Fung Wah, the Iconic Chinatown Bus Company Closed By the Feds Last Year, Is Set to Reopen

Fung Wah, the iconic Chinatown bus company that became famous
for charging just $10 to travel between Boston and New York City,
will reopen early next year.

The Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has restored the
company’s operating authority, and getting its Boston to New York
bus service up and running again is just a matter of logistics,
says Alexander Linzer, the company’s attorney.

Fung Wah was started by Pei Lin Liang, a former noodle factory
deliveryman, as a local van service in New York City in 1993. Four
years later, Liang extended his service to Boston, charging just
$10 at a time when a Greyhound ticket between the two cities cost
$50. Liang’s model of picking up and dropping off passengers right
off the street was imitated by companies like BoltBus and Megabus,
giving rise to the “curbside bus industry,” which is now the
fastest growing mode of intercity travel in the U.S.

In March 2013, federal regulators ordered the company to stop
operating after several of its buses were taken off the road by
Massachusetts safety officials, who alleged that frame cracks in
some Fung Wah motorcoaches hadn’t been properly repaired. As
Reason
reported last year, field inspectors Steve Boleyn and Dyann
Prouty misunderstood the safety guidelines and erred in
their evaluation of Fung Wah’s fleet. The episode led safety
officials to quietly rewrite the official guidelines with regard to
frame cracks, but it had no effect on the company’s standing.

Immediately after its closure, Fung Wah spent $400,000
overhauling its fleet, retraining its drivers, hiring a full-time
safety manager, and retaining an outside consultant. But, like many
bus companies that lose their operating authority, Fung Wah spent
the next year and a half ensnared in a bureaucratic holding
pattern, at one point waiting six months for the FMCSA to consider
its application to resume service, only to be turned down on a
technicality.

The company appealed theatdecision, which after several months
led to a negotiation between Fung Wah’s attorneys and the FMCSA,
finally resulting in the reinstatement of the company’s operating
authority.

For background on how regulators botched the inspection of Fung
Wah’s fleet that led to the closure, read
“Why the Government Was Wrong to Shutdown Fung Wah’s Bus
Company.”

For an overview of the company’s struggles with the FMCSA, watch
this
report from Reason TV: