It has only been only a few decades ago when Southeastern Greyhound Lines served nearly all of Kentucky. Before its consolidation in to Southern Greyhound Lines  in 1954. Southeastern Greyhound Lines was headquartered in Lexington, KY above the old Greyhound Station located on Short Street ( which is still standing)

Started in 1929 its routes radiated all over the South and connected with other Greyhound Carriers like Atlantic Greyhound which was based in Charleston, West Virginia, Dixie Greyhound Lines based in Memphis, Teche Greyhound Lines based in New Orleans

During the early years Greyhound was managed on a regional basis with the local management making the decisions on where the buses operated and how often. And during the 1930's, 1940,s a system of routes were established which lasted un till the mid 1980's.

More after the jump...

Politics and Place brings us this piece lamenting the overly-train-focused bent of public transportation advocacy in 2009. Worth a read: "Train Goggles":

If all of the sudden every streetcar and commuter train that ever ran was to suddenly reappear, would we still need buses? I would argue "absolutely, yes".

According to this article, the NHTSA is going to start requiring motor coaches to install seatbelts for all passengers. Motor coaches typically do not have seatbelts. Motor coach crash fatalities account for an average of 17 deaths per year. Last year there were 39,000 deaths due to vehicle usage in America, making motor coach fatalities one death in every twenty thousand peole killed. "U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has made bus safety a top issue." Um, maybe they have a misplaced set of priorities?

It is not clear to me if city buses constitute motor coaches under this definition. I'm checking with TARC....

Joe Biden, stumping for the stimulus, gives a speech on the $300m investment in Maryland's hybrid bus fleet, and also gives kudos to the state's plan to go all hybrid in the next five years. Declares "Clean Cities" program a success, and further says its time to "ramp it up, ramp it up in a big way". It is not really his best speech ever, but fwiw:

The Transportation Advocacy Trenches

Today I woke up around 9am. My wife, Katie, was already up and ahead of me in her morning cycle by 30 minutes or so.

Nothing is on the agenda until 1pm, so I catch up on email, and get time to call Stacey B at KIPDA about an upcoming talk CART & KBBC are putting on. She seems enthusiastic, more than I expected, which is gratifying.

Lunch is two tofu-bratwurst and Kool-Aid. That's more than I feel like eating now, but I'll be needing the calories shortly.

Today's central dilemma is how to be both at the TARC board meeting at 1pm, and the SITAG meeting three sunny-hot miles away at 2pm. The bus would be too slow. So I'll get to bike under time pressure and look somewhat presentable. So I choose my outfit for the day: Khakis and a wrinkly, but nice & cool short-sleeved shirt with a collar. I slather on the deoderant and hope I won't soak through anyway. I don my helmet, gloves, and leg bands, and roll up Broadway on my Trek Portland. This bike is rediculously overly-sporty, the transportation cyclists' equivalent of the mid-life-crisis Corvette.

The Car Free Guide to the Highlands has just been released! Click the image below to download the PDF. The printed pamphlets will hit the streets next month.

According to this SFgate article, the company that runs shuttles for the likes of Yahoo! and Google is going to open their bus doors to the public. The rider experience is more akin to (the good parts) of a first-class airplane seat, with wifi, a waitron, and rediculously overupholstered seats. Their marketing is relentlessly green.

And now for something completely different...

Hat tip: Roger D.

The headline pretty much says it all, but the first example is St. Louis, where they're cutting 25% of their staff and 2300 bus stops. Ouch. Link to article.