Fifty Years of Streetcar Profits, and the City's Slice
John B. Denny did the arithmetic on the street railways' fifty-year franchise request: tens of millions of fares a year, and a rising cut for Seattle's treasury.
"I estimate that within twenty years Seattle will be as large as San Francisco now is," said John B. Denny yesterday. "The number of passengers carried by the street railways of the city now is about 13,000,000 per year. With 300,000 population, four of the street railway lines in San Francisco now carry 42,000,000 passengers per year. I therefore conclude that during the entire term of fifty years for which the street railways are asking their franchises to be extended, the average annual number of passengers that will be carried will be 54,000,000. This, at 5 cents for each passenger, amounts to $2,700,000 per year, on which the city will get, after 1902, $27,000 a year, and, after 1907, $40,500, and, after 1912, $54,000 per year."
“I estimate that within twenty years Seattle will be as large as San Francisco now is.”
A streetcar company asking the city for a fifty-year franchise extension, and the pitch hinging on what share of the fares the public treasury would collect — this is a transit-and-franchise debate in its purest form. The numbers have grown, but the questions haven't: how long a monopoly should run, and what the city gets for giving away its streets. Seattle is still arguing versions of this over rail, roads and utilities.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.