Spanish Transportation, officially Spanish Transportation Service Corporation, and operating under the name Express Service, is a privately operated bus company, which leases

minibus A minibus, microbus, minicoach, or commuter (in Zimbabwe) is a passenger-carrying motor vehicle that is designed to carry more people than a multi-purpose vehicle or minivan, but fewer people than a full-size bus. In the United Kingdom, th ...

es to individual operators, who provide service in and between various communities in

northeastern New Jersey The Gateway Region is the primary urbanized area of the northeastern section of New Jersey. It is anchored by Newark, the state's most populous city. While sometimes known as the Newark metropolitan area, it is part of the New York metropolitan ...

and to

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The fleet consists mostly of jitneys, often called "the Spanish bus" or " dollar vans" by their English-speaking users, or guaguas by their majority-Spanish clientele.

Service levels

The company started in 1993, and carries up to 40,000 passengers per day. It has several routes that parallel New Jersey Transit bus routes, both competing with them and supplementing them. Unlike NJ Transit's similarly-operating routes, Spanish Transportation services: * cannot accommodate wheelchairs, strollers, or luggage * do not offer discounts for children under 12, senior citizens, or the walking disabled * do not offer multi-ride discounts (e.g., monthly passes) * provide more frequent service * allow for more flexible pickup and drop-off locations, including between scheduled stops

Routes

The company's primary routes are: *

Paterson, New Jersey Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Port Authority Bus Terminal The Port Authority Bus Terminal (colloquially known as the Port Authority and by its acronym PABT) is a bus station, bus terminal located in Manhattan in New York City. It is the busiest bus terminal in the world by volume of traffic, serving abo ...

(PABT), by way of

Passaic Passaic ( or ) is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a total population of 70,537, ranking as the 16th largest municipality in New Jersey and an increase of 656 from the 69,7 ...

Clifton Clifton may refer to: People *Clifton (surname) *Clifton (given name) Places Australia * Clifton, Queensland, a town **Shire of Clifton *Clifton, New South Wales, a suburb of Wollongong *Clifton, Western Australia Canada *Clifton, Nova Scotia ...

, Rutherford and Union City, and also letting off passengers on

streets nearby the PABT, mostly corresponding to NJT's #190 route. *

Paterson, New Jersey Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.George Washington Bridge Bus Station The George Washington Bridge Bus Station is a commuter bus terminal located at the east end of the George Washington Bridge in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan in New York City. The bus station is owned and operated by the Port Authori ...

Upper Manhattan Upper Manhattan is the most northern region of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its southern boundary has been variously defined, but some of the most common usages are 96th Street, the northern boundary of Central Park ( 110th Street), ...

via NJ Route 4, mostly corresponding to NJT's #171 route. *

Newport Mall Newport Centre, commonly known as Newport Mall, is a shopping mall in Jersey City, New Jersey, that opened in 1987. It is a major component of the enormous Newport, Jersey City, a mixed-use community on the Hudson River waterfront across from Lo ...

Jersey City Jersey City is the second-most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey, after Newark.George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal The George Washington Bridge Bus Station is a commuter bus terminal located at the east end of the George Washington Bridge in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan in New York City. The bus station is owned and operated by the Port Authori ...

, corresponding to NJT's 181 route (which only travels as far as the

Bergenline Avenue Bergenline Avenue is a major commercial district in the North Hudson section of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. The north–south streets passes through Union City, West New York, Guttenberg, North Bergen. Its southern end is at Uni ...

station on the

Hudson Bergen Light Rail Hudson may refer to: People * Hudson (given name) * Hudson (surname) * Henry Hudson, English explorer * Hudson (footballer, born 1986), Hudson Fernando Tobias de Carvalho, Brazilian football right-back * Hudson (footballer, born 1988), Hudson ...

. The Paterson route goes: inbound (Eastbound) primary route on Broadway from its Southwest corner with Washington Street (one block East of Main Street), Paterson; continuing on Broadway as changes name to Martin Luther King Jr. Way and the designation at the western terminus, which turns back into Broadway; crossing the

Passaic River Passaic River ( ) is a river, approximately long, in Northern New Jersey. The river in its upper course flows in a highly circuitous route, meandering through the swamp lowlands between the ridge hills of rural and suburban northern New Jersey, ...

and all of

Bergen County Bergen County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Route 4 (with a small detour to and from the northern bus stop near Entrance 10 to the

Westfield Garden State Plaza Garden State Plaza (officially Westfield Garden State Plaza) is a shopping mall located in Paramus, New Jersey. It is owned and managed by Paris-based real estate management company Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, and located at the intersection of ...

mall in

Paramus Paramus ( Waggoner, Walter H ''The New York Times'', February 16, 1966. Accessed October 16, 2018. "Paramus – pronounced puh-RAHM-us, with the accent on the second syllable – may have taken its name from 'perremus' or 'perymus,' Indian for ...

during mall and theater operating hours except on Sundays), losing the designation Route 4 at the eastern terminus; merging with

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1, US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between M ...

and the

George Washington Bridge The George Washington Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River, connecting Fort Lee, New Jersey, with Manhattan in New York City. The bridge is named after George Washington, the first president of the United St ...

(over the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

) and approaches in Fort Lee and Manhattan; to

George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal The George Washington Bridge Bus Station is a commuter bus terminal located at the east end of the George Washington Bridge in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan in New York City. The bus station is owned and operated by the Port Authori ...

identical to NJT's #171 route; the outbound (Westbound) return route is very similar, but its last stop is one block West, on West Broadway at its five-way corner with Broadway and Main Street in Paterson. Buses traveling the Broadway route do not stop adjacent to Eastside Park in Paterson (East of 32nd Street) because NJ Transit Bus 770 detours two blocks North on 11th Avenue from 33rd Street to 43rd Street and Paterson has not seen fit to post bus stop signs there; thus there are no bus stops at which to stop.

Terminals

The company rents space across Broadway from

Broadway Bus Terminal The Broadway Bus Terminal is a major local and regional bus terminal in Paterson, New Jersey operated by New Jersey Transit. It is located on Broadway between Memorial Drive and West Broadway in Downtown Paterson, putting it near Passaic County C ...

in Paterson and in Port Authority Bus Terminal (PABT) on 42nd Street and George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal in Manhattan

Other jitneys in North Jersey

In addition to Spanish Transportation owned vehicles, numerous other jitneys provide service in

North Jersey North Jersey comprises the northern portions of the U.S. state of New Jersey between the upper Delaware River and the Atlantic Ocean. The designation of northern New Jersey with a distinct toponym is a colloquial one rather than an administrativ ...

, particularly

Hudson County Hudson County is the most densely populated county in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It lies west of the lower Hudson River, which was named for Henry Hudson, the sea captain who explored the area in 1609. Part of New Jersey's Gateway Region in ...

along

Boulevard East Boulevard East (officially John F. Kennedy Boulevard East, and sometimes referred to as JFK Boulevard East) is a two-way, mostly two lane, scenic county road in the North Hudson, New Jersey municipalities of Weehawken, West New York, Guttenberg a ...

, and Palisade Avenue.Reiss, Aaron
"New York's Shadow Transit"
''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''. Accessed July 6, 2017. Studies were conducted to better regulate and incorporate the jitney system, which has grown since 2000. Legislation to regulate them has been introduced in the

New Jersey Legislature The New Jersey Legislature is the legislative branch of the government of the U.S. state of New Jersey. In its current form, as defined by the New Jersey Constitution of 1947, the Legislature consists of two houses: the General Assembly and the ...

. Many jitneys, including some of those owned by Spanish Transportation, use local streets in the vicinity of the PABT, namely 42nd Street, as a drop-off and pick-up point for passengers and parking, which has led to congestion and complaints.

References

External links

MapSpanish Transportation website
''Archived 9 December 2012; mostly in Spanish''
Drivers of Jitney buses doubt the purpose of random inspections in Hudson County
''YouTube NJNews12 Video in Spanish (uploaded October 7, 2011)''
Jitney Buses of New Jersey
&https://jerseydigs.com/beginners-guide-riding-jitney-new-jerseys-private-transit-system/ {{Hudson County Transportation Network Surface transportation in Greater New York Bus companies of the United States Companies based in New Jersey Transportation in Passaic County, New Jersey Transportation in Bergen County, New Jersey Transportation in Hudson County, New Jersey Transportation in Manhattan Transportation companies based in New Jersey