City of Dallas and Greyhound planning a new bus terminal

A big change in coming to Downtown Dallas. The decades-old Greyhound bus terminal at 205 South Lamar Street is closing.

Dallas-based Greyhound sold several of its physical bus stations to an investment firm two years ago. Since that time several of those locations have been shuttered as the bus company moved operations to other locations.

Greyhound and city officials say passengers will not just be left on the street.

Passenger Charlie Marie said she’s used the Dallas terminal more than 20 times on trips across America and would not want to be without it on a transfer layover.

“You could be out here for hours and hours from getting wet to freezing in the rain to getting snatched up, hurt or robbed,” she said. “That’s extremely concerning to me.”

Greyhound’s lease on the building it sold to investors expires in October.

NBC5 media partner the Dallas Morning News reports Greyhound terminal closings have happened in other US cities.

“In other metro areas terminal closures, they switched to curbside service or moved terminals to suburban areas that are, you know, pretty far from public transit,” Dallas Morning News Transportation reporter Amber Gaudet said.

Buses are not the only transportation that counts on the downtown terminal for revenue.

Taxi driver Abebe Getaun picked up passengers at the terminal on Monday.

“It’s not only taxi, I mean, a lot of Uber drivers make money here, too,” he said.

Dallas City Council Transportation Committee Chairman Omar Narvaez said Dallas passengers will not be left on the curb.

“The goal is to make sure it’s not overlooked and people are not ending up on the street just kicked off of their bus, wherever they’re dropping them off and that’s why we’ve been working together,” Narvaez said.

The Eddie Bernice Johnson Union Station rail terminal a few blocks away could be an option.

With Dallas streetcar expansion planned and high-speed rail being discussed again in North Texas, the City of Dallas was already making plans for an expanded ground transportation hub at the old rail terminal.

“If we could combine those two that would save time and cab fare and missed connections and all sorts of problems. I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Greyhound passenger Charlie Marie said.

Councilman Narvaez mentioned Union Station in a long list of possibilities under review.

“Lots of different options, and we’re looking at everything to see what makes the most sense,” Narvaez said.

Property records show the current terminal was built in 1979.

Plenty of security was on duty Monday at the building, which has been declared a habitual nuisance property due to past crimes. A future plan will need security considerations.

In response to a request to Greyhound for comment, PR Manager Mike Ogulnick issued an email statement:

“When Greyhound was acquired by Flix SE in 2021, the prior owners of Greyhound, FirstGroup, retained ownership of many of the terminal locations, including the Dallas terminal. The property is now owned by Twenty Lake Holdings.

As our lease to use the terminal expires in October, we are in the early phases of working with the City of Dallas to identify Greyhound’s future terminal location. We will share more details as soon as we have them. We have no plans to end our service in Dallas, and our goal is to identify a new terminal location as soon as possible to continue offering affordable, accessible travel to and from the metroplex to all our customers.”