South Station Bus Terminal

The South Station Bus Terminal, owned by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, is the main gateway for long-distance coach buses in Boston, Massachusetts. It is located at 700 Atlantic Avenue, at the intersection with Beach Street, in the Chinatown/Leather District neighborhoods. The facility is immediately south-southwest of the main MBTA/Amtrak South Station terminal, and is located above the station platforms and tracks.

South Station Bus Terminal
Main entrance on Atlantic Avenue, Boston
General information
Location	700 Atlantic Avenue Boston, Massachusetts United States of America
Coordinates	42.3500°N 71.0558°W / 42.3500; -71.0558
Owned by	Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Platforms	29 bus bays
Bus operators	10
Connections	MBTA Commuter Rail and Amtrak at South Station Red Line, Silver Line at South Station (subway)
Construction
Parking	Yes
Bicycle facilities	Yes
Accessible	Yes
History
Opened	October 28, 1995
Location

Design

Main hall and skylight, surrounded by food concessions and ticket sales counters

The bus station building has a mixture of glass and metal on its exterior, with mainly a red-granite stone and metallic-surfaced interior. Situated just south of and separate from the main South Station train terminal, the bus terminal is strikingly vertical in design, with five floors. Entry is via a long escalator, or a large glass-sided elevator with exterior views. The passageway from the upper entrance lobby towards the main hall has a series of large dark-tinted windows overlooking the railway tracks below.

The station contains a variety of amenities for waiting passengers. These include a newsstand and snack cart; free 15-minute public parking on the roof, and restrooms. Like other major transportation facilities, it also contains full service ticket counters, seating areas, and a waiting hall with designated gates leading to individual buses.

• Floor 1: main entrance, walkway to South Station Rail Terminal
• Floor 2: Security, MBTA Transit Police
• Floor 3: bus platforms and boarding gates, concourse, food and concessions, restrooms,
• Floor 4: offices, conference room
• Floor 5: 15-minute free parking (parking entrance from Kneeland Street)

Bus companies

As of 2025^[update], the terminal is used by ten companies:^[1]

• Boston Express: services to Nashua and North Londonderry, New Hampshire
• C&J Bus Lines: service to Dover, New Hampshire
• Concord Coach Lines: services to Portland, Midcoast, and inland Maine; services to Concord and northern New Hampshire
• Dartmouth Coach: service to Hanover, New Hampshire (Dartmouth College)
• DATTCO: seasonal service to Newport, Rhode Island
• FlixBus: service to New York City
• Greyhound Lines: services to New York City via Providence, Rhode Island, and via Hartford, Connecticut; services to Albany, New York, Bangor, Maine, and Montreal
• Megabus: services to Burlington, Vermont, and New York City
• Peter Pan Bus Lines: services to Albany, Hyannis, Massachusetts, New York City, Providence, Rhode Island, and Woods Hole, Massachusetts
• Plymouth & Brockton Street Railway: services to Hyannis and Woods Hole

History

Previous terminals

Buses at the Trailways Bus Terminal in the 1970s

Regional and intercity bus service from Boston began in the mid-1920s. A number of small terminals, most in the Park Square area, were used by different companies.^{[2]: 7–14} These were gradually consolidated into two major terminals.

The Boston and Worcester Street Railway (B&W) opened a terminal at 10 Park Square by 1930. It was rebuilt in 1946 with off-street bus parking.^[2]: 29 At that time, it was also used by the Boston and Maine Transportation Company, New England Transportation Company, Quaker Stages, and Quaker City Bus Company.^[3] New England Trailways began using the terminal by 1949. Trailways purchased the terminal in 1958 and renamed it Trailways Bus Terminal.^[2]: 29 Other companies that used the terminal over the following decades included Almeida Bus Lines, Concord Coach, the Eastern Massachusetts Street Railway, the MBTA, Medeiros Bus Company, Michaud Bus Lines, Peter Pan Bus Lines, Rhode Island Bus Company, and Trombly Motor Coach.^[4]

Greyhound Lines opened a terminal at 10 St. James Avenue in 1950, replacing a 1935-built terminal at 222 Boylston Street (60/80 Park Plaza).^{[2]: 69, 71} The terminal was also used at various times by Bonanza Bus Lines, Plymouth and Brockton Street Railway (P&B), Short Line, and Vermont Transit.^[2]: 63 It was renovated in 1976.^[5] The property was sold to a developer in 1985, and resold in 1987 and 1989, though the bus station remained open.^[6][7]

In 1975, the MBTA built a temporary busway on the west side of South Station at a cost of $300,000.^[8] It was intended to serve MBTA Turnpike express buses while their usual downtown terminal was closed for redevelopment of the Jordan Marsh flagship store, as well as P&B buses from the South Shore.^[9] However, MBTA buses did not initially use the busway.^[10] P&B used it as an intermediate stop and as midday bus storage, but continued to use the Greyhound terminal.^[11]

On May 19, 1980, the Trailways terminal was closed to allow street reconfiguration and construction of the State Transportation Building. Trailways and its affiliates (Concord, Michaud, Peter Pan, and Trombly) moved to a temporary facility at the South Station busway.^[12] They moved again to a new $1.1 million terminal at 555 Atlantic Avenue in Dewey Square on November 7, 1980.^[13] MBTA express bus service was cut back to use the South Station busway as a terminal from April 1981 to May 1982.^[14] In 1986, Trailways discontinued most of its remaining service in New England. Peter Pan took over the routes and renamed the station as the Peter Pan Bus Terminal.^[2]: 146

Greyhound drivers went on strike on March 2, 1990.^[15] Bonanza and P&B drivers did not want to cross picket lines, so the companies moved to curbside operations nearby.^[2]: 63 Bonanza bought a used van for use as a ticket office. That June, the company moved to Dartmouth Street in front of Back Bay station.^[16] On November 10, 1992, Greyhound and Vermont Transit moved to a temporary terminal at the South Station busway.^{[2]: 95 [17][18]}

Planning

City officials proposed a large parking garage with a bus terminal at South Station, the city's largest railroad terminal, in July 1958. At the time, the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad was sharply cutting service as new highways were opening.^[19] That December, Mayor John Hynes proposed a 1,700-space garage and bus terminal over the western tracks of the station.^[20][21] Construction of a bus terminal and trucking terminal at South Station was again proposed by a state commission in 1961.^[22]

In the mid-1960s, the proposed redevelopment of South Station – including a possible bus terminal – became mired in controversy. The Boston Terminal Company (a terminal railroad subsidiary of the New Haven and the New York Central Railroad that owned the station) filed in late 1964 to sell the property to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA).^[23] By that time, the railroads owed $2 million in back taxes for the station. The city, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, and Boston Patriots owner Bill Sullivan sparred over who would redevelop the property – and crucially, whether the development would pay taxes to the city.^[24][25] The BRA reached an agreement in August 1965 to purchase the station and took ownership on December 31, 1965.^[26][27]

By mid-1967, the BRA had chosen a proposal by the Massachusetts Port Authority over one from Maxwell M. Rabb. The Port Authority proposal, designed by Josep Lluís Sert, included a bus terminal, a 5,000-car garage, and heliport along with a hotel and commercial buildings.^[28] The city and Port Authority signed a development pact in January 1970.^[29] However, the Port Authority pulled out of the plan that September due to an Internal Revenue Service ruling that bonds for the project would be taxed.^[30]

In 1974, BRA plans switched to preserve the historic South Station building, with bus facilities still planned.^[31] The new bus terminal was planned to be complete by the end of the decade.^[9] In October 1977, the BRA and MBTA reached an agreement under which the MBTA would reconstruction the station while the BRA would manage commercial development. The deal removed the bus terminal from the plans because funding was not available.^[32][33] A revised agreement in 1979 re-added the bus terminal, which the MBTA would build along with a 600-car parking deck.^[34] The MBTA took ownership of South Station that August, though the BRA retained air rights.^[35]

The Federal Railroad Administration released the draft environmental impact statement for the South Station project, including the bus terminal, in 1980.^[36] The final environmental impact statement was released the next year. It included a two-phase air rights development. The first phase would include three levels with a bus terminal and 800 parking spaces; the second would add commercial development and more parking.^[37] In 1982, the Federal Transit Administration awarded the MBTA $14 million for bus terminal construction and relocation of nearby Massachusetts Turnpike ramps.^[38] The renovation of South Station lasted from 1984 to 1989.^[39][40] Additional funding for the bus terminal came from an 1988 state bond bill.^[41]

Construction and usage

In January 1989, the MBTA awarded a $4.67 million final design contract to The Architects Collaborative and Howard, Needles, Tammen & Bergendoff.^[42] The MBTA approved the final design in December 1990.^[43] Late-1980s plans had called for 45 bus berths and 550 parking spaces.^[44][42] However, the final design included only 29 bus berths and 215 spaces due to budget limitations.^[43][45] In 1991, the state agreed to build a set of transit projects as part of the settlement of a lawsuit by the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) over auto emissions from the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (Big Dig). Among these projects was the bus terminal, to be complete by the end of 1994.^[46] The agency awarded a construction contract for the $81 million project in September 1992.^[47][48]

The new bus terminal opened on October 28, 1995, though ticketing facilities were not completed until 1996. Its 29 bus berths were fewer than those available at the three terminals it replaced.^[49] The companies using the Greyhound and Peter Pan terminals moved in immediately, while Bonanza did not begin using the terminal until December 3.^[2]: 182 Peter Pan recorded a 25% increase in ridership after moving to the terminal.^[50] By early 2000, the terminal served 12,000 daily riders.^[51] In 2005, its six pay phones were the busiest in the city.^[52]

In August 2000, a state audit found that change orders added $14.7 million to the original $81.4 million construction cost of the terminal. It also noted that when the MBTA cancelled plans for a moving walkway between the bus terminal and rail station, the agency settled for $1.4 million – substantially less than the $6.6 million estimated cost.^[53]

When opened, the ramps to the bus and parking decks connected only to Kneeland Street. They were reconfigured by the Big Dig project as part of the South Bay Interchange. A direct ramp from the eastbound Turnpike for buses and high-occupancy vehicles (HOVs) opened in December 2003.^[54] An elevated connector road between the terminal and Albany Street replaced the Kneeland Street ramps in 2005. It included direct bus/HOV ramps to southbound I-93 and the eastbound Turnpike, and from northbound I-93 and the westbound Turnpike, which opened in stages over the second half of the year.^[55]

The set of companies using the terminal has changed over time. Massport-managed Logan Dart service ran between the terminal and Logan International Airport from November 2000 to November 2001.^[56][57] Concord Coach subsidiaries Dartmouth Coach and Boston Express began service to the terminal in 2000 and 2007.^{[2]: 128, 132 [58]} DATTCO took over American Eagle (successor to Medeiros) service in 2004.^[2]: 159 That year, Chinatown bus lines Lucky Star/Travel Pack and Fung Wah Bus Transportation switched from curbside stops in nearby Chinatown to South Station at the insistence of city officials.^[59][60] The city has required operators to use the terminal; in 2007, Vamoose Bus was not permitted to use curbside stops in Copley Square instead.^[61]

Low-cost carriers BoltBus and Megabus began using the terminal in 2008.^[62][63] Fung Wah was shut down by federal regulators in 2013 due to safety issues; its berth at South Station was redistributed to another operator. Its planned return to operation in 2015 was cancelled because the company could not obtain a new berth at the terminal.^[64][65] BoltBus ended all service in July 2021.^[66] Capebus used the terminal from July 2021 to early 2022.^[14] FlixBus began service to the terminal in April 2022 and took over Lucky Star service to Boston that November.^[67][68] DATTCO ended year-round service to Boston in 2023 but began operating seasonal service in 2024.^{[2]: 161 [69]}

The terminal is being expanded as part of the South Station Tower project.^[70]