Megabus or weather? MDOT weighs in on Amtrak's Grand Rapids-to-Chicago ridership loss | MLive.com
"Janet Foran, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Transportation, which subsidizes the route, said a combination of factors likely caused an 11 percent ridership decrease on the Pere Marquette Line in March.
The decrease over March 2012 — and ridership being down 2.2 percent for the first six months of the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 — was announced Tuesday by Amtrak.
Despite some MLive readers' pondering whether one cause for the decrease was the low-cost Megabus service, which began traveling from Grand Rapids to Chicago last summer, Foran said it was an unlikely scenario.
"We have no way to confirm that, but certainly [Megabus] is another means to get to Chicago and back," Foran said. "And I think that … I feel more strongly that the weather had an impact on travel."
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