NY Eve Van
Last night was a blast, as me and my friends celebrated New Year’s Eve together at a friend’s apartment. Bottles of champagne were popped and the bubbly was spread all around. As the mingling continued throughout the evening, more friends showed up. I asked one how he managed to get to the place, and he said it was by an unusual van “service” that he spotted at an earlier event. He said that public transit was a nightmare, and it was impossible to get a taxi (as noted here), but there was this van that was wandering around, picking up folks for $5 a head to anywhere in the city. It seemed rather dodgy, but at the same time, I had to applaud the genius of it. Not only does the van driver assures people gets home safely, he/she gets to make some small change too (although if you think about it, that $5 probably only covers gas money, and barely at that). I would love to find out who was behind the operation, and if he/she does this every year. Or maybe I’m just clueless and this is just a San Franciscan norm.
Well, here’s hoping mr/ms van driver managed to sneak in a Happy New Year celebration as well.
San Francisco does have laws on the books allowing vans to travel certain routes if approved by the Police Department and if shown not to inrterferfere with public safety. Vans operated under these rules for many years especially on Mission Street and between Caltrans and downtown. I researched the prospect of making the town van friendly again because I am blind and have travelled in many places in the world that have public transportation based on vans, usually provided by non governmnetal organizations. A web of political barriers stands in the way of non governmental or governmental fee based van based transit in San Francisco.. The largest barrier to van transit is the minimum 5 million dollar liability insurance coverage required by state law per van. As I recall from my research, this single act decimated the ranks of Jitney service providers as the small busses and vans were called. The premiums proved fatal to the Mission Street Jitney vans due in part to the evolution of common law over the decades making well ensured jitneys an easy target for litigation. You may be shocked, simply shocked to learn that the legislation that wiped out the jitneys was reported to be supported by the transit Unions and the Taxi Medallion Holders, all in the interest of public safety, of course.
The Libertarin Party of San Francisco spent considerable time and energy researching this subject last year in hopes of bringing the Jitney vans back by proposition. However, because the problem involves State and Local laws and involves the interests of intrenched powers, we reluctantly retreated.
Philip Berg