Fifteen Homeowners Ride to Seattle in a Private Car and Win Their Streetcars
West Twelfth Street property owners corner the street railway president in Seattle and come home with ten-minute service for ninety days — and a promise about double track.
A committee of fifteen property owners living along West Twelfth street called upon Jacob Furth in Seattle yesterday, being conducted to that city in Manager Dimmock's private car, and prevailed upon the street car officials to inaugurate ten minute service for ninety days as a trial.
President Furth also agreed to take up the matter of double tracking Twelfth street before it is passed.
“A committee of fifteen property owners living along West Twelfth street called upon Jacob Furth in Seattle yesterday... and prevailed upon the street car officials to inaugurate ten minute service for ninety days as a trial.”
Before annexation and consolidated transit, a streetcar line's schedule was a private company's gift, and a neighborhood got more of it by turning up in person with a delegation. Fifteen organized property owners in a borrowed private car is grassroots transit advocacy in its purest form. Tacomans still measure their neighborhoods by how often the bus comes, and still make the trip to the agency to argue for it.
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