Private Transit

Many analyses of transit presume that, if government did not subsidize transit, transit wouldn’t exist and everyone who rides it would instead be driving cars. In fact, there are many private transit lines, but they are hard to find partly because the Federal Transit Administration’s National Transit Database only includes lines that are subsidized and partly because private transit is actually illegal in many parts of the country.

One place where private transit is unregulated is Miami, where at least 13 different jitney companies compete against the public transit system. Some of these companies offer rides at lower rates than the public system and even go so far as to run their vehicles a few minutes ahead of the scheduled public bus service.

Houston has a new jitney service called the Washington Wave (because its first route was on Washington Street). There are also a variety of jitneys in New Jersey, plus, of course, the Atlantic City Jitneys.

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Another claim often made about rail transit is that middle-class people won’t ride buses. This is disproven by the private Hampton Jitney, which runs a luxury bus service between Manhattan and the Hamptons, as well as other points on Long Island and, occasionally, such exotic places as Boston and the Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut. The Hamptons Jitney has operated without subsidies for 36 years.

I invite any readers who know of other private transit services to mention them in the comments.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

10 Responses to Private Transit

  1. OFP2003 says:

    http://www.quicksbus.com/
    They park near my office during the day, do they receive a subsidy? I don’t know.

  2. David Keddie says:

    In the northeast we have the chinatown bus and bolt bus which provide intercity travel between Boston and D.C. for chump change compared to amtrak. Bolt provides Boston to New York for $15 for example, including free wifi, which is more than can be said for the Acela last time I checked. Another line I noticed recently in Jersey is Academy Bus.

  3. Frank says:

    I’ve taken the Hampton Jitney from Long Island to NYC. It cost only slightly more than the LIR and dropped me off at a stop of my choosing along its route through Manhattan. Great service.

  4. blacquejacqueshellac says:

    “The 380 buses operated within the city of Mazatlan are each owned by respective drivers and driven along routes established by the Alianza, a union that regulates bus operations in the city.”

    http://www.mazatlan.com.mx/tipsandadvice/gettingaround_bus.htm

  5. jwetmore says:

    I understand there are independent van drivers operating in New York City which the Institute for Justice defended a number of years ago when the City tried to shut them down.

    I have recently seen an article saying that when the transit authority reduced bus service recently the private operators were asked to provide feeder service to the remaining bus lines.

    Here is a link to one story about the lawsuit. http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=816&Itemid=165

  6. bennett says:

    The Salt Lake Express is a successful privately owned intercity bus/van opperation in N. Utah, S. Idaho and W. Wyoming. They receive some subsidy (very little relatively, mostly for “some” vehicle purchases) but are a for-profit transit system.

    http://www.saltlakeexpress.com/home.cfm?gclid=CJn0mfe5jKQCFZJl7AodMF9wHA

  7. I just discovered an editing error left a couple of paragraphs out of this post. I’ve fixed it.

    OFP2003, thanks for letting me know about Quicks Bus. It isn’t in the National Transit Database, so I presume it gets no federal subsidies.

    Thanks for all of the other links as well. The Salt Lake Express is interesting; at first glance, it looks like an airport shuttle, but it also serves downtown Salt Lake.

  8. bennett says:

    “The Salt Lake Express is interesting; at first glance, it looks like an airport shuttle, but it also serves downtown Salt Lake.”

    Many passengers in Idaho use it for intrastate intercity use. The system is mostly (if not all) regularly scheduled and on a fixed route, not door to door/demand response like Super Shuttle. People in rural SE Idaho take it into Boise quite often. Word is they are developing a run up to Missoula too.

    Airport shuttles are a good example of privately owned transit too. Taxi’s and Limos too.

  9. Adam says:

    “Another claim often made about rail transit is that middle-class people won’t ride buses.”

    I’ve never heard that claim. The claim I have heard, and which is largely supported by the facts I have seen, is that more people will ride a train service than will ride a bus service, other things being equal. Compare ridership when bus routes are replaced with train lines and vice versa. It is a reasonably consistent effect.

    And please don’t respond by citing a single counter-example. N=1 means nothing.

  10. Jitneys/dollar vans are very popular in immigrant communities in Brooklyn, Queens, and North Jersey. They’ve privately run and unsubsidized, and while the Jersey jitneys in neighborhoods like Jersey City and Patterson are (mostly) legal, the dollar vans in Caribbean neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Queens are (mostly) not.

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