Folks unhappy on losing bus stop

GOLDENDALE, Wash. — Twice a day a Greyhound bus emerges from the wheat and alfalfa fields of eastern Washington and cruises into the parking lot of John Willsey's bowling alley.

Some days there are no passengers in this farm town of 3,700, so the bus doesn't bother to stop. But those who use it often rely on it.

Goldendale is among 267 communities in 18 states across the West and Midwest that will be losing Greyhound service Aug. 18, leaving only 99 communities in the northern region where the interstate bus line will pick up passengers.

"We have an elderly woman who uses it twice a week to go to Portland," said Willsey, whose bowling alley has doubled as a depot for 25 years.

"I don't know what she's going to do. She'll have to go plumb to The Dalles (35 miles away) to get a bus," he said. "They've been telling us for 10 years they were going to cut and run, and boy, they did."

The vast majority of the cuts are to communities that have no commercial rail or air service, causing potential problems for people wanting to get to places that do.

Greyhound says it has to streamline operations to stay in business. But cutting 267 communities — from busy towns like Steamboat Springs, Colo., to more obscure places such as Big Timber, Mont. — weakens a web that has held the small towns of America together for decades.

Just across the Columbia River from Goldendale is the town of Biggs, Ore. Interstate 84 and U.S. 97 meet in Biggs, and nine or 10 buses stop there each day. But Biggs is losing Greyhound service as well.

Phillip Jenks was on a bus that pulled into Biggs. A frequent Greyhound rider, he was traveling from Utah's Ute Indian Reservation to visit a niece in Warm Springs, Ore., a town also due to be cut.

"I'll have to take to hitchhiking, I guess," he said.

Biggs is a small cluster of truck stops, motels and gas stations that Columbia Gorge winds tend to roast in summer and freeze in winter. The official stop, Linda's Restaurant, is the quintessential truck stop. It's open 24 hours a day, feeding passengers, pumping gas and servicing truckers.

Also at the Biggs bus stop was Diana Leyva, who was traveling from Texas to Seattle to be introduced to her boyfriend's family, a 2 1/2-day trip. She said the bus went 10 hours in one stretch without passengers being allowed off the bus.

"They need more stops, not fewer," said Leyva.