Fung Wah Bus Transportation

Etymology

The name Fung Wah came from the Cantonese pronunciation of the Chinese name 風華, which means "magnificent wind."

Route

Fung Wah used a fleet of over two dozen buses to operate hourly scheduled service between South Station in Boston and Chinatown in Manhattan. It usually traveled over Interstate 95 on its route.

History

Fung Wah was founded in New York City in 1996, as Fung Wah Transport Vans, Inc., by Pei Lin Liang, who had immigrated from Zhuhai, China in 1988. Before founding the company, Liang had worked as a driver for Four Seas, a local dollar van service that shuttled Chinese garment and restaurant workers from Sunset Park in Brooklyn to Chinatown in Manhattan. Fung Wah began as a direct competitor with Liang's former employer. The Chinese characters of the company's name were written in English as Fenghua Jieyun Gongsi and translated as Elegant Rapid Transit Company. Translations of "Fung Wah" from Cantonese included Chinese Wind.

In 1997, Liang borrowed $60,000 and bought four vans at the request of customers who wanted to visit their children in college in Boston, and gradually grew to being a low cost intercity transit provider. As one of the first of the Chinatown bus lines, Fung Wah operated between designated curbside locations only. By 2003, Fung Wah and competitors like Lucky Star Bus were competing fiercely, with low prices and allegations of crime connections at other competitors. While it originally operated curbside out of Boston's Chinatown, Fung Wah moved to the nearby Boston South Station bus terminal in 2004 due to traffic concerns from Boston city government. Between 1997 and 2007, Chinatown buses like Fung Wah took 60% of Greyhound Lines' market share in the northeast United States.

On June 15, 2009, Fung Wah expanded service to Rhode Island at the Kennedy Plaza bus terminal in downtown Providence, but discontinued this route in 2010.

In February 2013, an investigative report broadcast on WBZ-TV Boston found cracked frames on Fung Wah buses. Massachusetts authorities then ordered most of the Fung Wah fleet off the road. In March 2013, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration declared Fung Wah an "imminent hazard to public safety" and ordered it to cease all operations with its then-current fleet. On March 28, 2013, the US Department of Transportation ordered the company to immediately suspend all service. In September 2013, it was reported that both Fung Wah and Lucky Star lines (another "Chinatown bus" line) had done extensive work, training, and purchases hoping to get their bus lines operating again. There would be a re-filing for their operating licenses and possible limited resumption of service in Fall 2013.

On February 7, 2014, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration denied Fung Wah's request to resume operations, claiming the company "was not willing nor able to comply" with federal intercity bus safety standards. Fung Wah's law firm, the New York firm Freeman Lewis LLC, appealed the decision.

On December 18, 2014, it was announced that the bus line would resume service in early 2015. Fung Wah spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to improve the safety of its buses between February 2013 and December 2014; in addition, it was revealed that inspections of the buses were flawed. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will monitor Fung Wah closely after operations resume.

However, in July 2015, before resumption of service was slated to start, owner Peter Liang announced that the service would end permanently. The line reportedly shut down because it could not find a bus stop in Boston's South Station. Alternatives, such as Alewife station at the northern terminus of the Red Line subway in Cambridge, were reportedly given as an option but deemed too far away from its traditional operating locus near Chinatown in Boston.

"Fare wars"

With fares lower than other bus and rail carriers between New York City and Boston (as low as $10 during a fare war) Fung Wah had become popular with young people and other travelers on a budget. In early 2013, Massachusetts and Federal authorities issued a series of safety citations, declared it to be an "imminent hazard to public safety", imposed operating restrictions, and ultimately ordered Fung Wah to cease all operations.

Safety-related incidents

Fung Wah buses have been involved in several safety-related incidents. In 2005, the company was given a federal safety rating of 73 out of 100, 100 being the worst, and 75 or above considered at risk of being unsafe and subject to crashes. Ian Grossman of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (United States Department of Transportation) reported that Fung Wah drivers rated in the worst 2 percent of drivers nationwide based on regulatory violations, and nine out of 71 Fung Wah drivers were suspended after inspection between 2004 and 2006. Still, many travelers were not discouraged.

Discrimination lawsuit

In January 2004, due to the company's policy barring pets from buses, the Fung Wah Bus Company refused to sell tickets to a blind couple traveling with a guide dog, even when informed by the couple—and later by police responding to a disturbance call—that the couple had the right to board the bus with a service animal. In conjunction with the Massachusetts Attorney General, the couple later filed a discrimination lawsuit against the company, which was allowable per the Attorney General's office: "Massachusetts law prohibits discrimination against blind persons and requires businesses to allow service animals in their establishments even when there is an existing “no pet” policy, as long as the animal is controlled and does not otherwise pose an undue burden." In July 2007, the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination awarded the couple $60,000 in damages, assessed a $10,000 civil penalty payable to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and ordered the company to take several steps to prevent discrimination in the future.