Greyhound is moving from Midtown Houston
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Greyhound is abandoning its Midtown station for a stop in Houston's East End, but not everyone is on board.
Driving the news: The long-distance bus operator announced on its website this week that service would move from 2121 Main St. to another Greyhound terminal 5 miles away at 7000 Harrisburg Blvd. starting Thursday.
- Greyhound is leaving the Midtown station nearly a year earlier than its lease was set to expire in October 2024, per Cushman Wakefield, a real estate firm selling the Main Street property.
Catch up quick: The depot has been in operation since it was built in 1979.
- Greyhound owned the property until 2021. It remains up for sale.
Of note: The depot and neighboring areas have long been lambasted as a crime hot spot, having received among the most police responses in all of Houston, per the Chronicle.
What they're saying: State Sen. Carol Alvarado, D-Houston, posted on X Wednesday that she was "outraged" by an alleged lack of communication from Greyhound.
- Her staffers are reaching out to Greyhound, the city of Houston and law enforcement for answers.
- "My hope is that, can we convince them to leave, to go someplace else? That would be No. 1," Alvarado tells Axios. "How far down the line is this? If it's a done deal, what can we do to make sure we don't have a repeat of what's taking place in Midtown?"
Plus, the new location has fewer public transit opportunities.
- The old station was two blocks away from the Metropolitan Transit Authority's Red Line and 16 bus routes via the Downtown Transit Center.
- The new station is next door to the Magnolia Park Transit Center, which offers connections to the Green Line and only five bus routes.
Greyhound representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, the Midtown area is ripe for redevelopment.
- In the coming years, the area could look a lot different than it does now.
- The North Houston Highway Improvement Project, for example, will reshape Pierce Elevated and open opportunities for developers.
- "The sale of the Greyhound bus station site and the McDonald's closure present redevelopment opportunities that will positively impact existing and future developments in Midtown," the Midtown Redevelopment Authority said in a statement to the Houston Business Journal in February.
Zoom out: Greyhound's move out of Midtown is part of a national trend by the company to leave city centers in favor of stations farther away.
- Notably, stations in central Philadelphia; Charlottesville, Virginia; Cleveland; and Louisville, Kentucky, have all moved in recent years.