Tacoma’s North End Demands Cheaper Streetcar Fares
Local neighborhood club pushes for universal ticket sales on cars to lower costs for daily commuters.
Six tickets for a quarter and street railway conductors to furnish passengers with tickets on the cars—that looks good to Tacomans who ride on the street cars and all that is necessary now is to get the Tacoma Railway & Power Company to adopt the idea. Of course there may be some trouble in this, but the North End Improvement Club demands it all the same. Resolutions were adopted at the meeting last night calling on the company to adopt such a policy. Now the company does not sell tickets on the cars at all, but they are kept in some drug stores. They charge 50 cents for 11 tickets, but three-fourths of the passengers pay a straight five-cents cash fare. In most cities of 100,000 people the fare is at least as low as six tickets for a quarter and this price prevails even where electricity has to be generated by expensive steam plants.
“In most cities of 100,000 people the fare is at least as low as six tickets for a quarter.”
Public transit affordability remains a core issue in Tacoma, mirroring this 1909 struggle where residents organized to force private utility monopolies to lower costs for the working class.
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