Hampton Jitney: Sorry We've Been Running Late (Blame Bill de Blasio)
The Hampton Jitney is a private bus line that takes well-off New York City residents from the city to the Long Island towns where well-off New York City residents enjoy spending summer weekends. Lately, some of those buses have experienced delays. One can only imagine the effect sitting in traffic must have on the already enervating class anxiety felt by Jitney riders who cannot, as their betters do, charter weekly helicopters.
Thankfully, Hampton Jitney is a company that knows to get in front of a potential user revolt. Hampton Jitney, Inc. President Geoffrey Lynch drafted a statement that the company posted to its official Twitter account:
A Message from Hampton Jitney President @HJGEOFF To Our Valued Passengers... pic.twitter.com/QXhmYIlzXo
May 29, 2015
I see.
Hampton Jitney would like you to know: If you were stuck in traffic, the fault lies not in the artery-choking number of private cars belonging to your fellow well-off New Yorkers joining you in fleeing the city at exactly the same time every summer Friday, but in “Vision Zero,” a city-wide policy program designed to reduce avoidable pedestrian deaths. Your Jitneys have been running behind schedule because Mayor Bill de Blasio will no longer allow buses to make left turns at a dangerous and heavily trafficked intersection. We apologize for the inconvenience.
I’m sure an upstanding operation like Hampton Jitney, and its many fine riders, would never intentionally seek to undermine public safety just to save 30 minutes on the drive to Sag Harbor. After all, what would a private bus company have to gain from leading some of its many well-off regular users to come to resent a mayoral program designed to force private bus companies to operate more cautiously, inconveniencing a few thousand well-off people for the sake of the city’s millions of pedestrians?