By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Every day during the summer, the ubiquitous green and white jitneys in Sea Isle City run their route between the Townsends Inlet Bridge in the southern tip of town and 29th Street in the north end.
Christine Bechtelheimer, who has a vacation place at the Dolphin Beach condominiums on Third Street, wants to know why the jitneys don’t travel all the way up to her part of the island.
“When I talk to people about the jitney service, they just can’t believe that they don’t come past 29th Street. I tell them that it’s not fair. Besides not being fair, it’s not safe,” she said in an interview.
Bechtelheimer appeared at a City Council meeting Tuesday to urge Sea Isle officials to have the jitney drivers expand their service to include the far northern end of town. She believes that a municipal parking lot at Fourth Street could be used as a spot for the jitneys to pick up passengers and safely turnaround.
In remarks to Council, she said she sees groups of people from the north end walking along Landis Avenue or on the beach all the way up to 29th Street to catch the jitney.
“I don’t want a tragedy out there,” she said of pedestrians sharing the narrow strip of Landis Avenue with regular traffic.
Before Bechtelheimer made her remarks, Council President Mary Tighe said she has received a couple of emails complaining about the lack of jitney service north of 29th Street. Tighe noted that she has spoken to the private association that represents the jitney drivers.
“We are open for discussions about it,” Tighe told Bechtelheimer about Sea Isle officials considering the possibility of extending the jitney route north of 29th Street.
Tighe also raised safety concerns about pedestrians mixing with regular traffic on Landis Avenue while walking to the jitney stop on 29th Street. She said she intends to speak to Sea Isle’s police department about it.
City Business Administrator George Savastano told Tighe that police haven’t seen a lot of pedestrians walking along Landis Avenue to catch the jitney at 29th Street.
Savastano added that city officials have spoken to the jitney association and were told that the jitney drivers don’t want to travel north of 29th Street because “frankly, there’s no business” in that part of town.
Dave Berry, president of the Sea Isle Jitney Association, said in an interview Wednesday that July represents an extremely busy time of year for the jitneys on their regular route between the Townsends Inlet Bridge and 29th Street.
“There’s no way we can do a full route. I wish I could appease every single person. It’s too hard to do,” he said of the possibility of expanding beyond 29th Street.
Berry also explained that it may not be feasible for the jitneys to travel past 29th Street because they run on compressed natural gas and are limited in how far they can go.
Jitney drivers transport riders anywhere on the island from 94th Street at the base of the Townsends Inlet Bridge to 29th Street. Their summer hours are 4 p.m. to 3 a.m. daily up to Labor Day. The one-way fare is $2 from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. and $4 from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m., according to Sea Isle’s tourism website.
A few years ago, the jitneys ran service up to Strathmere through the northern part of Sea Isle as part of a program privately subsidized by local restaurants. The subsidies ended, so the jitneys no longer go to Strathmere, Berry pointed out.
“The ridership just wasn’t there,” Berry said, noting that even with the subsidies there weren’t enough passengers to justify the trips to Strathmere.
Bechtelheimer questioned whether the jitneys were focused only on profits instead of providing convenient service for passengers. She said it would be only an extra 1.3 miles to run from 29th Street to the parking lot on Fourth Street.
“It just can’t be about money for the jitney service. It just can’t be about profit,” she said to the Council members.
In an interview afterward, Bechtelheimer said she believes there should be hourly jitney service up to the far north end of Sea Isle. She also said passengers should be able to call the jitneys to come pick them up at the Fourth Street parking lot.
Bechtelheimer also thinks that social media should be used to promote jitney trips between Sea Isle and Ocean City, believing that would be a way to boost ridership.
After the Council meeting, Bechtelheimer spoke with Mayor Leonard Desiderio and Councilman Jack Gibson about the possibility of extending the jitney route.
“We’ll work on it for you,” Desiderio told her.
