BRATTLEBORO — Since 1988, Brattleboro's bus depot has been inside a small white trailer behind a gas station off Putney Road near Exit 3 of Interstate 91.
Since 1998, Sam and Pat Clement of Brattleboro have worked as the station agents in that trailer.
But come Sept. 1, the Clements will leave, and the future of Brattleboro's bus service may change.
Sam Clement said he and his wife, as independent contractors, are dissolving their relationships with Greyhound, the station's owner. He said the conditions that Greyhound now wants them to work under no longer make sense to them.
When the Clements started working, 12 buses a day stopped in Brattleboro. Right now, only two buses a day use the station - 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 11:35 a.m.
As a result, the Brattleboro station is open only four hours a day, from 8 a.m. until noon.
Changes from Texas
Why such a drastic change? Sam Clement said it stemmed from Greyhound taking full control of Vermont Transit Lines' operations in 2008.
Vermont Transit, founded in Burlington in 1929, had been operated as a separate subsidiary of Greyhound since the mid-1970s.
“Greyhound had a hand in Vermont Transit,” said Clement, “but they pretty much left it alone. We had a good working relationship with Vermont Transit.”
That changed, he said, in 2008, when Greyhound merged Vermont Transit into its system and changed the green and white buses over to the Greyhound colors.
The snappy green and gold uniforms of the Vermont Transit drivers also gave way to the blue and gray colors of Greyhound. And the operations of the line moved from Burlington to Greyhound's headquarters in Dallas, Texas.
That's when bus service started to be cut back, Clement said.
“The first thing they did was cut out the Rutland route, so the towns on Route 7 down to Bennington don't have buses anymore. Then they started cutting service on our side of the state.”
With only two buses stopping in Brattleboro, Greyhound has cut the number of hours the station needed to be open. But that's only part of the reason why the Clements are leaving after 12 years.
Sam Clement said Greyhound asked him to sign a new contract, one that cut the commission they receive for selling tickets or handling packages.
In 2006, Clement said 4,666 tickets were sold in Brattleboro for about $223,000 of gross revenues. Last year, only 3,593 were sold, and gross revenues dropped to about $160,000.
“It could be because of the economy, but Greyhound wants to run its buses as full as possible or else it's not worth it for them,” he said.
The Brattleboro station is one of the last that still uses handwritten tickets. Under the new contact, Clement said they would have to buy and install a computer. Greyhound would provide the software, but the Clements would have to pay for a broadband Internet connection and to maintain the computer.
The Clements would be responsible for their own liability insurance. While Greyhound owns the trailer, Cheshire Oil Co. of Keene, N.H., owns the land under it. Any damage under $500 in value would be the Clements' responsibility.
Sam Clement said fewer people are using Greyhound's same-day package shipping service, Greyhound PackageXpress, compared to the days when Vermont Transit ran the buses, because shippers could no longer be sure their packages would arrive on time.
Faced with those terms, the Clements decided to resign, effective Aug. 31.
“There are a lot more regulations and they want us to do so much more, but they aren't willing to pay us for the extra work,” he said.
Sam Clement is 60 and also runs a small parcel delivery and courier service, Sam's Speedy Service. After Sept. 1, he said he'll use other shippers to get his customers' packages out of Brattleboro. He said Pat, who is 59, will look for some part-time work.
He said they will miss the job, and he's concerned about what will happen to passengers in Brattleboro after Sept. 1.
“If there is nobody here, who's going to answer questions or help if there's a problem?” he asked. “Are they still going to have a place to stay dry if it rains? If you don't have a computer and can't buy a ticket online, where are you going to get a ticket?”
Looking for new agent
Greyhound spokesman Timothy Stokes told The Commons last week that the company is in the process of looking for a new station agent, and possibly a new location, for the station stop in Brattleboro.
The parent company of Greyhound is FirstGroup PLC, a British-based rail and bus company.
According to its website, www.firstgroup.com, the company also owns First Student, a school bus company that owns and operates more than 70,000 school buses in the United States. First Student holds the contract for local school bus transportation and operates a base at 857 Putney Rd.
First Group also owns First Transit, which provides transit services in 235 locales in the United States, including Los Angeles and Houston; and First Services, which provides fleet maintenance and management services.