In the August 7th, 2008 edition of Houston's newspaper of note, Leslie Casimir wrote the story of how it takes Houstonians Pablo Camarillo and 72 year old Margaret Jenkins hours of their precious time during their busy days in order for them to get to work. The Chronicle included an online map showing Mrs. Jenkins' torturous daily commute to her home off of Airport Boulevard on Houston's south side to her job on South Loop West.
Mrs. Jenkins' daily commute, the Chronicle reported, takes an estimated 83 minutes. The Wizard decided to punch in Mrs. Jenkins' home and work locations on Google Maps, using the terms 3300 Airport Blvd and 2616 South Loop as the two end locations in order to determine the distance between her home and job. Google Maps reported that the fastest trip was what I expected. Simply take Airport Blvd in a west bound direction until you hit 288, then turn north on 288. When you reach the intersection of 288 and South Loop, turn west and around. The distance is six miles and Google Maps estimates that the trip takes 9 minutes, right in line with what Mrs. Jenkins says in the story. She says the trip by car takes 10 minutes.
Clearly the story generated a firestorm of comments on the Chronicle's website. Tory writes about the issue here. Tory asks whether we have our big government transit monopoly priorities straight?
The Wizard believes that there may be an answer to Mrs. Jenkins' and Mr. Camarillo's dilemma that doesn't involve having a monopolistic government transit agency spend $100 million or more per mile on rail lines, not that any of Metro's proposed rail lines would not help either Mr. Camarillo or Mrs. Jenkins get to their jobs since they won't run where they need to go anyway. That solution involves loosening up the City of Houston ordinances governing the operations of jitneys.
Jitneys are a form of transportation that are widely used in poorer countries, in places that don't have billions of taxpayer dollars to fund grandiose transit monuments. The Wizard has taken jitney trips in several countries, including the Philippines (where they are called Jeepney's), and in Thailand. Steven Baron extensively discussed the use of jitneys in Houston in his book Houston Electric. In that book, Baron notes that Houston City Council outlawed the operation of jitneys in 1924, at which they had captured nearly 25 percent of the passenger market in Houston. However at the 2008 American Dream Coalition conference in Houston last May, I heard Alfredo Santos tell of his story where he started operating a jitney illegally. HPRA President and public activist Barry Klein helped Mr. Santos get legal help, which eventually led to the overturning of the jitney ordinance some years ago and their legalization.
So why aren't jitneys more widely used in Houston? Well, whenever something is legal but rarely used, the Wizard immediately starts suspecting government interference and sure enough, if one decides to pay a visit to the City of Houston ordinances governing the operation of jitneys (Chapter 46, Article VI), one immediately notices some very serious regulatory barriers to entry that would be jitney operators face in entering the competitive field for transportation. Notably:
1) A vehicle used for jitney operations cannot be more than five years old! So, my 19 year old Honda which has over 180,000 miles on it, and which could continue to be safely operated for years to come could not be used as a jitney vehicle.
Imagine if Metro was told that their $500,000 buses, which are usually designed to last for roughly 12 years and 500,000 miles of operation, could not by law be allowed to operate for more than five years? Imagine if Metro's $3.2 million rail cars, which usually last for some 30-35 years with some overhauls, could not be allowed to operate for more than five years? The public would go completely bananas.
2) Jitney vehicle operators must submit an operating plan to the City, including a fixed route and fares. Jitney operators are not allowed to travel elsewhere unless they submit a new route to the City. That means that jitney operators and would be passengers are not allowed to negotiate fares, something that is standard practice in other countries.
It also means that jitney operators cannot fully utilize the full flexibility of their vehicles by servicing an entire area of town and potentially capturing more customers with door to door service. I've been on a number of bus and jitney trips abroad where vehicle operators stopped off on the side of the road or wandered off course on behalf of some passengers. Imagine if a Domino's Pizza franchisee opens a store in your area of town with intentions of servicing a 4 mile radius area around the store, but then is told by the City that they can only service homes or businesses that are on a handful of streets and nowhere else. How many Domino's stores would now be in existence?
3) Jitney operators face bonding and insurance requirements that Metro does not. Under the Texas Tort Claims Act, your life is only worth $100,000 if you suffer injury or death while involved with any kind of accident with a Metro vehicle. It should be obvious to everyone that jitney operators don't enjoy such governmental immunity.
There are more, but no doubt that the usual rationale would be offered as to why these regulations are in place and that is that we need to protect the public. It should be equally obvious to everyone that this ordinance doesn't protect the public from anything, but was instead written to protect Yellow Cab and Metro from market competition, not to help the citizens of Houston get around more quickly or conveniently.
Jitneys also present another problem, this one in the political marketplace. Jitneys don't allow politicians to spend billions of dollars in cost overruns on big transportation make work projects, they don't allow for photo opportunities or to put their names into the history books, nor do they help politicians obtain millions in campaign contributions. They also would drive lovers of government transit berserk. However by lifting lifting the regulatory barriers to entry to jitney operations, the City just might allow a solution to come forward which could allow Mrs. Jenkins to get to her job in 10 minutes and to succeed where taxpayer funded public transit fails.
Are you a class warfare type who is worried that Mrs. Jenkins might have to pay $10 for her twelve mile round trip back and forth to work everyday? Good! All that goes to show is that you don't know how much Mrs. Jenkins values her time. Who knows? She just might be willing to pay that kind of money so that she can get 2 hours and 20 minutes of her day back. Who knows, maybe a friendly jitney operator may decide to cut a deal and price discriminate for her so that she could get a round trip for $5 per day, but we won't know unless City regulations are loosened up.
Next, I write about having lunch with Bill King.
Wizard
