Regional and Intercity Bus\Rail Transportation

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

If you can figure out how to pay for it, we can have better. The whole reason HFR was put forward was because we've failed to have any political support for HSR for decades. Ironically, authoritarian regimes tend to build HSR as prestige projects and can do so, for much cheaper.

It’s funny how things are cheaper when you underpay your workforce.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by roger1818

It’s funny how things are cheaper when you underpay your workforce.

Also cheaper if you don't have to pay fair compensation when you take property or account for environmental damage properly. Funny, how all the railfans talking about how great China or Uzbekistan is, would never want to actually live there.

[Richard Eade]

Is it possible that someone at FlixBus reads this forum? Article in CTVNews says that FlixBus now stops at the Ottawa VIA Rail Station.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/article/flixbus-adds-via-rail-station-as-stop-for-ottawa-passengers/

[rocketphish]

Flixbus, now in 3 provinces, wants to connect Canada in the wake of Greyhound's demise
German company says mileage has doubled year-over-year since 2022

Paula Duhatschek · CBC News
Posted: Aug 10, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: August 10

Four years after Greyhound abruptly left Canada, a German company is banking on Canadian travellers still having plenty of appetite for the good old-fashioned bus.

Flixbus, established in Munich in 2013, offers low-cost bus service in a distinctive, bright green package. The company, which operates in more than 40 countries, started offering intercity bus trips throughout Europe and entered the North American market with routes on the west coast of the U.S. in 2018.

The company scooped up the Greyhound brand shortly after it left Canada in 2021. It started offering cross-border trips between the U.S. and Canada, followed by domestic service in Canada in 2022. It's doubled its Canadian mileage in this country every year since, it said.

"We're going to make Flix travel top of mind for anyone planning a long journey in Canada," said Dallas-based Kai Boysan, CEO of Flix North America.

The company currently operates in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan and it hopes to soon add interprovincial transit to Manitoba.

<more>

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/flixbus-canada-business-1.7604811

[rocketphish]

Is Ottawa missing the bus on intercity travel?
Three years after the city made a new intercity bus terminal part of its Transportation Master Plan, what has happened?

By Bruce Deachman, Ottawa Citizen
Published Jul 29, 2026 | Last updated 2 hours ago | 6 minute read

When Charles Anderson and his son Matthew decided to take the bus from Ottawa to Montreal recently, they first got a lift from their homes in Pakenham to Laurier Avenue and Waller Street, where Charles expected to find a proper bus station.

Instead, all he and his son discovered was a bus-stop pole with a sign on it for Autobus Maheux — the Quebec-based carrier they were taking — as well as signs for Orléans Express and a couple of OC Transpo routes.

There were no obvious transportation facilities: no ticket counter, no information desk, no arrivals and departures schedule. There was nowhere to stow their luggage if they wanted to go for a walk, and nowhere to get a sandwich or a coffee. Meanwhile, the doors to the two OC Transpo shelters beside the bus stop were chained shut.

There was also no designated area for someone dropping them off to pull over, nor a place for anyone picking them up to wait. It’s only because the stop is located beside uOttawa’s Desmarais building that passengers can access a washroom and a place to wait inside, away from the elements. But those amenities belong to the university, not the transportation providers.

I couldn’t help but wonder what first-time visitors arriving in Canada’s capital might think of this welcome.

One can forgive Charles his confusion. He hadn’t taken an intercity bus since the station on Catherine Street was closed, sold and demolished after Greyhound Canada ceased operating in 2021. Since then, a couple of handfuls of regional and intercity bus lines have filled the transportation gap, but with a haphazard series of pickup and drop-off points at malls, the train station and street-corners.

Most disconcerting for Charles was the fact that he couldn’t purchase a ticket in person — he doesn’t make purchases with his phone. Thankfully, Matthew does, and the pair were able to board the bus.

“It’s really on you to figure it all out,” Charles said. “I just think it’s crazy that a big city like Ottawa doesn’t have a terminal.”

Ottawa has been without a centralized bus station for five years. Has anyone decided what should replace it? Or is the patchwork network that has grown in its place the new normal?

<more>

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/deachman-ottawa-bus-intercity-travel

[lrt's friend]

To think Ottawa once had a bus terminal on Albert Street between Bank and Kent. My Dad, uncle and cousins used to take a commuter bus that started in Winchester. Today, commuter buses are almost entirely non-existent and intercity buses offer chaotic service at best with no common destination to make the various services linkable. As with many things, this city can't organize anything properly

[VANRIDERFAN]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

To think Ottawa once had a bus terminal on Albert Street between Bank and Kent. My Dad, uncle and cousins used to take a commuter bus that started in Winchester. Today, commuter buses are almost entirely non-existent and intercity buses offer chaotic service at best with no common destination to make the various services linkable. As with many things, this city can't organize anything properly

Its brutal everywhere. The prairies are particularly bad.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

To think Ottawa once had a bus terminal on Albert Street between Bank and Kent. My Dad, uncle and cousins used to take a commuter bus that started in Winchester. Today, commuter buses are almost entirely non-existent and intercity buses offer chaotic service at best with no common destination to make the various services linkable. As with many things, this city can't organize anything properly

"The city" alone can't organize inter-city transport.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

"The city" alone can't organize inter-city transport.

The city allowed the bus terminal to be demolished and lusted for the site to be intensified, with no realistic plan to have an alternative bus terminal anywhere.

Just like the feds who planned to sell off office buildings, as if employees would never return to the office post-Covid. The city seems to have expected little or no post Covid intercity bus service, which was nonsense. And with a helter-skelter bus service replacing Greyhound, we have no hope of any private investment in a new terminal.

A decade of running the city on Timbits as our whole city transportation system is crumbling, literally in the case of St. Laurent station.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

The city allowed the bus terminal to be demolished and lusted for the site to be intensified, with no realistic plan to have an alternative bus terminal anywhere.

Just like the feds who planned to sell off office buildings, as if employees would never return to the office post-Covid. The city seems to have expected little or no post Covid intercity bus service, which was nonsense. And with a helter-skelter bus service replacing Greyhound, we have no hope of any private investment in a new terminal.

A decade of running the city on Timbits as our whole city transportation system is crumbling, literally in the case of St. Laurent station.

An intercity bus terminal served by a handful of routes doesn’t make sense for anyone to fund or operate.