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Friday 14 August 2009

Bye-Bye Bus Depot - Part 1

Yesterday the U of W announced it's plans for the old bus depot t Portage and Colony and and today the Free Press has a story about the new bus depot opening on Saturday near the airport.

Ahhh... bus memories. Mine go back to late 19880's dating a girl who was attending the U of S. My trusty but worn '67 Ford Falcon could barely make it up the hill at Minnedosa on a dry summer day with a 140km/h lead-in. I feared having to abandon it in the valley until spring if I tried that journey in the winter.

It was Greyhound that took me 'Running Back to Saskatoon' a dozen or so times. In a strange way I liked the bus. Pack a bag with any books or work that I had to do and I KNEW I was going to get to it along the way as there was little else to do.

Another nice thing about the bus is that in most cities you went from downtown to downtown. No expensive cab-fares to get to them, you were minutes from every transit line in the city, and it was easy to find a greasy spoon to grab a cheap meal.

This, of course, won't be the case for Winnipeg anymore.


Related:
A History of Inter-City Buses - Manitoba

5 comments:

John Dobbin said...

My understanding of how it will work is that although the terminal is at the airport, they will have a free pick-up and drop-off in the downtown.

As you have noted, the buses are so much bigger than they used to be and they tow trailers with packages and mail. They just don't fit into the old depot very well anymore.

Ontario and Quebec have just announced plans for megabuses. They double decker buses are the wave of the future. However, they don't fit in many traditional size terminals.

I know some people have expressed upset at the U of W believing they forced the bus depot out. I can imagine that many years from now that will be the prevailing belief.

I am actually quite excited about a larger university bookstore in the downtown.

Christian Cassidy said...

True, the bus depot has outgrown the old space with the advent of 'superbusses', cargo services etc. Sort of like with the old depot on Graham - it's time had passed.

Anonymous said...

I once screwed a chick I met on the bus from Saskatoon in the washroom. Great memories.

Christian Cassidy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Christian Cassidy said...

Lol -

http://wbi.lib.umanitoba.ca/WinnipegBuildings/viewImage.jsp?id=1700&size=lmedium

knock yourself out ;-)