New Greyhound Station in Seattle

[Green Maned Lion]

The human back isn't designed for sleeping sitting up.

Furthermore, the reason I don't drive long distances where I take a bus is because I have tiredness and falling asleep issues. I have never found something more comfortable than the seat in my car. In fact, my computer chair which I made myself is a seat out of a 1987 Peugeot 505. If you find car seats uncomfortable, your driving the wrong car. Either that or your anatomy is wonky.

I said cars smell bad, that's what I said. Cars and Amtrak both smell worse than Greyhound. I've never ridden a good-smelling car, FYI. And I don't think cars are comfortable, because their interior is too small. If you think cars are comfortable, then it's because you're a car fan vouching for cars. I can't blame you 'cause I'm a bus fan vouching for Greyhound.

This debate isn't going anywhere because there's a diehard car fan arguing a diehard bus fan. Now at least I drive a car every weekday since transit in Reno is too slow. But you seem to no ride any Greyhound buses. I do both and you only do one. So again, let's agree to disagree.

And you want to sleep flat on Greyhound? Take over a seat pair, put a mat on the seat, fold up the middle armrest, and sleep flat on the seat bottoms just like that. The seat bottom could be dirty, that's why you need a mat, and a pillow too.

I'm not a diehard car fan. Do you read my posts?

Every car I owned had plenty of space for my 5'9" 375 lb frame. Most bus seats are far too narrow. Wait, I exclude from that statement, in right of honesty, my Porsche 912 was a tad tight. None of my Benzes have ever been, nor my friends Volvos, nor my mothers Audi, or even, though I found it awfully uncomfortable and a bad smelling piece of crap, my dad's Accord.

I'd think you'd like the smell of most of my Benzes. They smelled of diesel fuel mixed lightly with horsehair.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Guess what? You guys don't like Greyhound, so be it. I like Greyhound and I'll ride Greyhound. You ride whatever you want to ride, but my car sucks and Amtrak isn't great either, so I won't ride them. As I said before, we'll agree to disagree.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

When did I EVER said I don't like Greyhound? Ever?

I'd like sleeper busses. I don't recall throwing a greyhound comdemnAtion in with that.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

When did I EVER said I don't like Greyhound? Ever?

I'd like sleeper busses. I don't recall throwing a greyhound comdemnAtion in with that.

Wow GML, have fun throwing rocks at a statue. Except throwing rocks at a statue still gets you arrested.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Swadian, why set you even on this forum. You've said numerous times that you don't like Amtrak.

 

[jebr]

Guess what? You guys don't like Greyhound, so be it. I like Greyhound and I'll ride Greyhound. You ride whatever you want to ride, but my car sucks and Amtrak isn't great either, so I won't ride them. As I said before, we'll agree to disagree.

Just out of curiousity, how does calling out the fact that using two seats on Greyhound is not the same as a sleeper bed make me not like Greyhound? I thought it was just stating the facts of the matter...while two seats are nice on a bus (and I'll often buy two seats when riding intercity bus services to have both to myself) it is nowhere near a "lie-flat" bed. Not even close.

 

[railiner]

BTW, my car smells very bad, even though I try to keep it as clean as possible, like not eating in it, picking up trash, etc. That's why I always ask what this bus or that train smells like.

.

I would suggest that you go to an auto parts store, and purchase a special spray that you use to kill mold and bacteria in your car's air conditioning system--a common cause of odor's that are not coming from car's upholstery or carpet....

 

[railiner]

When Greyhound starts offering Sleeper busses with actual bunks and blankets, we can compare it to the same farchakta image of what appears to be a rebuilt 102D3 you've shown in the past three links.

In the meanwhile, I, with my bad back, will refuse to compare a greyhound seat, even if it is an Amaya VIP, with a berth.

I actually don't like sleeping fully-flat sometimes, I would rather sleep in a seat, that's in a bus, not a train.

I've slept on sleeper buses in China, oh you don't want to ride in those! Would rather ride a seated bus even though the King Long and Yaxing coaches have terrible legroom and ride rough.

BTW, you can make a DL3 sleeper bus: http://tulsaskiclub.com/sleeperbuses.htm. The design isn't that great I think, that one can only sleep 20 pax comfortably but thay want to squeeze in 40? And they need bigger dividers. But since the DL3 has the more spacious cross-section in bus history, it's not a bad idea.

Of course Greyhound wouldn't do that, because buses are not good at sleeper ops, they earn much more money with no more than 2-2 VIP seats. And VIP or PT seats should be fine for a 12-hour daytime ride. If you're toruing, you're supposed to sleep in a hotel every 12 hours! That way you miss no scenery!

When I was with Continental Trailways in Denver, back in the late 1970's, I used to see everyweek during the ski season, one or two of our Eagle buses that were converted to sleeper's, just like the MCI you have pictured in the link. They came up to the ski area's from Oklahoma or Wichita on Friday night, and returned on Sunday night, giving the "slope-dopes" all day Saturday and Sunday to ski, and not miss any of their work week.

I will say that the seats in the daytime position were very uncomfortable to sit in, as there wasn't any contour or recline to their flat upright backs, but fortunately, most of the trip was overnite, with the seats converted to beds...similar to the way the seats in a Superliner Roomette convert....

And yes....you had to be 'very friendly' with your seatmate to share the bunk at night if occupied by two per bunk to yield the 40 passengers.....since the bus was ran as a charter, and not a public schedule...the passenger's were part of a club that knew each other, already..

 

[rickycourtney]

Why would they buy the lot from Horizon? They already store buses at Portland at Vancouver. This seems peculiar to me.

Like I said... Greyhound used to have a large servicing and maintenance facility in Seattle at Denny and Stewart but the land has been sold and the building demolished. But the company needed a facility to do routine servicing between runs. They're not gonna send a bus back to Portland or Vancouver with an empty gas tank and full trash cans.

Grey Line/Horizon had the land already... so Greyhound paid them to let them use the facility. Now that Horizon is leaving Seattle I'm guessing Greyhound will buy that lot from them.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Guess what? You guys don't like Greyhound, so be it. I like Greyhound and I'll ride Greyhound. You ride whatever you want to ride, but my car sucks and Amtrak isn't great either, so I won't ride them. As I said before, we'll agree to disagree.

Just out of curiousity, how does calling out the fact that using two seats on Greyhound is not the same as a sleeper bed make me not like Greyhound? I thought it was just stating the facts of the matter...while two seats are nice on a bus (and I'll often buy two seats when riding intercity bus services to have both to myself) it is nowhere near a "lie-flat" bed. Not even close.

I was directing comments at GML, not you. And since I don't sleep well on a flat bed in a bus, plus it causes trouble with seat belt and ADA regulations, and even more, it loses money for the bus operator, you can see I have absolutely no reason to support any kind of flat bed on a bus.

Swadian, why set you even on this forum. You've said numerous times that you don't like Amtrak.

The reason is very simple: I like trains, but I don't like Amtrak.

BTW, my car smells very bad, even though I try to keep it as clean as possible, like not eating in it, picking up trash, etc. That's why I always ask what this bus or that train smells like.

.

I would suggest that you go to an auto parts store, and purchase a special spray that you use to kill mold and bacteria in your car's air conditioning system--a common cause of odor's that are not coming from car's upholstery or carpet....

I've got not idea, the upholstry is already bad. You can clean upholstry, but it'll still smell bad.

Why would they buy the lot from Horizon? They already store buses at Portland at Vancouver. This seems peculiar to me.

Like I said... Greyhound used to have a large servicing and maintenance facility in Seattle at Denny and Stewart but the land has been sold and the building demolished. But the company needed a facility to do routine servicing between runs. They're not gonna send a bus back to Portland or Vancouver with an empty gas tank and full trash cans.

Grey Line/Horizon had the land already... so Greyhound paid them to let them use the facility. Now that Horizon is leaving Seattle I'm guessing Greyhound will buy that lot from them.

OK, I get that. But how do they do it in places Missoula, without driving around with full trash cans?

When Greyhound starts offering Sleeper busses with actual bunks and blankets, we can compare it to the same farchakta image of what appears to be a rebuilt 102D3 you've shown in the past three links.

In the meanwhile, I, with my bad back, will refuse to compare a greyhound seat, even if it is an Amaya VIP, with a berth.

I actually don't like sleeping fully-flat sometimes, I would rather sleep in a seat, that's in a bus, not a train.

I've slept on sleeper buses in China, oh you don't want to ride in those! Would rather ride a seated bus even though the King Long and Yaxing coaches have terrible legroom and ride rough.

BTW, you can make a DL3 sleeper bus: http://tulsaskiclub.com/sleeperbuses.htm. The design isn't that great I think, that one can only sleep 20 pax comfortably but thay want to squeeze in 40? And they need bigger dividers. But since the DL3 has the more spacious cross-section in bus history, it's not a bad idea.

Of course Greyhound wouldn't do that, because buses are not good at sleeper ops, they earn much more money with no more than 2-2 VIP seats. And VIP or PT seats should be fine for a 12-hour daytime ride. If you're touring, you're supposed to sleep in a hotel every 12 hours! That way you miss no scenery!

When I was with Continental Trailways in Denver, back in the late 1970's, I used to see everyweek during the ski season, one or two of our Eagle buses that were converted to sleeper's, just like the MCI you have pictured in the link. They came up to the ski area's from Oklahoma or Wichita on Friday night, and returned on Sunday night, giving the "slope-dopes" all day Saturday and Sunday to ski, and not miss any of their work week.

I will say that the seats in the daytime position were very uncomfortable to sit in, as there wasn't any contour or recline to their flat upright backs, but fortunately, most of the trip was overnite, with the seats converted to beds...similar to the way the seats in a Superliner Roomette convert....

And yes....you had to be 'very friendly' with your seatmate to share the bunk at night if occupied by two per bunk to yield the 40 passengers.....since the bus was ran as a charter, and not a public schedule...the passenger's were part of a club that knew each other, already..

See? Railiner has explained excatly why I'm totally against scheduled sleeper buses. They can't be used in the daytime, and they're hard to maintain. As mentioned above, they also cause complications with seat belts and ADA. Now at least that was an Eagle, if you go to China and ride a King Long sleeper bus in the upper berth, you will NEVER say "yes" to a sleeper bus again!

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Why not take a look at the Megabus Gold service I mentioned instead of relating irrelevancies, ignoring personal messages, and attacking the idea of a service you personally don't want to use?

 

[rickycourtney]

Something that Megabus Gold has going for it is that the seats actually look comfortable in the daytime configuration. It appears that the bottom berth uses those seat cushions to create surface for a mattress (like the lower berth in an Amtrak roomette) while the upper berth is like a hammock. It's also nice that each group of passengers gets a separate "section" with 2 or 4 seats during the daytime. Van Hool says the bus seats 55 during the day and can sleep 42 (a traditional MegaBus double decker seats 81). There are some nice pictures posted on this news release.

Looking at the picture of the 102DL3 that Swadian posted... those seats look horrible.

As far as to these sleeper buses "not making money"... looking at a trip from London to Aberdeen next Friday, a ticket on a traditional Megabus route is £12 ($20 US) while an overnight trip on Megabus Gold is £30 ($51 US). So they're charging a pretty big premium to recoup the costs of having fewer passengers per bus and paying an attendant to serve drinks/snacks and do the turndown service.

But again, you would need the right market for an overnight sleeper bus to work here in the US.

 

[rickycourtney]

Back to the original topic...

I stopped by the new station site earlier today and more signage is going up now. The Greyhound running dog logo is up over the front door (no Greyhound lettering yet) and a small Greyhound Package Express sign over the side door. Out in the bus loading area the slip number signs are up (as I guessed, there will be just 4 slips) as is a "Welcome to Seattle, WA" sign. On the east side of the station there is another Greyhound running dog logo.

The landscaping is also mostly installed at this point... and it looks really nice. Nice to have a little green in this very industrial part of town.

Parking will be incredibly limited at this new station. In the tiny lot in front of the station there are 4 spots marked for 1 hour parking (I think at least 2 of these spots will be dedicated to Greyhound Package Express). In small parking lot across the street from the station there are 3 spots for taxi's to wait, 6 spots dedicated to employee parking and 6 spots for 30 minute customer parking.

You also may have noticed that huge piece of artwork behind the station. That's Susan Zoccola's Bloom. She actually fought the placement of the Greyhound station here... saying it obstructed too much of the artwork. Here's an article on her fight from 2012.

Greyhound has done a pretty good job keeping much of the piece exposed... and I think it actually gives the station a really classy look.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Parking at the Reno station is a bit better, but you don't want to park there because the city charges parking fees and there's vandals all over the place. So I always need someone to drop me off or take the slow transit bus.

 

[railiner]

Back to the original topic...

I stopped by the new station site earlier today and more signage is going up now. The Greyhound running dog logo is up over the front door (no Greyhound lettering yet) and a small Greyhound Package Express sign over the side door. Out in the bus loading area the slip number signs are up (as I guessed, there will be just 4 slips) as is a "Welcome to Seattle, WA" sign. On the east side of the station there is another Greyhound running dog logo.

The landscaping is also mostly installed at this point... and it looks really nice. Nice to have a little green in this very industrial part of town.

Parking will be incredibly limited at this new station. In the tiny lot in front of the station there are 4 spots marked for 1 hour parking (I think at least 2 of these spots will be dedicated to Greyhound Package Express). In small parking lot across the street from the station there are 3 spots for taxi's to wait, 6 spots dedicated to employee parking and 6 spots for 30 minute customer parking.

You also may have noticed that huge piece of artwork behind the station. That's Susan Zoccola's Bloom. She actually fought the placement of the Greyhound station here... saying it obstructed too much of the artwork. Here's an article on her fight from 2012.

Greyhound has done a pretty good job keeping much of the piece exposed... and I think it actually gives the station a really classy look.

photo 1.JPG

photo 2.JPG

photo 3.JPG

Thanks for posting those updated photo's.....I will have to reserve judgement until I actually see the new terminal myself, but from what I have seen so far, well.......I'm not very impressed. It looks more like what I would expect from a city of about a quarter, perhaps, of Seattle's size.

I guess I was comparing it to what Greyhound was producing in the era around 1970, when they were opening new 'palaces' at a rate of one-a-month, nationwide. Terminal's like the one's in Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, etc.....(the latter two have since been replaced by newer, smaller ones....)

Those days when Greyhound clearly dominated nationwide bus travel are 'gone with the wind'.

I suppose I should be glad that they are at least having a terminal for their passenger's comfort, rather than loading them at some curbside location, depending on nearby businesses to provide shelter....

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

I think such a small station may have to do with the low amount of schedules for Seattle. Greyhound operates less runs on the Seattle-Portland route than Amtrak or its own BoltBus. They used to have lots more runs, but presumably G4500's caused plummeting ridership, Seattle is currently one of the lowest-rated Greyhound stations, if not THE lowest.

It's also no match for Greyhound's other newly-constructed stations, like Sacramento, Memphis, Nashivlle, and planned stations for Jacksonville, Baltimore, etc. Now San Francisco's temporary station is tiny but it's just temporary.

 

[rickycourtney]

Seattle is currently one of the lowest-rated Greyhound stations, if not THE lowest.

Who exactly is rating the stations? Is there a list of these ratings?

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Seattle is currently one of the lowest-rated Greyhound stations, if not THE lowest.

Who exactly is rating the stations? Is there a list of these ratings?

Ever read Greyhound reviews? Most reviews are low, but reviews from Seattle are the lowest, followed by others in G4500 territory. Sacramento used to have terrible reviews, but ratings have shot up since the G4500 got oussted.

 

[rickycourtney]

No I don't really sit around reading passenger reviews of Greyhound from different cities... but I imagine it might be good for a couple of laughs.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

No I don't really sit around reading passenger reviews of Greyhound from different cities... but I imagine it might be good for a couple of laughs.

Yes sir, good for a couple of laughs. But you know Greyhound Seattle has been getting the short end of the stick since 2005.

 

[tp49]

No I don't really sit around reading passenger reviews of Greyhound from different cities... but I imagine it might be good for a couple of laughs.

Yes sir, good for a couple of laughs. But you know Greyhound Seattle has been getting the short end of the stick since 2005.

Sounds like there's a commercial in there "Greyhound Seattle. Getting the short end of the stick since 2005." [/announcer voice]

 

[rickycourtney]

So for my morning laughs I did as you suggested and went to Yelp and looked up Greyhound in Seattle.

1) A lot of complaints about the station (dumpy, ghetto, dirty, ratty, grim) which seem to be warranted from my step inside. Greyhound has basically stopped spending any money on maintaining the current station. Hopefully the new station will make a slightly better impression.

2) Praise for the new buses, complaints about the unpredictability of them ("The quality of the buses was definitely varied. Some were old and had no wi-fi or plugs. One had plush leather seats, wi-fi, and plugs, the whole shebang.") Again, this will change over the next few years (although as I walked by the old station yesterday it was nothing but old buses.)

3) Honestly, the funniest part of the reviews are people talking about fellow passengers (transient, smelly, loud, hippy chick, scared youngster). This is honestly the complaint I've heard about Greyhound most often. I'm not sure there's much the company can do to change this part of their image. They could demand that all passengers show a valid ID to board a bus... but that could alienate a portion of their passengers (and the money those passengers spend.)

4) A lot of the passengers love to slam Greyhound... but praise BoltBus. It's amazing what a can of red paint can do for a Greyhound bus.

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Ricky, I agree with #1, you might as well not maintain an old falling-apart station when the move is imminent. As for #2, the Seattle fleet could be rebuilt by the end of 2014, because Greyhound still needs to replace their spare buses (C2045's, 102D3', Viaggio's, Multego's, etc) if they want to hit their stated goal of an "Elite Fleet" by 2016.

For #3, they already demand a valid photo ID for every passenger, except the driver doesn't always it. Seattle has Greyhound's worst drivers because the good drivers apprently resigned en masse after they got angry at smelling burning-plastic G4500's. It wasn't that hard for them to get another job, rumors have it that some Seattle drivers switched to Greyhound Canada Vancouver, which is DL3 territory. Something similar happened with Los Angeles, which was also G4500 territory until October 2013.

Now take a look at those passengers described, transient and loud are going to get kicked off the bus by a good driver. Remember good drivers make do on threats and drivers can choose to kick any passenger out on their own volition. Smelly? Maybe it was because the G4500's smell bad, not the passengers, the HVAC is supposed to cycle air every two minutes. Hippy chick and scared youngster? They're not going to harm you.

And finally for #4, well the rebuilt G4500 might actually be better than Bolt's X3-45's, since the seats don't sag. So just wait for those to come up, the D4505's really boosted Sacramento reviews after the G4500's got ousted. But yes, the easiest way to increase value of a house is a fresh paint job.

It's obvious that the reason Greyhound neglected Seattle is due to poor profits and low ridership, the worst in the nation, which caused heavy route cuts. So I will venture to say that, since Greyhound's biggest demographic is historically African-American, the low black population in Seattle may have supressed ridership. Then again, Whitehorse gets DL3's even though they don't have much blacks at all. No offense intended, but you can't deny that racial prejudice exists in this country.

 

[rickycourtney]

Greyhound's old station has a sign up that announces that they will be making the move to the new station in SoDo on Wednesday, May 21st.

I stopped by the new station today and it's mostly ready. The fences are down and most of the signage is up in the station. The only thing that is missing is the "Greyhound" logotype over the entrance, a sign in front of the station and seating for passengers inside the station (which they may be transferring from the old station.)

 

[Swadian Hardcore]

Hmm, I believe 21 May is the 100th Anniversary for Greyhound.