Five-cent jitney fares got folks around in the Depression

You don’t hear the word jitney much anymore. Shouldering so many definitions over the years, it has perhaps lost meaning. At various times, jitney has meant a fivecent coin, a renegade taxicab, a financial swindle, a dance hall charging for each dance, a Ford Model T, a forklift, even the marvellously preserved 106-year-old Jitney Dance Hall in Moose Jaw, Sask.

Here in Kitchener-Waterloo, the first small buses a century ago that paved the way for today’s Grand River Transit were known as jitneys because of their original fivecent fare.

Berlin and Waterloo’s 1889 mainline street railway, horse-drawn until it was electrified in 1895, ran back and forth between the two downtowns. To reach the streetcars there was one option — walk. As Berlin expanded outwards into four wards, an opportunistic entrepreneur began running a small 10-seat bus — a jitney — to “complement” the streetcars. This 1915 initiative was soon shut down because the operator instead began nabbing passengers from streetcar stops.

In 1923, Jacob Leis of Samuel Street briefly ran a jitney route between Kitchener and Bridgeport to compete with the Bridgeport branch of the streetcar line. His mistake was to make pickups within the city.

Through the 1920s, Kitchener’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) discussed establishing crosstown buses to feed the PUC’s streetcar line, but could never develop a profitable blueprint.

In early 1932, John Thompson, another Samuel Street resident, offered a 20-minute service between 6 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. Monday to Saturday; Sundays during church and hospital visiting hours only. Using a single jitney, Kitchener Bus Lines’ (KBL) route ran from St. Mary’s hospital along Queen Street to Duke Street, over to Frederick Street and out to the House of Refuge at the city limits.

The intense schedule and fivecent fare over the first year provided Thompson with a small profit and faltering health. He sold the operation to Sanford Fischer, who initially shared driving duties with brother-in-law Harold Appell, but gradually added more drivers and three additional buses.

Jitney fares did not include a transfer to or from the streetcars — separate tickets had to be purchased. This sticking point was solved in 1935. A one-cent transfer chit allowed passengers to combine jitney and streetcar journeys.

Two more routes were opened in 1936: one connected the Sheppard School area and Shoemaker (now Stirling South) Avenue and Mill Street; another, in the west ward ran along Park Street to Dunbar Avenue and back to King Street.

On a vacant lot near Charles Street West and Gaukel Street, a small maintenance facility was set up for the KBL fleet. A terminus at King and Frederick in front of city hall enabled all four routes to link with streetcars. It featured a ticket kiosk, passenger benches and a waiting room set up in the nearby comfort station building.

As prosperity began returning in the late 1930s, Kitchener PUC felt it could operate profitable feeder routes and in March 1939 it informed Fischer that the city would assume crosstown responsibility using new buses. These Yellow Coach Company/GMC buses initially caused controversy because the PUC’s colour choice was vivid yellow, bright red and silver — complainers said they looked more like beer trucks or circus wagons.

Fischer agreed to continue operating until the PUC buses were ready and he pleaded with the commission to hire his experienced drivers. Following additional petitions from KBL’s longtime passengers, all eight were indeed taken on. Pay was set at 35 cents an hour for a nine-hour day and each driver had to wash his own vehicle. After a brief spell with the PUC, Fischer moved to Woodstock with his four KBL buses but, two years later, returned and worked for West Side Dairy.

With the start of the Second World War, K-W’s bus routes were well patronized over the next six years, with war workers and service personnel. Crosstown service expanded with new routes, including several in Waterloo. The streetcars were replaced by trolley buses in late 1946, the same year ivory and light green replaced the yellow, red and silver colour scheme.

Harold Appell’s son, Richard, donated a number of photographs to the Victoria Park historical committee in the 1990s. The KBL images used here are from that gift. The late Laverne Hett worked for PUC over five decades and preserved the history of transit in K-W. Much of that archive is now in my own collection.

On Charles Street West, beside the later Schreiter’s Furniture building, Kitchener Bus Lines’ 1935 quartet of jitneys lines up with drivers Ralph Harrison and Ken Hoffman, owner Sanford Fischer and mechanic Del Snyder.

LAVERNE HETT COLLECTION John Thompson’s Kitchener Bus Lines operated a single jitney, which entered service in 1932. As noted on the destination board, this bus is heading to St. Mary’s hospital.

Brothers-in-law Harold Appell and Sanford Fischer show off their spiffy Public Utilities Commission uniforms. The No. 22 bus, one of the new Yellow Coach vehicles purchased by the PUC in 1939, is parked in front of Kitchener City Hall.

KBL buses were often serviced and fuelled at Herb Reinhart’s Supertest station on Duke Street East near Frederick Street. The site is now under a large condo structure.