If you’re going on a trip and haven’t considered a bus, you might be surprised at the places a bus can still take you.
Although it will cost you some time, taking a bus will save you money.
Greyhound Lines Inc., which advertises itself as “the only national operator of scheduled intercity coach services in North America,” has 5,900 employees and 1,700 buses. It carries about 17 million passengers a year over routes that connect 43 states and 4,000 communities.
Regional bus companies, in turn, connect the cities served by Greyhound with thousands of other communities.
For example, Greyhound’s route from Jacksonville, Florida, to Detroit runs through Southern West Virginia, serving Bluefield, Beckley, Charleston and Huntington. In Charleston, passengers can connect with a Barons Bus Lines I-Ride 79 bus to Morgantown. Another Barons Bus route connects Charleston to Parkersburg and goes on to Cleveland, Ohio.
As its name suggests, the I-Ride 79 bus connects communities along the Interstate 79 corridor, including Clendenin, Sutton/Flatwoods, Weston, Clarksburg, Fairmont and Morgantown.
The distance between Charleston and Morgantown is 160 miles. The I-Ride 79 one-way fare between the two cities is $15. It costs $92.80 to drive yourself in a private auto, if you calculate the cost based on the Internal Revenue Service’s standard mileage rate of 58 cents per mile. The bus trip takes three hours, 15 minutes. The drive takes two hours, 22 minutes.
Intercity buses serve all five of West Virginia’s metro areas — Charleston, Huntington, Wheeling, Parkersburg and Morgantown — although the level of service varies.
Morgantown, with its large student population and its proximity to Pittsburgh, has the most intercity bus service. In addition to Barons Bus Lines’ I-Ride 79, Morgantown is served by Greyhound, Megabus and Mountain Line Transit Authority’s Route 29 Grey Line.
None of the intercity bus companies serves the rural eastern half of West Virginia.
The distance between Morgantown and Pittsburgh is 74 miles. A one-way Megabus bus ride costs $19.99 plus a $2.50 booking fee. The trip costs $24 to $25 on Greyhound and $25 on the Route 29 Grey Line — although a family of four can make the trip on the Grey Line for a total of $34. It costs $42.92 to drive yourself, if you calculate the cost based on the IRS’ standard mileage rate.
The bus trip takes one hour, 30 minutes on Megabus. It takes two hours, 15 minutes on Greyhound and the Grey Line. It is a 1-hour, 25-minute drive.
Bus travel consumes a lot of time if your route involves numerous transfers or long layovers. For example, a Greyhound trip from Charleston to Asheville, North Carolina, involves transfers in Wytheville, Virginia, and Knoxville, Tennessee, and takes 10 hours and 20 minutes. It’s a 4½-hour trip by car.
On a recent Wednesday, David Stalnaker of Dunbar was at the Charleston Greyhound station, waiting to catch a Barons Bus to Akron, Ohio. He was going to a wedding. The bus was scheduled to leave at 9:35 a.m. and arrive in Akron at 3:05 p.m. — a 215-mile, 5½-hour trip. (It takes about 3½ hours to drive).
“I don’t drive — I take the bus everywhere,” Stalnaker said. “The fare to Akron is around $54. You can’t beat it.”
Sylvia Leon and her two children were at the Charleston station to catch a Greyhound bus to Winston-Salem. They had come to Charleston a week earlier, and relatives had driven them to Ohio to visit family.
“The bus is not that much cheaper than discount airlines,” Leon said, adding, “There’s no comparison.”
Airports are usually well lit and clean, but Leon said she had found that bus stations “are kinda grungy. I’m not impressed.”
She said she was somewhat concerned about safety.
On the other hand, the Greyhound bus she and her children rode from Winston-Salem to Charleston was clean, it had the advertised amenities like Wi-Fi and the driver was prompt, she said.
Crystal Booker, a communications specialist with Greyhound Lines, said in an email interview, “The typical Greyhound customer is often in search of a convenient travel option for an affordable price. Many are planning spur-of-the-moment trips or are looking to visit friends or family in neighboring destinations.
“While Greyhound does offer long-haul options, as we have more network destinations (2,400) than any other carrier in the United States, short-distance travel continues to be a huge focus for us,” Booker said. “Our ‘You Don’t Have to Go Far to Go Far’ [advertising] campaign supports this focus, as there is a richness in discovering adventure in your own back yard.”
Booker added, “Greyhound has experienced great success in West Virginia, and we are always excited to see more travelers consider the possibility of intercity bus transportation.”
Vanessa Garrett of Glenville was at the Charleston Greyhound station on a recent Monday to pick up a big box that contained a table she had ordered from a vendor on Etsy, an e-commerce website.
“I didn’t know you could ship things by bus, but the vendor told me it was the cheapest way,” Garrett said. “The vendor said it cost $75 to ship by bus. I think it would have cost $200 to ship by FedEx.”
The vendor put the table on a bus in Memphis. The table went to Richmond, Virginia, where it sat for three days before being sent on to Charleston, Garrett said. She had the choice of picking up the table in either Charleston or Morgantown.
Booker, the Greyhound spokesperson, said, “Greyhound Package Express is Greyhound’s package delivery service. Offering affordable shipping options for customers, we pride ourselves in being able to transport items to and from many of the communities we serve.”
William Robinson, executive director of the state Department of Transportation’s Division of Public Transit, said the Barons Bus routes in West Virginia receive a federal subsidy of about $500,000 a year. Routes like I-Ride 79 are subsidized “because it’s something that is really needed, and it’s something that’s hard to turn a profit on,” he said. “If we didn’t negotiate a subsidy with them, they would not be able to make a profit on I-Ride 79 — they would not be able to do it.”
A Barons Bus spokesperson declined to be interviewed for this story.
Robinson said the state Division of Public Transit has been focusing recently on helping to launch three, one-year pilot projects that will try to tie together services offered by several local transit authorities.
One project, scheduled to start July 1, would provide service in Mason County with a leg that would connect Point Pleasant to the Huntington bus system.
Also set to start July 1 is a project that will connect Harrisville and Pennsboro in Ritchie County to Parkersburg.
A third project, in Pocahontas County, would connect Marlinton to Summersville and, possibly, Lewisburg. Robinson said a date for the start of that service won’t be set until after a meeting later this month.
“We’ll provide enough of a budget to allow these pilot projects to occur,” he said. “It’s an extension of the services those agencies already provide. It’s vehicles they already own — it just takes the service they normally provide and extends it to other areas.”
Talks about synchronizing routes so people could take a bus from Summersville to Beckley or Bluefield, or vice versa, with possible service to Lewisburg are in the early stages, he said.
Robinson said that when looking at a possible new route, one must ask how much it costs to run the bus and whether enough people are riding it.
“It always comes down to the money you have and your priorities,” he said. “It’s the people’s money. You have to keep a close eye on it and make smart decisions so the public gets the most bang for the buck.”
