The Boston Globe tells the story:
Travel between Boston and New York may have gotten a little more expensive (and safer) with the recent demise of Fung Wah bus lines, but that doesn’t mean there still doesn’t exist an overwhelming appreciation for the memories the company left behind.
The New Yorker channels these emotions in an ode to Fung Wah, inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Farewell Angelina.” We warn you, it may get misty wherever you may be.
On a more serious note, the shuttering of Fung Wah, whether permanent or otherwise, evokes mixed feelings for me. On the one hand, I’ve had my fair share of rides in which, for hours at a time, I was terrorized by the uncertainty over whether the driver was inebriated, tired, or just a terrible driver.
On the other hand, the 4-6 hour ride (sometimes even longer, especially on holidays) was often a refuge of sorts during various transitory periods of my life. During the summer of 2009, I took the bus from Boston to New York to visit my girlfriend almost every single Friday afternoon, returning on Sunday evening.
Then, once I moved to New York that fall, the process reversed itself: occasionally I’d take the bus back to Boston to visit my family for a weekend before heading back to a stressful job in New York. Throughout all of this, while Bolt Bus and Megabus and Greyhound and Peter Pan were missing scheduled departures, charging higher fares, and arriving late, Fung Wah was surprisingly reliable for me. Missing a weekend bus never mattered that much, because the next one was always just a few minutes behind.
Sooner or later, I’ll need to travel to Boston again, and I’m not sure yet how I’ll get there. Most likely I’ll choose another bus line, but that would feel almost sacrilegious somehow and — not unlike leaving one’s religion — an uncomfortable adjustment. Whatever its ills — and there were so, so many of them — the Fung Wah leaves a giant-sized hole in the New York-Boston corridor. Although probably not quite as big as the holes created by its buses as they plowed into various stationary objects over the years.
John Liam Policastro said it better than I can:
I am not ashamed to admit it (nor am I really bragging), but for the last six years I have taken the Fung Wah so frequently that I am sort of like the Wilt Chamberlain of I-95 (though I have never had sex with any other passengers). I have sometimes found myself on the bus twice a day, multiple times a week. I am not exaggerating when I say the times I have ridden the bus are easily in the high hundreds, and I have literally never even been on a single bus that broke down or has been in a mortally dangerous situation, save for the occasional bathroom breakdown…
Fung Wah’s closure will surely fuel debates about the oversight necessary in this now-crucial industry that has benefited scores of tourists, day trippers, workers, sweatpants-wearing scumbags, junkies, and crying babies. Others are wondering why regulators were asleep at the wheel for so long that a licensed company could have 21 of their 28 vehicles declared an “imminent hazard.” While still others, like myself, are asking perhaps the most important question of all: How the fuck am I going to get home?