Greyhound buses return to Chapel Hill, with help from taxpayers
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Greyhound resumed Chapel Hill service after a 20-year absence on Aug. 1, 2025.
- NCDOT subsidized the return using federal and state funds for intercity routes.
- Chapel Hill joins the Piedmont Pass route with connections to Asheville and Raleigh.
For the first time in 20 years, people can catch a Greyhound bus in Chapel Hill.
As of Aug. 1, Greyhound and FlixBus now stop four times a day at Chapel Hill’s Eubanks Road park-and-ride lot, just off Interstate 40, where riders can take a Chapel Hill Transit bus into town.
The service is partly subsidized by the N.C. Department of Transportation, using a mix of federal and state money. NCDOT underwrites 11 intercity bus routes statewide serving places that companies like Greyhound don’t find profitable, such as Siler City, Sanford, Smithfield and Goldsboro.
NCDOT began subsidizing intercity bus service in the 1980s when federal deregulation meant bus companies could drop unprofitable routes. Chapel Hill was one of 38 communities across the state that lost service in 2005 when Greyhound/Carolina Trailways revamped its schedule to focus on larger cities.
NCDOT spent about $6 million on the program in the most recent fiscal year.
The return of Greyhound was a joint effort by the company, the state and the town, said Brennon Fuqua, director of NCDOT’s Integrated Mobility Division. Chapel Hill was a priority for NCDOT because of the university, Fuqua said.
“NCDOT is working to expand to other cities and towns that are not currently served,” he said in a written statement. “University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was one of the only major universities in the state that was not served by intercity bus.”
NCDOT is subsidizing two stops in Chapel Hill — one eastbound and one westbound on a route that runs between Raleigh and Asheville, with stops in Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Hickory. Greyhound and its parent company, FlixBus, operate an unsubsidized route between Charlotte and Raleigh that also stops at the Eubanks lot twice a day.
NCDOT gives its bus routes names, like Amtrak trains. The Dogwood Dasher, for example, runs from Charlotte to Wilmington, while you can ride the Pirate’s Passage from Raleigh to Greenville and Jacksonville.
Chapel Hill was added to the Piedmont Pass, one of two routes, along with the Cardinal Flyer, that serve Asheville. Bus service to Asheville resumed Aug. 1 for the first time since the remnants of Hurricane Helene wiped out the gas station where they stopped. (They now go to the city’s downtown transit station.)
The return of Greyhound to a park-and-ride lot out near the intestate is a far cry from the heyday of bus travel to and from Chapel Hill.
The Trailways station on Franklin Street was built in the center of town in the late 1940s and remained a busy place for decades. As bus travel declined, Greyhound bought Carolina Trailways in 1997, and the company sold its downtown station in 2000 to make way for what is now The Graduate Chapel Hill, a 69-room hotel.
This story was originally published August 26, 2025 at 5:35 AM.
