BRATTLEBORO — Greyhound, the nation's largest bus company, has announced that it will eliminate all station stops along the Interstate 91 corridor between Springfield, Mass., and White River Junction, effective June 20.
This means the end of interstate bus service for Brattleboro and Bellows Falls in Vermont, Northampton, and Greenfield in Massachusetts, and Keene, N.H.
Greyhound blames a decline in ridership at these locations for the service cuts.
Greyhound will continue to make stops in Burlington, Montpelier, and White River Junction in Vermont, and will serve the Five College-area routes in Amherst, Deerfield, South Hadley, and Holyoke, Mass.
Bus service between Northampton and Springfield, Mass., will still be available through Peter Pan Bus Lines. Peter Pan does not offer any service to the Green Mountain State.
Brattleboro has seen a steady deterioration in its bus service since 2008, when Greyhound merged Vermont Transit Lines into its system and took full control of its operations.
Vermont Transit, founded in Burlington in 1929, had been operated as a separate subsidiary of Greyhound since the mid-1970s.
Where once 12 buses a day stopped in Brattleboro, now only two buses stop in town - a bus to Springfield, Mass., that connects to separate buses to Boston and New York City, and a northbound bus to Burlington. The southbound bus leaves at 10:20 a.m.; the northbound one leaves at 11:05 a.m.
Greyhound closed its station on Putney Road near the I-91/Route 5/Route 9 roundabout in August 2010. It contracted with a convenience store on Putney Road for ticket sales until it abruptly stopped service in April 2011.
Service resumed in June 2011 with the Fleming Oil gas station on Canal Street near Exit 1 serving as the station stop.
No replacement interstate bus company has offered to step in to replace Greyhound in the Interstate 91 corridor north of Springfield, Mass.