Intermodal Facilities

Intermodal facilities are essential for travelers to seamlessly transition from one mode of transportation to another. An intermodal facility can be as simple as a park and ride with a bus facility and a parking lot of cars or, more complex structures like the Hawthorne facility in Minneapolis or South Station in Boston, connecting motorcoaches with transit buses, Amtrak and light rail and car parking. The new legislation includes $35 million per year from the discretionary transit grant program, for a total of $175 million (over the next 5 years), to be used for intermodal transportation facilities that would connect over-the-road buses, intercity passenger rail, urban mass transit, and rural local transit. Under the previous bill, these facilities were eligible for funding, but few have been built due to a lack of a dedicated funding stream. ABA was successful in securing these funds by making the intercity bus portions of intermodal facilities eligible for Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funds.

For charter and tour operators, intermodal facilities can provide a gathering point for your groups, for scheduled service providers, intermodal facilities can provide a hub for your operations. Some examples of intermodal centers built in recent years along the interstate system were built with government funding, but maintained and operated by private motorcoach companies providing concessions to their industry partners. Some of the facilities even connect Amtrak service providing a direct link to motorcoach service and a constant stream of passengers. These bright, well-maintained, facilities also help put a good face on the industry making the access point to the motorcoach "world" a positive one.