Students Face New Challenges Finding Transportation Home for the Holidays

By Kevin Myers

Reporting Texas

Students board a Red Coach Bus on 21st Street bound for Dallas on Friday, Nov. 8. Red Coach is one of the bus lines that has received a number of complaints from students.

Complaints against intercity bus services have mounted during the fall semester as the number of bus lines have dwindled. The bus troubles represented a new challenge for students at University of Texas at Austin as they made plans for the upcoming Thanksgiving break.

Popular bus line Megabus ceased its operations across Texas in August amid bankruptcy proceedings for its corporate parent Coach USA. The retraction of Megabus left car-less UT students with one fewer option for long-distance travel. In the next few months , another popular bus line, Red Coach, racked up a number of complaints from students who alleged that buses frequently arrived late and customer service was poor. Neither Megabus nor Red Coach responded to requests for comment.

UT junior Corey’l Sams, who frequently used Megabus to travel home to Houston, had to switch to Flix-Bus when Megabus ended service this year. Sams said he’s had trouble finding good timing options, and there can be significant price hikes when booking last minute.

“I actually flew twice from Austin to Houston,” he said. “I don’t feel like going through all of that.”

Sams also said that he’s chosen to visit home less frequently, choosing to focus on major holidays to avoid the hassle.

Transportation engineering professor Kara Kockelman said that intercity travel is much more difficult, not just in Texas, but the U.S. as a whole compared to similarly developed countries.

“The cities are older and the countries are much smaller, so the cities are closer together,” she said. “(Trains have) been largely used for passenger rather than freight in those countries . . . here train is mostly used for freight.”

Adi Bharad, a masters of community planning student at UT, said he enjoyed the novelty of Amtrak on a trip to Dallas, but found it too inconvenient to use regularly.

“It’s really cool because it goes through, like, the backcountry,” he said. “The only thing is that it does take like six and half hours.”

Instead, Bharad turned to the rideshare app Hitch for intercity rides.

“I really enjoyed my experience with Hitch,” he said. “It’s very functional. They provide multiple pick up and drop off locations in the respective cities.”

Professor Kockelman agrees that rideshares, as well as student organized carpools can be an important travel option as bus lines falter.

“It’d be great if we could, you know, get together and share the vehicles that already exist,” she said. “It’s best to go with somebody who’s already headed straight there.”

Some students like Sams, just aren’t comfortable with long-distance rideshares, and for them the bus remains an important, if imperfect travel option.

“That’s an ick to me,” Sams said of rideshares. “At the end of the day it’s trust and efficiency, that’s what we care about.”