Greyhound’s 59-Cent Fare Is Just the Ticket

Thousands of travelers stood in line in a dozen Southern cities today to buy Greyhound bus tickets to any part of the nation for less than the price of a bus ticket across town.

For an hour beginning at noon, Greyhound, inspired by the latest round of airline fare wars, sold tickets to any city it serves for 59 cents.

In Atlanta, the line ran two blocks down the street.

“I’m going to Los Angeles to be free,” said Lodis Bates, who got time off from her job as secretary of the Temple of Deliverance Pentecostal Church in Atlanta to get a ticket. “I’ve never been there before.” A ticket to Los Angeles normally costs $119.

The promotion was set only in Greyhound’s southern region and began at noon in Atlanta; New Orleans; Miami, Jacksonville and Orlando, Fla.; Memphis and Nashville, Tenn.; Birmingham, Ala., and Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas and San Antonio, Tex.

Greyhound promised that anyone joining the line before 1 p.m. could buy tickets, and the lines began to form Tuesday. By early today thousands were queued up.

Mylinda Pearson, 32, may have been the first in line in any of the 12 cities. She had her three children with her in Atlanta and was going to buy tickets to Orlando for a trip to Disney World.

Lucille Lewis, a 65-year-old widow, also spent the night in the Atlanta bus station. “I’m going to Tacoma, Wash., to visit my daughter, who will be having a baby soon,” she said. “I am taking advantage of this miracle rate.