Tired and aggravated, Clyde Casteel sat, head down, in a metal chair in the Pittsburgh Greyhound station last week and grumbled about what the bus company's recent cuts in service were doing to his life.

	Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Meka Fitzgerald of Uniontown leaves Pittsburgh's Greyhound station after dropping off her girlfriend Thursday. Click photo for larger image.

"It's a pain in the butt," Mr. Casteel said.

Mr. Casteel, 51, a construction worker from Annapolis, Md., had rolled in earlier in the day from Clarksburg, W.Va., where he had been fitted for a tuxedo for his daughter's upcoming wedding.

But instead of catching a Greyhound directly from Clarksburg to Baltimore, he was forced to first come north to Pittsburgh on a Mountain Line Transit Authority bus before heading to Baltimore because Greyhound two weeks ago eliminated stops in Clarksburg and Morgantown.

Those two cities were among 42 stops Greyhound eliminated Oct. 30 in Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, part of a nationwide reduction in service that so far has pared 850 stops from its line -- roughly one-third of the total stops in the United States.

Among the nearby cities cut by Greyhound were Washington, Uniontown and Dubois, Clearfield County, in Pennsylvania; Steubenville and Warren, Ohio; and Clarksburg and Morgantown, W.Va..

Greyhound also has ended service to many smaller communities, including Ligonier, New Stanton, Point Marion in Fayette County, New Wilmington in Mercer County and Cresson in Cambria County

Bus riders from those communities now must find another way to get to Greyhound stations miles away, in Pittsburgh, Monroeville, Mercer, Altoona or Wheeling -- a difficult task for people who travel by bus because, in general, they don't have cars. And when they do catch a ride to a station, they may find that new route changes have made their trips longer or more complicated.

Mr. Casteel said he missed three days of work because of the circuitous route.

"I've been coming down here for years," Mr. Casteel said. "I don't understand it."

Fortunately for Mr. Casteel, he was able to catch a ride on a new route operated by Mountain Line, a public transit agency based in Westover, W.Va., near Morgantown.

Called the Grey Line, the new service was launched the day Greyhound service ceased and now picks up passengers in Clarksburg, Fairmont and Morgantown for a once-a-day round trip to Pittsburgh's Greyhound station. Mountain Line plans to include a stop at Pittsburgh International Airport when it receives the proper federal permits.

But for people in towns around the region where Greyhound no longer stops, there are few other options and, often, plenty of aggravation.

"It is an inconvenience," huffed Meka Fitzgerald, 31, of Uniontown, who slumped behind the wheel of her red sport utility vehicle after waving goodbye to a friend Thursday at Pittsburgh's temporary Greyhound station near the Allegheny County Jail.

Ms. Fitzgerald said she and her family didn't know that Greyhound no longer served Uniontown until Wednesday night, when a visiting friend, Rosheima Fitzgerald, 23, called Greyhound to check departure times for her return home to Allentown.

So the women and two other friends set their alarms for 5 a.m. and left Uniontown a little after 6 a.m. to drive to Pittsburgh, where her visitor planned to catch an 8:20 a.m. bus. On the way, they stalled in rush-hour traffic, then made a wrong turn and missed the station and the bus.

Lost, frazzled and headed toward Oakland on Bigelow Boulevard, Meka Fitzgerald said she made a U-turn and headed back to Uniontown.

"The whole time, it was 'Oh my God, which way do we turn?' " she said while her friends, Georgia Gaines, 48, and Sylvia Lopez, 34, giggled. "We didn't want to sit around until [the next bus] at 1 o'clock, so we went back to Uniontown and cooked breakfast and did it all over again."

The recent Greyhound cuts are part of the Dallas-based company's effort to make the company profitable while "creating a passenger network that better meets the needs of our customers," said Anna Folmnsbee, a company spokeswoman.

Greyhound's parent company, Laidlaw International Inc. of Naperville, Ill., has been scaling back its operations amid a corporate reorganization since it emerged two years ago from bankruptcy. Greyhound is one of three Laidlaw divisions, the other two being urban transit operations and its familiar yellow school bus operations across the country.

Greyhound has adopted a slogan for its new slimmed-down operations: "Stop Less, Go More." The company studied its routes and service and determined that 75 percent of its passengers travel between cities and less than 450 miles, Ms. Folmnsbee said.

The study and results of passenger surveys led to the first cuts, in August 2004. The elimination of stops began in the Northwest and has moved East. The next phase, likely the final one, will target service in New York, New Jersey and New England. In the end, Greyhound will have cut nearly half of its stops.

"Our customers told us they wanted faster service with fewer stops," Ms. Folmnsbee said. "When we focus our network and our stops where the demand is greatest, we eliminate stops that have little and sometimes no customer demand. They cost more to operate than the revenue they bring in."

Officials in affected communities said they recognize that Greyhound could not afford to maintain routes that often did not draw many riders. But they said the service cuts will most hurt poor or elderly people who relied on bus service because they had no other choices.

"Who does this have an impact on? Not the middle class. They can afford transportation," said Steubenville Mayor Dominick Mucci. "This hurts the low- and moderate-income individuals who depend on it to visit family or schedule doctors' appointments [in Pittsburgh or Cleveland."

Fayette Area Coordinated Transportation, Fayette County's bus system, runs a twice-daily service that transports people to doctors' appointments in Pittsburgh, Uniontown Mayor James Sileo said. But he and Mr. Mucci said they and local business leaders fret about the impression the cuts may give to businesses and industries they are trying to woo to their cities.

"I don't think it will be all that much of a problem for many people, but I'm not overjoyed that they left," Mr. Sileo said. "The idea is to rebuild the city. We're working down here and we don't want to lose anything."

In the two weeks since Mountain Line started its Grey Line service, it has averaged about 7.5 passengers a day -- more than Greyhound, which averaged about 2 passengers a day, General Manager David Bruffy said. The increased traffic shows there is a need for the service, he said.

A one-way fare from Morgantown to Pittsburgh is $20, less than then $29 formerly charged by Greyhound, and a seat can be reserved and purchased online. Some of Grey Line's riders are commuters, who've found a new opportunity to travel between West Virginia and Pittsburgh.

But Mr. Bruffy said he anticipates the line also will serve relatives of prisoners at the Kennedy Federal Correctional Institution in Morgantown. He also expects to attract former passengers of USAir Express, which plans to cease operations from Morgantown and Clarksburg.

"[Losing Greyhound] means rural isolation. It takes away connections to friends and family and the most economical option for people in communities in rural areas," he said. "Hopefully, some of our sister public agencies will be able to coordinate connections to get people from place to place."

Other transit companies already have seen an opportunity in the Greyhound cuts.

Fullington Auto Bus Co., based in Clearfield, operates Trailways lines under a franchise agreement. The company stepped in to provide express service for Penn State University students from State College to Pittsburgh and to King of Prussia in Eastern Pennsylvania when Greyhound eliminated weekend service two weeks ago.

The express service leaves State College at 3 p.m. on Fridays and stops in Monroeville and Pittsburgh, The return trip leaves the Downtown Greyhound station, with which Trailways has a carrier agreement, at 5 p.m. Sunday.

"We're hoping the express service to Pittsburgh will be a successful one," said Milt Weisman, director of Fullington's intercity coach services. "The first trip we did [last weekend] wasn't bad, but there will be an education process with the kids, too. Penn State is a mainstay of our business, so we wanted to keep serving our customers there."

Lakefront Lines Inc. of Brook Park, Ohio, has contacted officials about expanding its lines into Steubenville, which had been served by Greyhound's Columbus-to-Pittsburgh route.

The Steel Valley Regional Transit Authority, which provides local bus service in Steubenville and nearby Mingo Junction, also is exploring the availability of federal grants to subsidize bus service in and out of the area, authority board President Susan Hogue said.

But not all local transit companies are interested in adjusting their routes to accommodate the Greyhound cuts.

GG&C Bus Co. in Washington operates a daily service to Pittsburgh with a stop at the South Hills Port Authority T station, but has no plans to stop at the Greyhound station, company President John Lenzner said. Nor does Charleroi-based 88 Transit Lines.

Pittsburgh's Greyhound station has temporarily relocated to a spot adjacent to the Allegheny County Jail in a parking lot accessible by Second Avenue. A new station, under construction at the corner of Liberty Avenue and Eleventh Street, will be part of a Pittsburgh Parking Authority garage slated to open in February 2008.