A dollar van (also known as a commuter van, jitney) is a privately owned type of bus service used to carry passengers in the United States of America. Dollar vans typically operate in neighborhoods within urban areas that are under-served by public mass transit or taxis. Some of the dollar vans are licensed and regulated, while others operate illegally. Passengers may board them at designated stops along their route or hail them as share taxis (although the latter practice may be technically illegal). The name comes from the fact that it would only cost about one dollar or so to ride with such transit. Dollar vans are primarily owned and used by inner-city African/Caribbean American, Latino, and Asian American populations. Travelers cite cost and greater frequency as factors in choosing jitneys over larger bus service, whereas safety and comfort are cited for choosing buses.
Read more about Dollar Van: New York City and Northern New Jersey
Famous quotes containing the words dollar and/or van:
“How can a man be satisfied to entertain an opinion merely, and enjoy it? Is there any enjoyment in it, if his opinion is that he is aggrieved? If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The first day that we landed upon that fatal shore
The planters they came round us full twenty score or more,
They rank’d us up like horses, and sold us out of hand
Then yok’d us unto ploughs, my boys, to plow Van
Dieman’s Land.”
—Unknown. Van Dieman’s Land (l. 9–12)