Why Jitneys Will Survive Uber
“Outside a chain grocery store in a gentrifying Washington, D.C., neighborhood, a line of cars waits for would-be passengers. Five or six drivers stand bunched together outside their vehicles, talking and joking. When a potential rider—an older woman with an overflowing cart—comes through the sliding doors, one of the men approaches her, asking if she needs a ride home. She nods, he loads her groceries into the trunk of his sedan, and they’re off. The men aren’t with a taxi company or Uber. They drive jitneys—and though drivers’ vehicles are generally licensed and insured, the service they provide is technically illegal, as it evades the city regulations that taxis and liveries follow. Regardless, jitneys are found in cities all over the United States. ‘Dollar vans’ cruise New York’s boroughs, and ‘hack cabs’ offer rides in East Baltimore. Pittsburgh is famous for this type of transport; playwright August Wilson’s opus, Jitney, about a jitney station in the city’s Hill District, premiered in 1982 and is now playing on Broadway.”