The Forty-Year Stranglehold: Seattle’s Streetcar Franchise Fight

The proposed consolidation of street railway lines in this city has a forty-year franchise attached to it. The promoters of the project claim that it will be necessary for them to have the forty-year grant in order to raise thirty percent, which are to furnish as security the men who are to put up the $5,000,000 involved in the deal.

The question is whether such long-term franchise should be granted by the city or not. It is carefully considered by the taxpayers. Forty years is a long time to give away the street car privileges in a rapidly growing city like Seattle. Before the expiration of that period, the place will have tripled, if not quadrupled, its population, and street car privileges will become immensely enhanced in value.

What does the new consolidated company propose to offer the city in exchange for the long-term grant? Will the equipment of the various lines, at present poor, be improved by the introduction of new and modern rolling stock, and will the cable lines have their efficiency increased sufficiently to carry the people inside instead of standing? These are matters of the questions to be settled before a long-term franchise is even considered.

The promoters of the consolidation say that a free transfer system will be adopted, and that a passenger can go from one end of the city to the other end for a five cent fare. This is very good so far as it goes. Transfers should be given. But the granting of this privilege, which is now insisted upon by nearly all other cities in the country, does not cover all the necessities for a satisfactory street car system. Now is the time, if ever, to make conditions before moving to grant a long-term franchise. The promoters of the new scheme are entering into it to make money, and for no other reason. They are not going to make offers of extra concessions to the city for a franchise.

In many Eastern cities the large investors are disaffected with long-term franchises granted to street railway companies, and there is a growing tendency to favor shorter terms at this time. A few weeks ago the people of Chicago considered this matter, and by an emphatic vote at the polls, frowned upon a proposed plan to grant a long-term street railway franchise in that city.

It has often happened that long-term franchises have been granted to syndicates which have given poor services, using inferior equipment, and poor cars, and have asked an indignant public what they propose to do about it. Short-term franchises tend to repress this undesirable trait on the part of corporations and to make them civil in their treatment of the public.

The Star does not say that a franchise should not be granted to the Boston syndicate making the present application, but it does claim that the matter is one not to be hastily decided, and that if favorable action is to be taken, satisfactory equivalents in the shape of improved car service, transfers, etc., should certainly be "exacted in the bond." A thirty-year franchise would be much more likely to meet with public approval.