Photo: Brooks Duncan

1998

Fung Wah launches the first “Chinatown bus”: ﻿$25 ﻿curbside service to Boston.

May 2002

﻿Price war! Upstart competitors cause fares to get slashed ﻿from $40 to as low as $10﻿. Soon enough, things turn violent.

May 11, 2003

﻿Bus-company employee De Jian Chen﻿ dies in ﻿a drive-by shooting﻿. ﻿﻿Earlier, Chen had hit a man from a rival company with his bus.

Summer–Fall 2003

Arson is suspected when two buses catch ﻿fire. ﻿﻿A bus employee ﻿is stabbed nine times and killed in Chinatown after an on-bus argument about money. ﻿

November 2003

Ray Kelly creates an Asian crime task force to investigate the bloodshed, citing strong-arm methods, vandalism of buses, and possible gang and mob ties.

January 17, 2004

Bus wars suspected to be ﻿behind a Chinatown shooting spree by two men who opened fire with an AK-47 assault rifle and .45-caliber handgun. The boyfriend of a bus-company employee is killed.

June 2004

Greyhound ﻿launches a ﻿Chinatown bus route, promoting it as a safer alternative.

August 2005

A Fung Wah bus catches fire en route to New York; 45 passengers are evacuated just before flames engulf the bus. ﻿

August–September 5, 2006

A ﻿Pittsburgh–﻿New York bus crashes; five passengers are hospitalized. Thirty-four are injured when a Fung Wah bus flips over in ﻿Massachusetts﻿, ﻿prompting the company to agree to random safety checks﻿ and to use drivers who ﻿read and speak English.

September 2006

Senator Chuck Schumer lobbies to shut down ﻿curbside buses﻿; ﻿while Greyhound gets a safety-management rating of zero (out of 100, with lower numbers being better), the Chinatown bus companies range from 71 to ﻿99.

May 20, 2007

﻿A Chinatown–﻿bound bus ﻿crashes in ﻿Pennsylvania; two are killed, 32 injured﻿. Today, 24 companies ﻿operate an estimated 200 buses in the Northeast﻿.﻿

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