Can Canada’s bus biz bounce back?

Bus companies across Canada are facing the same business climate everyone else is, but before the recession hit they were already struggling with a burden far more macabre: riders spooked by the memory of Tim McLean’s brutal murder last July. McLean was the 22-year-old carnival worker who was stabbed to death and eventually beheaded aboard a Greyhound bus across the Prairies. Vince Li, who was arrested for that terrifying deed, goes on trial in Winnipeg next week. Meanwhile bus companies are trying to recover. One Northern Ontario company saw its ridership fall 13 per cent in the second half of 2008; companies hope enhanced security, like metal detectors in several big-city bus stations, will calm jittery riders and bring business back.

Winnipeg Free Press