NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas — A bus full of out-of-town people felt abandoned and left to find their own accommodations after almost being left on a North Little Rock street corner.
It was due to an alleged miscommunication about a bus stop that is now condemned.
The bus had people on it who were traveling long distances— one woman said she was headed to Iowa, and another to Florida.
When passengers arrived in North Little Rock expecting to stay the night, they had no idea the bus stop was shut down, and they would be left to figure out when and if a connecting bus would arrive.
"Very frustrating. Very frustrating," said Valarie Williams, a passenger on the Jefferson Lines bus.
The trip was already off to a rocky start when the bus was late picking passengers up at their last location.
"I was really scared because the bus was already over an hour late getting there, so I knew that we were not going to make the connection," said Kathie Rippey, another passenger.
The next stop was North Little Rock, but little did they know that the bus stop had been shut down.
"There's evidently a communication gap between Jefferson bus lines and Greyhound, or else we wouldn't be standing in front of a condemned building fixing to get left on the side of the street," said Williams.
North Little Rock Mayor Terry Hartwick happened to be driving by and saw the people getting off the bus. He said the city bought the building more than a year ago.
"I pulled over to see what was going on and found out they were dropping them off with no bathrooms available, no water, no food, no anything," said Mayor Hartwick.
The mayor talked to the bus driver and the dispatch for the bus company. He was able to make sure that all passengers would have a place to stay the night and breakfast to eat in the morning.
"I'm just happy that it worked out that the mayor was just driving by," said Rippey.
Greyhound responded to THV11's request about the incident. They sent an email saying, "The new Greyhound stop in Little Rock began today and was established in cooperation with the city. The stop has designated signage for customers. Greyhound is not aware of any missed stops in the area at this time as buses are showing to be on their correct routes."
When THV11 looked on their website to find a Greyhound bus stop in Little Rock, there wasn't one listed. The only bus stop on the website near Little Rock was the condemned building in North Little Rock.
We are still in touch with the company to resolve the confusion and will update this article with more information as it becomes available.