While not necessarily known for comfort, intercity buses like Greyhound and Megabus offer a low-cost way for riders to travel long distances. Buses across the country carry an estimated 62 million of riders annually, but the companies that operate them have been scaling back routes for years. The pandemic only made it worse.

“A lot of the operators were closing off service to rural and small-town areas, areas that are not as plugged in to the rest of the country,” said Jake Blumgart, a reporter for Governing Magazine.

Blumgart wrote about the plight of intercity buses and spoke to “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal about his reporting. According to Blumgart, ridership has started to return, but not everywhere.

“Those routes from Washington, D.C., to, say, New York or to Boston, those routes are kind of always going to be there,” Blumgart said. “There’s such a strong market in those areas. The real question is what’s going to happen to these other places.”

Click the audio player above to hear Blumgart’s conversation with Ryssdal.