In 1997, the Register sent me to a conference on local government given by some liberal academics up in Ventura. The first problem was that nightmare of every journalist: no free booze.
The second problem was the liberal academics. I didn’t need to suffer, dry, through a weekend of socialism.
Turned out it was really interesting. Hey, liberals, I have an open mind — sometimes.
The most interesting lecture was about how high costs for government transit workers’ wages and benefits mean they have to operate large buses, which means fewer riders on some routes.
It makes sense. There’s only so much money for bus transit. Wages are high because bus transit is a monopoly and the union exerts pressure. That leaves less money for buying buses. So the transit authority — in our local case, the Orange County Transportation Authority — buys large buses that often, as everyone notices, ride around with one or two passengers.
And the unions often go on strike, as we’re now seeing in O.C. in the third day of the bus drivers-strike.
If a free-market system were set up, as I called for yesterday, wages would be set at lower levels. That would give more people jobs as bus drivers, while leaving more money available for capital — that is, more buses. We would have more but smaller buses on more routes.
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Great post!
“The first problem was that nightmare of every journalist: no free booze.” LOL!
While jitneys are nice, the problem is not state regulations… it’s actually federal regulation, specifically the ADA that Republican Senator Bob Dole championed and Republican President George H.W. Bush signed. And for good reason, since folks in wheelchairs can board a bus just like anyone else, or call a taxi company and request a wheelchair cab stop at their house. But the ADA also requires that all public facilities be accessible, which presents an unreasonable demand to jitney operators to have their drivers handle the physically disabled.
In addition, you have the wonderful world of liability insurance to come into play. Most jitneys look like crap and can’t afford all the liability insurance. California’s only legal jitney operator, in the wonderfully liberal bastion of San Francisco, paid $18,000 in liability insurance a year in 1997, and that on a then-19 year old GMC van. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/1997/07/28/MN52459.DTL Could they meet OCTAP’s demands of working air conditioning, seat belts, and rollable windows? Could they afford the liability insurance? Generally, insurance companies don’t like you carrying strangers, or goods for hire. That is the real killer of the free market, not alleged government regulation.