By Vivian Shipe
KNOXVILLE, TN — Early in the wee hours of the morning a bus pulls up and passengers file off a Greyhound bus and find themselves without water, a place to use the restroom or even sit down. Add to that the fact that the bus drop location off has been changed three different times in the past six months, leaving people walking up and down empty dark streets at 4 and 5 in the morning and you have a tragedy waiting to happen.
The latest drop off point came unannounced during the Thanksgiving Holiday travel weekend as citizens of East Knoxville awoke to buses dropping passengers off on the street corner of MLK and Kirkwood.
City Officials said they had no idea the location for the drop had been moved out of the historic 4th and Gill neighborhood where the neighbors had already been complaining about the strangers wandering through the neighborhood.
The position of the city government has been that Greyhound is a private company and they have been unable to work something out with the new Greyhound owners whom they say are responsible for the passengers.
The city says the latest dropoff point which is in front of the Greater Warner AME Zion Church, was not sanctioned and that Greyhound is dropping 40-50 people every night without permission.
In the meantime, the elderly look bewildered and lost, and students traveling home for the holidays wander up and down the streets, looking for places to eat and a drink of water, finding neither.
Like a bad, never-ending nightmare the story repeats. Early in the wee hours of the morning…. a bus pulls up….
The temperature is dropping and there’s a threat of rain. Winter is coming.
The travesty continues.
Go Greyhound and leave the driving to them, and nothing else.
