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THE JITNEY THEN WHAT?
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A Ready-Made Opportunity for a Philadelphia Industry
The jitney is abroad in the land.
It is rife in the West and is sweeping eastward
with the rapidity which always follows when some
thing springs into being that? fills a long-felt want.
Already it has made its appearance in this city.
And its coming has a portent for one of the
great industries of Philadelphia.
"Jitney" originally was slang for a five-cent
piece.
On a day not very many weeks ago, a man
appeared in the streets of a far Western city with an
automobile and a sign on it, announcing that he
would take people wherever they wanted to go
within the business district for -five cents a jitney.
He soon filled his car, and by the end of the day, his
pockets. His success was so immediate and so
public that it is small wonder that within a few
days there were in that city a dozen jitney chauffeurs.
By the strange telepathy of success, the idea leaped
to other cities. In four weeks San Francisco had
1500 jitneys chiefly second-hand automobiles. Los
Angeles has 1000, Seattle, Portland, Salt Lake City,
Kansas City, St. Louis, Fort Worth, Chicago and
many other cities have them by scores and hun
dreds. In half a dozen Eastern cities they are
beginning to appear.
The gasoline and tire companies are supporting
the idea, city governments are drafting new traffic
regulations, franchises and licenses and the trac
tion interests are seriously considering how they
can best meet the situation.
The jitney is here the inevitable result of the
combination of two things the growing discomfort
of traveling in crowded street cars, and the drop in
the cost of the automobile.
The jitney as a five-cent public utility is here
to stay. Whether it will stay in its present form is
a question. At present, any automobile may be a
jitney. Some are just touring cars, some have special
round bodies and look like great wash-tubs. Some
are converted trucks, and some are the familiar auto
bus.
Herein lies the opportunity for Philadelphia.
The jitney should logically develop to the point
-where it is carrying not merely five or seven pas
sengers, but as many as can be carried. This
means the automobile bus.
A representative of one of the largest auto
mobile factories in the country has already made
the prediction that "the jitney will soon disappear
to be replaced by an 'automobile express' cars
built especially for city-passenger traffic, with a
capacity of ten or a dozen persons each and operat
ing regular routes, with branch lines and transfer
stations." He says that several manufacturers are
already at work on this idea, as a result of the
advent of the jitney bus.
The present agitation seems to point to a greater
use of automobile bus lines in cities and towns of
all sizes.
The normal function of such lines would be not
directly to compete with the street cars, except at
points of great congestion. They would rather
operate over streets and through districts not now
served by transportation, carrying people to the con
necting points of the car lines and opening up new
territories.
It is not inconceivable that the traction interests
will in the end find the motor bus a valuable factor
in solving: the problems, both of congestion and of
tapping districts which for reasons of expense, street
regulations or otherwise, cannot be reached by tracks.
Philadelphia is a center for the manufacture of
! automobile buses. In many American cities there
are today operating bua lines equipped by Philadel
phia makers, many of them doing the very work
outlined above.
Detroit seized and developed the automobile
industry.
Why should not Philadelphia seize and develop
the jitney bus industry?
Why should not a corporation which is pre
pared to manufacture and deliver jitney buses
enter at once into a powerful campaign of national
advertising, based on these ideas:
1. To crystallize and direct the movement NOW, and bring it into
general public favor.
2. To point out that properly handled, the jitney need not be an
tagonistic to the interests and investment of existing traction
lines, but rather may be made to supplement and feed them
reducing critical congestion and developing profitable business
for them.
3. To show how the jitney may be introduced anywhere by an in
dividual or a small group of men, without a great outlay of
capital, not only in a large city, but in any small city or large
town.
4. To point out the greater profits to be earned by the operation
of buses as against smaller automobiles.
5. To sell Philadelphia-made buses, taking advantage of the pres
tige already established for them.
Detroit, while other cities looked askance, made
the automobile industry its own and made fortunes
by it.
Shall not Philadelphia building on a ground
work already established make of the jitney bus
a great Philadelphia industry ?
The Ladies' Home Journal The Saturday Evening Post The Country Gentleman
The Curtis Publishing Company, Independence Square, Philadelphia
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