(In the past jitney companies and the MDTA have discussed forming partnerships. But the county has purchased its own minibuses instead and is starting to gain ground again on routes where it had been losing business. Still, jitneys serve a purpose, the MDTA's Palmero asserts. "But," he adds, "MDTA has no plans to subcontract them." So far the only collaboration between the two is that jitneys and Metrobuses accept each other's transfer passes.)
Despite Conchita's inability to tap into public coffers, the company is doing fairly well, thanks to a healthy crop of weekday workers and weekend flea market shoppers ripe for the riding. But Conchita can't travel beyond Miami Lakes. The county forbids it from doing so. Last year, Gil applied for a route modification to include the west side of the Palmetto Expressway. It hasn't been approved by the county yet.
Steve Satterwhite
Rene Gil, owner of Conchita, runs a respected -- and still profitable -- operation
Steve Satterwhite
Rene Gil, owner of Conchita, runs a respected -- and still profitable -- operation
Steve Satterwhite
Rene Gil, owner of Conchita, runs a respected -- and still profitable -- operation
Steve Satterwhite
Beverly Walker wants to free herself of King Jitney, Inc
Steve Satterwhite
Sliding on down the rail, this passenger's stop has just come up
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So Gil is focused on his drivers and passengers. Conchita will flourish if they are content, he says. Unlike other jitney companies, Conchita provides insurance and legal coverage for its operators. The company consults them on maintenance and allows them to hire their own part-time drivers for relief during workdays that average fifteen hours. "If you're able to take people to work on a daily basis without failing them, they will be working for years and so will we," Gil says. "Once you start not being reliable then you lose the ridership. They go away for a very long time until you can prove yourself again."
On this day a Conchita Transit Express jitney is traveling east on José Martí Boulevard. An elderly Cuban man sitting in the back of the van shouts to the driver, "Oye, aqui mismo en esta esquina (Hey, right on this corner)." The driver begins to slow down as the senior citizen, clad in a long-sleeve, peach-color guayabera, rises from his seat. The viejito's well-groomed head of cotton-white hair sways from side to side to the Spanish version of "I Love You, Baby," playing on oldies radio station Clasica 92 (WCMQ-FM 92.3) as he slides down the aisle using the railings above. Unlike Metrobuses, jitneys stop on demand. This Conchita driver doesn't even bother to pull over. He lets the man out at a red stoplight in the middle of traffic.
Beverly Walker, owner of King Jitney, Inc., wants to get rid of the twenty-year-old business she inherited from her father ten years ago when he suffered a stroke. "Back then business was good," she asserts. King Jitney, which travels from NW 79th Street and 27th Avenue to downtown, had twenty drivers. But Walker fired most of them when they stopped paying the $100 per week fee she charged them for driving under her company's flag. "They were poor payers," she complains. "Now I only have two drivers. I'm not making any money." She says drivers constantly complain to her about high gasoline prices and insurance costs ($500 per month).
Unaffordable auto insurance is one of the reasons Loreta Ferrer left the business. "The $4000 a year I paid in insurance was killing me," she says. Ferrer, a driver of thirteen years and part-owner of American Jitney, Inc., says she won't be driving the jitney parked outside her house anytime soon. She shared driving responsibilities with her husband of 36 years. When he died in February she began to face more difficulties as a solo driver. "No es facil (It's not easy)," comments Ferrer.
In addition to the daily tension of dealing with the public, the fact that she's a woman sometimes put her at a disadvantage, she claims. Furthermore the upkeep of a jitney was too much for her to handle alone. In the end there was little compensation; American Jitney picks up too few commuters along its MDTA-approved route (from NW 67th Avenue and 25th Street to the Orange Bowl). "They don't let us traffic in downtown," Ferrer complains. "They don't give us places that are rich in passengers."
Business may not be booming for Daniel Fils-Aime, owner of Miami Mini Bus, but it is steady. With 58 registered jitneys, he maintains his is the largest alternative-transportation provider in the county. But while it may be profitable for Fils-Aime to run close to 60 buses on the same line, the people who drive under his company flag say they must struggle to stay afloat. It points out the precarious nature of the enterprise. "They have too many vehicles on that route," contends Steven Oxenhandler, director of the county's passenger transportation regulatory division. "It's impossible for drivers on that route to make a decent living when they're competing for the same passengers."
Two Metrobuses also travel part of that route, as does Pierre Francisque, though these days not very often. There's little money in it, but the driver of the only minivan still in circulation for Florida Jitney Transportation does occasionally make the rounds near 163rd Street, "just to make the people see that my jitney still exists," he says.
