Napa used to have Greyhound bus service. What happened? What choices do we have now?

After three attempts at reaching a public information officer or any other qualified source from Greyhound, I surrendered to defeat. Forgive me if you don’t find the thoroughness you seek.

As of 2005, Napa no longer had Greyhound bus service. Napa, however, was not the only town where service was cut; a total of 64 cities throughout California, including Davis, Geyserville, Healdsburg, Irvine, Los Gatos, Malibu Beach, Manteca, Monterey, Petaluma, Pleasanton, Richmond, Santa Monica, Sonoma, Sunnyvale, Thousand Oaks and Woodland lost service as well.

Not being a Napa native myself, I turned to Deborah Brunner, transportation planner at Napa County Transportation & Planning Agency. She informed me that not only was there a depot in Napa, there was also one in Calistoga. After Greyhound was no longer available at those two sites, riders could get no closer than neighboring cities, such as Suisun City in Solano County. The Suisun train station also lost Greyhound service, but the dog was supposed to have restarted service there as of mid-August.

So why did Greyhound leave in the first place? “They trimmed services because of low ridership,” said Brunner.

Brunner, my knight(ess) in shining armor, stepped in once more: “Take the Vine Route 10 South, and transfer at either York and Marin, in Vallejo, or the Vallejo ferry stop. Then, take the Vallejo/Fairfield Route 85 to the Solano mall (Westfield Solano Shopping Centre, in Fairfield). Then, take the Fairfield Route 5, which takes riders to the train station.”

Napa’s own Evans Transportation runs busses each day to the Oakland and San Francisco airports, stopping in Vallejo on the way. Call 255-1559 or visit www.evanstransportation.com.

And here’s my favorite: “Or call 1-800-231-2222 or visit www.greyhound.com.”

Mapquest.com can come in handy, too.

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Glad You Asked attempts to answer readers’ questions. Do you have any? Route them to me! Send questions to dmontanez@napanews.com or call me at 256-2224.