Commentary: Intercity Buses are One Answer to Air Travel Woes

In a piece for Streetsblog USA, Kai Boysan makes a case for intercity bus travel as a more convenient alternative to holiday air travel.

The beleaguered long-distance bus industry has largely been at worst stigmatized and at best ignored in the American imagination, “viewed by the public and government stakeholders as a last resort rather than a core component of national mobility.”

That perception is not only inaccurate; it actively weakens the resilience of our transportation system. It is time to change that.

Outlining the benefits of bus travel, Boysan notes that intercity buses are mostly privately funded and receive very little in the way of public subsidies, unlike airlines or passenger rail that rely on public subsidies and facilities. 

In some cases, governments actively make it difficult for long-distance buses to operate, pushing them to inconvenient or inaccessible locations in the outskirts of cities. “This weakens access to jobs, education, healthcare, and essential services for the communities that rely on buses most. They disconnect intercity travel from local transit networks that taxpayers have already funded.”

For Boysan, “The benefits of intercity buses are clear. They connect people to opportunity, support local economies, reduce emissions, and add redundancy to a fragile transportation network” — and the stigma against them is undeserved.