Highways and Public Works Minister Richard Mostyn said the government has “no leverage” to keep the Greyhound Canada passenger bus line running in the territory if the company decides to terminate its service.

He also said Greyhound appears very likely to do.

Greyhound submitted an application to the B.C. Passenger Transportation Board in August to discontinue five of its passenger bus routes in northern B.C.

They include its only Yukon route between Dawson Creek and Whitehorse.

The B.C. regulatory process requires that such an application be accepted before the passenger service in the province can be discontinued.

Different regulations

However, the Yukon does not have the same regulations.

Mostyn told the Star Friday he had two conversations with Stuart Kendrick, Greyhound’s senior vice-president, in September and October.

Kendrick indicated that even if the B.C. Passenger Transportation Board rejects Greyhound’s request to terminate its service of the route, it’s still likely that buses will stop running to the Yukon.

“It is not a profitable route for this company, and they just don’t have the ridership they used to have,” Mostyn said.

Kendrick confirmed in an interview with the Star today that the route is no longer sustainable for the company, though it will try to continue freight service in the territory.

“It’s all about whether it’s cost-efficient to do so,” Kendrick said, explaining that freight will likely continue.

He said Greyhound has already cut back its passenger service in the territory to three runs per week, and even then the costs of running the buses is still too high.

The route was seeing average lows of 10 passengers per bus, Kendrick said.

“Of course I find it disappointing that a company with such deep roots in the territory as Greyhound can no longer make a go of it,” said Mostyn.

However, he pointed out that Greyhound is a private company.

“I have no leverage to keep them coming to the territory and keeping an unprofitable route running.”

Charlotte Hrenchuk, co-chair of the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition, noted that the end of Greyhound service in the Yukon means residents without access to a private vehicle are losing the most affordable option for travel in and out of the territory.

“Without that, I don’t know what people are going to do,” she said.

Hrenchuk said she has already heard of people, particularly women, hitchhiking or trading sex for rides if they cannot access transportation or the costs of doing so are too prohibitive.

Highway of Tears

“What we know about missing and murdered Aboriginal women and the Highway of Tears, is that is not a very viable option or safe option,” said Hrenchuk.

But even a Greyhound bus ticket for the Whitehorse to Dawson Creek route isn’t cheap. The standard fare for a ticket today is $285.30.

According to a company press release, increased competition from ride-sharing and subsidized transportation services, as well as the decreasing price of gas prompting more people to travel by car, are among the reasons Greyhound can no longer afford to maintain the routes on the chopping block.

Kendrick says the B.C. application decision is expected to be made in late November.

If the northern B.C. and the Yukon routes will indeed be terminated, it’s likely to happen all at once, in mid-to-late January.