Why are Greyhound bus stations almost always in poor, high crime neighborhoods?
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Greyhound busses take up a lot of space, meaning the stations need a lot of land.
Land is cheapest in bad neighborhoods
Because most middle or upper class people don’t use Greyhound or other inter-city bus services in the US. They are going to the airport
Why spend extra money on expensive real estate near people who aren’t your customers? You don’t, you build your stations close to the people who are using your service
Many of them are, or were, not. For example, the one in Philadelphia was in the heart of the city. That’s part of why Greyhound is now owned by a venture capital firm that mostly wanted the real estate and is selling them off and operating with no terminals in any location they can get away with doing so.
Greyhound bus stations need a rather large plot of land to operate since they need a parking lot for passengers and room for buses. Also need a large building to sell tickets, provide seating between buses and room for a restaurant, concession stand or at least vending machines.
Land is rather expensive anywhere where there’s enough people for a greyhound bus station to make sense. You can get unimproved land for less than $1000 US and acre in many parts of the United States but these are generally remote areas. Buying at least a few acres in an area with a high population is at least $100,000/acre or likely higher where it would make sense to build a bus station.
Now I haven’t been to a lot of greyhound terminal’s, but almost 20 years ago I went to the one in downtown Los Angeles. It’s not in the heart of downtown, it’s a pretty long walk away from the train station and the area is rundown. But it is reasonably close to a couple freeways. When the lot was purchased and the station built, it was a compromise between servicing people who would want the bus station and the cost to buy land and build it.
Most people who use the bus are probably low income. Low income people aren’t going to use a bus if they have to commute 30 minutes to the station.
Because the rich don’t ride the dog. Also, property values suck in poor areas so Greyhound can afford to build a bus station there.
Taking a bus is so stigmatized in the US that anyone who can afford it would rather drive or rent a car when traveling intercity. The system of one-way car rentals is also fairly well developed in the US compared to Europe where you’d rather go by bus/train unless you have exactly the amount of cargo where it’s annoying to carry but still too little to send by freight pallet.
They got bought out by venture capital and sold all the locations with valuable real estate in favor of running a pickup site on someone else’s property.
They only kept the ones that are hard to sell or wouldn’t get much profit compared to leasing access to someone else’s building to park outside of. Which mostly means remote spots and bad neighborhoods.
I just checked because I thought “how much is a bus trip nowadays?” Round trip to NY from Austin 5/8-5/15 $335 vs flying on Southwest for $285. Why would someone spend more and risk getting stabbed or sex trafficked?
Cheap long distance busses are great when you’re poor a d need to move. There are people that bus long distance daily for work. I’ve been on greyhounds from coast to coast and seen it.
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