Bus route will link Bemidji with Grand Forks

I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.

May 25, 1999

By Devlyn Brooks

Bus riders will be able to travel to Grand Forks, N.D., from Bemidji Wednesday for the first time in about five years.

Greyhound Lines, Inc. will inaugurate its new Grand Forks to Bemidji to Minneapolis route Wednesday, which was made possible by a federal grant.

Dave Mathison, manager of Bemidji's Greyhound terminal, said Monday the bus to Minneapolis will depart Grand Forks at 9 a.m., arriving in Bemidji around 11:10 a.m. and continue south, arriving in Minneapolis about 5:15 p.m.

A return bus will depart Minneapolis at 11:30 a.m., stopping at Bemidji at 5:15 p.m. and getting to Grand Forks at 7:35 p.m.

Mathison said the biggest change for Bemidji riders is the cancellation of the terminal's former 7:45 a.m. departure to Minneapolis to accommodate the new 11:10 a.m. departure.

Ultimately, the new bus route will travel from Grand Forks to Cass Lake on U.S. Highway 2, and turn south on Highway 371 to Brainerd and Little Falls and unto Minneapolis.

There are also scheduled stops in Crookston, Fosston and Bagley, with non-scheduled -- or flag stops -- for the smaller communities en route.

Mathison said this will be the first bus service from Bemidji to Grand Forks since Triangle bus lines dropped a similar route about fives years ago because of a lack of riders.

"This is big news for a little town (between Bemidji and Grand Forks)," Mathison said. "It'll be a real nice connection."

Greyhound Lines received a $360,000 grant in March to create the new bus route. The buses also will provide express and package service.

The grant money was awarded by the Federal Transit Administration, and more than $4.6 million was awarded in the hope of improving the mobility of small and medium-sized cities.

The transit companies will receive grant money for only two years. During that time, the routes are expected to garner enough customers to become self-supporting.

Other inter-city bus routes initiated because of the grants include Greyhound service between Duluth and International Falls and between Duluth and St. Ignace, Mich. However, there is no bus from Cass Lake to Duluth. So riders would have to first travel to Minneapolis to catch a route going north to Duluth.

Elsewhere in Minnesota, Jefferson Lines received about $162,000 to establish routes from Worthington to Albert Lea and Mankato to Rochester.