Curb Rights: A Foundation for Free Enterprise in Urban Transit

Abstract

The authors of this book say it is time to rethink the fundamental structure of transit policy. The book focuses on street-based transit -- buses, shuttles, and jitneys. (While street-based transit in the U. S. today usually means bus service, in other times and places streets have also been served by smaller vehicles called jitneys that follow a route but not a schedule). The authors examine a variety of transit services: jitney services in America's past, illegal jitneys today, airport shuttle van services, bus deregulation in Great Britain, and jitney services in less developed countries. They propose that urban transit be brought into the fold of market activity by establishing property rights no only in vehicles, but also in zones and transit stops. Market competition and entrepreneurship would depend on a foundation of what they call curb rights. By creating exclusive and transferable rights (to bus stops and other pickup points) leased by auction, the authors contend that American cities can have the best of both kinds of markets -- scheduled (and unsubsidized) bus service and unscheduled but faster and more flexible jitneys. They maintain that a carefully planned transit system based on property rights would rid the transit market of inefficient government production and overregulation.

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