Megabus plans to pull its passenger bus service out of Chattanooga on May 1 until the low-cost, intercity carrier can find a new place to board and unload passengers.
Megabus – which unlike Greyhound doesn’t have brick-and-mortar bus stations – has been shunted from one place to another around Chattanooga since it first came here in 2011, dogged by complaints that its passengers hang out and cause a nuisance during multi-hour layovers.
The bus line is no longer welcome at its current bus stop across from T-Bone’s Sports Cafe at West Main and Chestnut streets near Finley Stadium.
“It is hurting my business,” said Susan Danner, co-owner of T-Bone’s, who complained of Megabus passengers camped out at 8 a.m. when Danner arrives at work and others who’ve helped themselves to T-Bone’s’ bathrooms and cursed T-Bone’s’ staff.
“They’re all over my deck, they’re all under my awning,” Danner said. “They go in there and lock the bathroom doors. They steal the toilet paper. They start telling my cook what to fix them to eat – and they’ve got five minutes.”