disincentivize a company like Greyhound from continuing to offer this service?”

He adds it’s still possible for the government to expand it’s own inter-city bus service already in operation in northern BC, but they should focus on creating a prosperous industry to invite private transportation companies back into the province.

BC to look at other options

BC’s Minister of Transportation, Claire Trevena, says the cancellation is hugely problematic for people who depend on the service, and she’s frustrated the company didn’t give the province a heads up.

“It’s unfortunate that Greyhound did not communicate their plans sooner. At no point did Greyhound reach out to me, or my staff, to have a conversation on solutions to keep people connected — something I would have expected, given their long history in this province,” she says in a release.

She also says she’ll be looking at how to bridge the gap in the meantime.

“In the weeks and months ahead, I will be sitting down with other service providers, the private sector and local government to discuss how we can ensure people have access to safe, reliable and affordable transportation to get from one community to the next. In the meantime, I hope that other local, private operators will see an opportunity to bring a badly needed service to the parts of the province most affected by Greyhound’s decision.”

-With files from Lasia Kreztel, Marcella Bernardo

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – As Greyhound prepares to cut nearly all its B.C. routes, a business analyst says it’s unclear it the company could have done to keep its service going.

Greyhound announced Monday it will cut all routes in Western Canada by the end of October, except the U.S.-run route between Vancouver and Seattle. The company cited decreasing ridership, unprofitable rural routes, increasing competition from subsidized services, the growth of low-cost airlines, regulatory constraints and the growth of car ownership as the causes behind the cuts.

“The real issue is [internal] subsidization,” said Peter Tingling, associate dean at the Beedie School of Business. “To what extent should their profitable routes subsidize the not so profitable ones?”

Most businesses will take a loss in some area, Tingling says, but use it as a tool to draw customers in and make up for it somewhere else. As the transportation industry continues to see new markets and technology emerge, bus services are also in a state of transition, he says.

“We’re living in a space where people want things delivered immediately, at high speed. So, the bus service doesn’t really lend itself to that,” he said.

Greyhound could then be caught in a downward spiral, he says, where ridership declines so the company cuts service and convenience, which circles back to a drop in ridership.

“The real question is ‘should the government subsidize them?'” he said. “Well, that’s a tricky thing. You could subsidize them in the interest of national unity and access to services, and so on. But that’s a slippery slope.”

He says if you subsidize one industry, another might ask for the same, setting a precedent and “game of threats,” according to Tingling.

However, Transportation policy analyst Todd Litman says while people can’t expect a private company to take on unprofitable services, saying in order to break the downward spiral, the government could step in.

“The ministry of transportation builds highways, but takes no responsibility to make sure people who don’t have a car can travel on those highways,” he said. “No one bats an eye when governments subsidize airports. So we recognize airports are essential and worth public support, and most [passenger] train stations are subsidized in various ways, but the poor little bus gets overlooked in British Columbia.”

He says subsidizing unprofitable routes by 20 to 40 per cent of the total costs could kick-start a positive feedback cycle where fares go down and ridership increases.

He points to Washington state which invested money into public buses along the Olympic Peninsula and has bus terminals in various communities.

However, in Saskatchewan, the government recently pulled the plug on its publicly subsidized bus service after saying the service was costing as much as $17 million a year.

‘Do you want to die the death of a thousand cuts?’

Tingling says cutting service all at once was probably a better choice than slowly announcing cuts over weeks or months.

“Do you want to die the death of a thousand cuts? Or do you want to make one tough decision now?” he said.

Tingling admits it could also be a gambit to get the federal and provincial governments to the table to discuss subsidies.

Litman doesn’t think that’s likely.

“I think [that’s] blaming Greyhound, a corporation, for doing something that is rational from a corporation’s perspective,” he said.

Related articles:

Loss of Greyhound bus service leaves few options in some rural areas

‘I’m horrified’: reaction pours in to Greyhound service cancellations

Bus service has been a staple of transportation for a long time in B.C.

“It tied communities together,” says Tingling. “If you lose that lifeline, that’s not good. The company can say, correctly, that ‘Guess what? We’ve got higher penetration of cars, personal transit,’ and so on and so forth. But that doesn’t apply to everybody. There’s still some people where that bus ticket is basically what they’re relying on. This is going to be missed. Make no mistake.”

A man from Maple Ridge told NEWS 1130 Greyhound was the only affordable way for his 13-year-old to visit his mother, who lives in West Kelowna. He says driving his son to and from the Okanagan was not a viable option and flying is too expensive.

Another man says his daughter goes to school in Kamloops and uses Greyhound to visit the Lower Mainland.

Tingling wonders if Greyhound’s massive cuts on routes is part of what he calls “the inevitable march” of technology.

“Every now and then, when you see a horse on the street, you think ‘Wow, that’s kind of interesting.’ Guess what? There was a point in time we saw lots of horses. Not anymore,” he said. “To certain degree the industry is in a state of transition and no business gets to survive forever. We sometimes act like we can but the reality is that creative destruction comes to all of us, sooner or later.

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VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) – B.C.’s transportation minister says her government is speaking out after the Greyhound decision to cut nearly all routes across western Canada was announced yesterday.

Claire Trevena says the B.C. Government is looking into a variety of options ahead of the October 31st deadline.

“We’re going to be looking at ways we can work together, because this is not just a B.C. problem, it’s a Canadian problem. It is something that’s going to impact people literally from Ontario out to [our] coast. So, we do want to ensure that we’re working well together on this.”

A meeting has been set for Thursday, and she says the B.C. Government is working with other busing companies to see what can be done.

“Many people simply can’t afford to run a car, definitely can’t afford to use the train or fly anywhere, and they rely on good bus service. One of things we’ll be looking at is how that bus service can be provided. We have many vulnerable people in our province…who will need to have some bus service.”

If the speculation of the mass exodus is a ploy to get governments in western Canada to subsidize the company’s less-popular routes is true, the minster says it’s not a good tactic on Greyhound’s part.

“[I’m] going to be working to try to ensure that we have services that are in place that serve the needs of the people in British Columbia and I believe that my counterparts in the rest of western Canada will be also looking to ensure that their populations get bus service across western Canada.”

She says when Greyhound pulled out of northern B.C. because it couldn’t make the system it had work, the province stepped in with a pilot project with a comparable service for people who rely on it.

“A model can work, we will not be subsidizing Greyhound.”

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Greyhound buses have been an essential part of transportation in the prairies for nearly a century, but that ends November 1st.

The company says declining ridership has forced them to take their buses off the roads of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and almost all of B.C.

What happens to communities that rely on them as public transit? Should government step in?

In today’s “Big Story” podcast, reporters Kaitlin Lee from 660 NEWS in Calgary and Kayla Butler from NEWS 1130 in Vancouver are hearing from Canadians about what it means when service stops.

“We’ve had reaction come in from parents whose adult kids are going to post-secondary school in [places like] Kamloops and Kelowna and because they live in the Lower Mainland, they might not necessarily have a car,” explains Butler.

“So, the way they get out to the Okanagan for school every year — and home again — is Greyhound. It’s affordable for people on a student budget and they don’t have to worry about those big insurance costs. Now they’re, ‘What now? I have to pay for a flight every single time I want to go back and forth?'”

Lee says in Alberta, the impact will be most heavily felt in rural areas.

“There are other alternatives in bigger cities like Calgary. There are other buses that can go to and from cities, but in smaller towns, this might be the only way people can get to the big city or from town to town. Especially people who don’t have a driver’s license or a car. We don’t have Via Rail service out here anymore, either. That got cut back in the 1990s. So, it’s a very key service for people in smaller, rural areas.”

You can hear the full episode and subscribe to The Big Story podcast on iTunes or Google Play.

You can also hear it online at thebigstorypodcast.ca.

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – As Greyhound Canada prepares to cancel nearly all of its routes across western Canada, Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission (UGM) is concerned that an important lifeline for many of its clients will be cut.

UGM gives out emergency crisis grants to over 130 people annually, allowing the homeless, those at risk of homelessness, or those with limited income to travel in the case of family emergencies.

“People access these for many reasons, primarily because they need to attend a funeral,” spokesperson Jeremy Hunka explains. “Perhaps they have… a relative who is on their death bed and they want to go see them before that person passes away.”

Sometimes, UGM will provide bus tickets to women attempting to escape a domestic violence situation.

Related Articles:

The Big Story: The wheels come off in the West

Could Greyhound have done more to keep buses running?

Parents left ‘scrambling’ following Greyhound service cancellations

But the program hinges on Greyhound.

“To be honest, there is not really an alternative. UGM is not in a place where we can buy last-minute flights for people,” Hunka says.

“Many people, including many women, will be tempted to hitchhike or turn to Craigslist, and we know how dangerous things like hitchhiking can be on the Highway of Tears, we’ve seen it. So our great fear is that people, and especially women, are going to be more at risk now that Greyhound is suspending these services.”

Hunka notes UGM is not the only organization in the Downtown Eastside to offer this kind of travel service for its clients.

Greyhound Canada’s cancellations take effect Oct. 31. BC’s Ministry of Transportation will hold a meeting this week to discuss what comes next.

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CALGARY – Package delivery firms say they are prepared to fill the gap when Greyhound Canada closes most of its Western Canada operations this fall.

The company says its Greyhound Package Express service will no longer be available in most parts of B.C., northern Ontario and all of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba after it ends passenger service at the end of October.

“It might create some opportunities for us on our small package delivery side of things,” said Dennis Steele, owner of Steele’s Transfer in Calgary.

Transport companies like his compete with Greyhound’s lower prices by offering services tailored to customer needs, he said.

Steele said his company, started by his parents in 1957, has about 30 drivers who mainly serve the Edmonton-Calgary corridor, but it offers a wider range of delivery points through interline and third-party carriers.

Related articles:

‘Devastating’ Greyhound cuts could put vulnerable people at risk: UGM
Impending loss of Greyhound service has B.C. ski resorts scrambling
Province looking at how to fill the gap as Greyhound leaves western Canada

David Butler, Greyhound’s regional vice-president for Eastern Canada, said the areas being closed accounted for about 1.15 million of the 1.2 million packages Greyhound delivers each year, adding about two-thirds of the shipments were made under contract by commercial customers.

Greyhound’s freight service cost less than most, but its schedule was also usually less convenient as it depended on the passenger bus schedule, Butler said.

“It’s a very competitive marketplace and there’s a lot of options for the customers from the package business to look at,” he said.

Greyhound said it was ending passenger service after years of adjusting schedules and prices because ridership had fallen by nearly 41 per cent across the country since 2010. Butler said the package service is down 35 per cent in the same period.

A spokeswoman for Purolator wouldn’t comment directly on Greyhound’s service, but said the closing won’t affect its business plans.

“We don’t expect this news will affect Purolator going forward. In fact, we have been growing and expanding our services and capabilities,” Courtney Reistetter wrote in an email.

James Anderson, a spokesman for FedEx Canada, wouldn’t comment on the Greyhound service, but said his firm is well able to handle delivery demand with a total of 38 hubs or facilities throughout Western Canada.

Margaret Becker, who operates a “hotshot” delivery business at Fort St. John in northeastern B.C., said the oil and gas sector uses Greyhound as an equipment parts delivery service and to transport workers to towns near their drilling sites.

“Someone else will take it over,” she said, adding demand is low now because depressed natural gas prices have stalled local activity in the sector.

The loss of Greyhound’s package service in Western Canada stirred up memories for Calgarian Gary Blaney, 50, who recalled dozens of packages delivered over the years by Greyhound to his far-flung family members.

“For as long as I can remember, my family has used Greyhound to send boxes of presents at Christmas time,” he said. “It was the most affordable way and the most reliable way.”

He said his family’s flow of packages sent by Greyhound peaked when he was growing up in a small town in Saskatchewan when it was the best way to connect with relatives in Ontario, Alberta and B.C.

But that traffic has almost entirely stopped since he moved to Calgary more than a decade ago.

“That’s the world we live in. Lots of other ways to send stuff these days.”

Follow @HealingSlowly on Twitter.

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Western’s Canada’s transportation ministers say they will be looking to the federal government for assistance, following a meeting to talk about Greyhound’s decision to withdraw service.

In a statement, BC Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Claire Trevena says talks were “positive and productive.”

“We recognize Greyhound’s surprise withdrawal will leave people with limited options to get around,” she says. “Greyhound’s 90-day deadline for service withdrawal is extremely short for alternatives to be developed. We have agreed to write to the federal minister of transport to advocate for all Canadians who need access to safe, reliable and affordable transportation.”

The bus company says it’s ending passenger and freight services in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba at the end of October, and will also be cancelling all but one route in BC — a US-run service between Vancouver and Seattle.

“My staff have been in close contact with their federal counterparts to advocate for British Columbians who will lose bus service, and I have asked them to continue to work together,” Trevena adds. She says she hopes local operators see this as an opportunity, and adds the Passenger Transportation Board will be looking at making inter-city bus applications that plan to replace Greyhound services a priority.

First Nations leader wants federal government to step in

Meantime, a First Nations leader is calling on the government to do something to ensure people can get around.

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip says in many ways these buses really are an essential service.

He points out that people in many rural communities use Greyhound to get around.

“In the countryside, many of our communities are remote. The Greyhound bus service for many, many generations has served as the principle mode of transportation for our people.”

Related article: ‘Devastating’ Greyhound cuts could put vulnerable people at risk: UGM

From travelling to get treatment that isn’t available in small towns, to simply visiting loved ones, Grand Chief Phillip says the provinces need to figure out some sort of a solution to this issue.

“Well I think if the Government of Canada can squander $4.5 billion for dirty oil pipelines, they certainly can subsidize a service that has proven to be essential to so many Canadians.”

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REGINA – The minister for Saskatchewan’s Crown Investments Corp. says a beheading on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba 10 years ago was the beginning of a steep decline in bus ridership in his province.

Saskatchewan shut down the government-owned Saskatchewan Transportation Co., or STC, in last year’s austerity budget due to what the province said was a consistent drop in people taking the bus.

“(It) would be a number of years ago when there was that murder on the bus in Manitoba,” Joe Hargrave said Friday. “It seemed to be the tipping point of ridership to really drop like a rock after that.”

Vince Li, who now goes by the name Will Baker, beheaded and cannibalized a fellow passenger, 22-year-old Tim McLean, on a Greyhound bus that was bound for Winnipeg on July 30, 2008.

Li was charged with second-degree murder, but was found not criminally responsible for his actions. Li is a schizophrenic, but had not been taking his medication.

He has since received a full discharge from the mental hospital in Selkirk, Man., where he was being held.

A 2009 first-quarter report for STC said the Crown company lost 8.5 per cent of its ridership after the Greyhound beheading. STC offered a deal to seniors later that year that it said spiked ridership in that age group.

On Friday, the STC released its final annual report which showed the company carried 267,385 riders in 2005. That figure grew a total of almost 1,000 riders in the next five years.

Related articles:

• ‘Devastating’ Greyhound cuts could put vulnerable people at risk: UGM
• Greyhound Canada cancelling all BC routes but one, no more prairie services

In 2011, STC said ridership grew by almost 20,000. The CEO at that time said the increase was attributable to seat sales for seniors and to improved amenities such as Wi-Fi on coaches.

Passenger numbers slipped each following year after that.

Greyhound announced earlier this week that it is ending the majority of its passenger service in Western Canada by the end of October.

In a statement, Greyhound Canada senior vice-president Stuart Kendrick said declining ridership in rural communities was one of several factors in the decision.

“The decline in ridership that led to the difficult decision that Greyhound Canada took this week regarding its routes in Western Canada was not due to any single incident,” the statement said.

Hargrave said another reason for the cancellation was that people have more options.

“The costs of flights are so much cheaper these days than they were 15 years ago,” he said. “You can catch a flight to wherever for a couple hundred bucks now.”

Opposition NDP critic Cathy Sproule has said her party, if elected, would re-establish some form of public transit outside of urban centres.

Fellow NDP MLA Nicole Sarauer said Friday that the STC was still an integral public service despite ridership fluctuation.

“What should have happened was STC and the government could have taken a look at how they could have better utilized the public service that they were providing, whatever that could have meant,” she said.

The province spent $7.6 million in total windup costs that included severance, arbitration and legal fees.

The government made $27.6 million off the sale of assets and is in the final stages of negotiating the sale of its Regina maintenance facility.

– Follow @RyanBMcKenna on Twitter.

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OTTAWA – The opposition New Democrats are calling on the Trudeau government to lay out its plan to help communities that will be affected by the shutdown of Greyhound bus services in western Canada.

The NDP has requested an emergency meeting of the House of Commons standing committee on transport, infrastructure and communities, hoping that Transport Minister Marc Garneau will spell out the options he’s looking at to ensure people in those communities who rely on bus services are still able to travel.

The call comes a week after NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh urged the prime minister to develop a funding plan to prevent Greyhound from shutting down crucial routes, calling it a public safety issue.

The bus company announced earlier this month that it’s cutting passenger and delivery services in the Prairies, northwestern Ontario and all but one cross-border route in British Columbia.

The shutdown is just the latest in a string of service reductions by Greyhound as it deals with declining ridership.

The company has said persistent competition from subsidized national and inter-regional passenger transportation services, new low-cost airlines, regulatory constraints and the continued growth of car ownership have resulted in a 41-per-cent decline in its customer base since 2010.

In a letter dated Monday to Judy Sgro, the Liberal chair of the standing committee, Quebec New Democrat MP Robert Aubin says Transport Canada has a responsibility to aid communities that will become isolated once Greyhound halts its services.

“As a member of the committee, it is my hope that minister Garneau will present to the committee the possible solutions he is working on to ensure that each of the affected communities has access to transportation services that are worthy of Canada in the 21st century,” says the letter, made public Thursday.

“The committee could pass a motion asking minister Garneau and his officials to testify publicly about their work on this file.”

Greyhound’s decision has sparked outrage in rural and First Nations communities that rely heavily on the company to get around and to ship parcels, and it has raised concerns that a lack of bus service would force vulnerable people to use less safe modes of transportation.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he had asked Garneau to find solutions to the Greyhound move, calling the news “difficult.”

A spokeswoman for the minister would not say what options might be considered, but said the government was “encouraged” by expressions of interest from other bus firms in filling some of the potential service gaps left by Greyhound, using different business models and equipment.

In his letter to Sgro, Aubin hinted that improved rail service could play a role in providing transportation services to isolated communities, and that federal money would be needed regardless of the solution that might be adopted.

“Whether the solution to the problem involves improving the integration of transport systems or developing a national railway transportation strategy or any other strategy, it is vital that a funding plan be implemented to ensure that Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, northwestern Ontario and rural British Columbia are not deprived of this service,” he wrote.

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – As B.C. mulls over how to address the incoming cuts to Greyhound bus routes, a transportation expert in Washington state is offering up a solution.

Don Chartock with the State Department of Transportation says they were in a similar situation in 2005, when Greyhound cancelled service to multiple routes due to declining ridership.

“Greyhound started to greatly roll back the amount of inner city bus service they were providing in the rural areas of many states, not just Washington. They decided to focus on service just along the interstate, the big major highways that run through the US. They were responding to lack of ridership but it started to put a pressure on what is our responsibility as a state to help people, older adults and others in rural communities, to have some basic level of access to good and services and the transportation network.”

He says subsidies allowed them to create new routes and expand service.

“We have both a state rural mobility grant program and there’s also a federal grant for rural areas. That’s the main source of money for our inner city bus program. Every state gets some of that federal money and has to determine how best to use it, and some of it has to be used for inner city bus.”

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Impending loss of Greyhound service has B.C. ski resorts scrambling
The Big Story: The wheels come off in the West

Chartock describes the idea behind expanding service to smaller communities:

“It was essentially a network plan and it took a look at all the small towns across the state, and tried to make sure every town and surrounding area that added up to ten thousand people had some basic level of access and geared it towards that.”

They then created new routes linking the communities before putting them up for bids from smaller bus companies.

“Building off our inner state bus network plan, we identified four different routes that we thought were the most important to get implemented. We used a contracting basis, where we designed what we wanted the route to look like, the stops, the timed connections that would be made with other modes like bus carriers, airports or Amtrak. Then we would put those routes out to bid. Various small, for-profit private companies but also including Greyhound, would come in and bid on a per mile rate.”

Chartock says it took just a year to roll out the plan.

“We had already started it before Greyhound had announced they would be eliminating service. From the time it stopped, we started to implement pretty quickly. As money became available, we would prioritze the routes and put them out to bid. They didn’t all go out at once. All the lines rolled out over a year or so.”

The program has been so successful, users are now asking for further expansions to other small towns around the state.

“It’s a good problem to have, I guess. We are successful enough, that the main call we get about this program is cant we go out one more stop, can’t we go one town further?”

Meanwhile, advocates in B.C. are pushing both the provincial and federal governments to subsidize private bus companies. Chartock says it’s a position the governments should be considering.

“What we are talking about is the job of the department of transportations of the world. Ensuring some level of mobility where the private market can’t take care of themselves. There’s the aging population — aging in rural areas — and folks still needing to get to the places they need to go. In the end, it’s about priorities. It’ll be interesting to see if those priorities start to shift now that the private providers are starting to get out of the business, and how much of a priority it is to be able to provide people that support.”

Greyhound says at the end of October, it will be cancelling all but one of its routes in B.C. Only the Vancouver-Seattle route, which is run out of the states, will remain in service.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — At least four people were killed and others were seriously injured Thursday in a head-on crash involving a commercial passenger bus and a semi-truck along Interstate 40 in New Mexico, near the Arizona border, authorities said.

Preliminary information indicated the semi was headed east when it blew a tire, sending the rig across the median and into oncoming traffic where it smashed into the bus, New Mexico State Police said.

There were 49 people aboard the Greyhound bus. Authorities said many were transported to hospitals, but they could not immediately provide an exact count of how many were hurt or their conditions.

Nine bus passengers were being treated at University of New Mexico Hospital with three more patients expected to be transported there later Thursday. UNM officials didn’t release any details about the patients’ conditions.

Passing motorists described a chaotic scene with passengers on the ground and people screaming.

Eric Huff was heading to the Grand Canyon with his girlfriend when they came across the crash.

Huff said the semi’s trailer was upside down and “shredded to pieces,” and the front of the Greyhound bus was smashed, with many of the seats pressed together. Part of the side of the bus was torn off, he said.

“It was an awe-inspiring terrible scene,” he said

Truck driver Santos Soto III shot video showing the front of the Greyhound sheared off and the semi split open, with its contents strewn across the highway.

He saw people sobbing on the side of the road as bystanders tried to comfort them.

“I was really traumatized myself, because I’ve been driving about two years and I had never seen anything like that before,” Soto said.

“I’m a pretty strong person and I broke down and cried for at least 30 minutes,” he added.

Chris Jones was headed west on Interstate 40 when he caught his first glimpse of the semi turned over. He saw the rest of the wreckage and stopped to help before coming across the driver of the semi sitting on the shoulder of the highway.

“It was intense,” Jones said.

He said the driver told him that one of his front tires had popped, forcing the truck to veer into oncoming traffic, where it struck the bus.

Greyhound said the bus was heading from Albuquerque to Phoenix.

“We are fully cooperating with local authorities and will also complete an investigation of our own,” Greyhound spokeswoman Crystal Booker said in a statement.

The crash occurred near the town of Thoreau. It forced the closure of westbound lanes of the interstate and traffic was backing up as travelers were diverted.

___

Hartounian reported from Phoenix.

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LILLOOET (NEWS 1130) – Delegates at this week’s Union of BC Municipalities convention in Whistler have unanimously approved plans for a feasibility study in conjunction with Via Rail and the provincial government.

Lillooet Mayor Marg Lampman has been lobbying for regular train service to return between North Vancouver and Prince George for the last two years. Regular service of the route stopped in 2002.

RELATED: Could Greyhound have done more to keep buses running?

Although she says the recent vote gives her hope, she’s still worried they’re running out of time as Greyhound service across B.C. will be discontinued in a few weeks.

“I’m quite concerned about the timelines,” Lampman says. “The province is working on a connective bus system to be set up, but we also need to plan for the future and I believe that passenger rail service is the future.”

WATCH: Rural communities concerned about Greyhound closure

Lampman adds many seniors and low-income families in Lillooet are already suffering.

“It’s two hours, two hours to Whistler and about four hours to Vancouver, so our only alternative has been the vehicle unless you can get a ride over to Cache Creek when Greyhound was running.”

“It’s been a hardship for my community.”

Once the feasibility study is done, Lampman says she hopes a private company agrees to fill the void created in 2002 when former Premier Gordon Campbell discontinued BC Rail service.

“It could be a mix of both, but I think it needs to be primarily private. A company like Via Rail has the expertise, they have facilities already in Prince George.”

RELATED: Parents left ‘scrambling’ following Greyhound service cancellations

Lampman also says Ottawa owes Western Canada as much support as it’s been providing east of Manitoba when it comes to guaranteeing service for rural communities.

“A green way to travel which is what the federal government has been promoting and that is supposedly what all this carbon tax is about and do not have the support of the federal government for an area like B.C. is very frustrating.”

Lampman plans to further discuss this during an upcoming meeting with Premier John Horgan which hasn’t been set up yet.

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