Greyhound bus service resumes in La Grande
Published 7:30 am Saturday, October 29, 2016
- Passengers board a Greyhound bus heading for Portland in October 2016 at the La Grande bus terminal. The Greyhound Bus company is ending its daily bus route along Interstate 84 between Portland and Boise on Jan. 14, 2025.
Greyhound bus service is back to its regular schedule after temporarily being out of service.
The disruption was caused when Northeast Oregon Public Transit stopped serving as a Greyhound ticket agent on Oct. 1.
The move was made to save Northeast Oregon Public Transit money and reduce the workload on its staff, said Frank Thomas, the transit manager of NEOPT, a non-profit agency that is part of Community Connection of Northeast Oregon that provides public transportation to people throughout La Grande and much of Union County, plus daily rides to and from Baker City.
Thomas said he blames himself for the disruption. He said he mistakenly assumed that after NEOPT stopped serving as a ticket agent, Greyhound would continue providing bus service to La Grande and provide the opportunity to purchase tickets for La Grande service online.
This happened from Oct. 1 until last week when Greyhound stopped selling La Grande tickets online. Greyhound buses stopped coming to La Grande on Oct. 21, but some buses did stop here on Monday and Tuesday.
On Thursday the service returned to normal, Thomas said.
“Everything is back to the way it was,” he said.
Thomas has contacted Greyhound officials and made arrangements for Northeast Oregon Public Transit to again serve as a ticket agent.
Now that Greyhound service is restored in La Grande, four buses are stopping in town daily. Two westbound and two eastbound buses travel between Boise and Portland.
NEOPT has served as the ticket manager in La Grande for Greyhound for two years. It took on this role after Greyhound’s La Grande ticket manager retired and nobody could be found to succeed her.
Thomas said NEOPT is continuing to search for someone who could serve as a ticket agent for Greyhound.
Greyhound’s eastbound bus stops in La Grande at 4:35 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. to pick up and drop off passengers. Greyhound’s westbound bus stops in La Grande at 10:40 a.m. and 11:40 p.m. This schedule applies seven days a week and is the same one Greyhound had before the disruption in service, Thomas said.
Thomas said he is excited that the Greyhound service to La Grande has been restored.
“It is a critical link to our interstate transit system,” Thomas said.
