Three Streetcar Companies Tell Seattle They're Too Broke to Keep the Lights On
In receivership, in arrears and borrowing from their own bondholders, the city's electric railways ask to be excused from the franchise requirement that they light the streets their cars run over.
The street railway companies petitioned the council for leniency on the ground that they were operating at a loss.
A petition was received from the Third Street and Suburban Railway Company, the Seattle Consolidated Street Railway Company and the Union Trunk Line in regard to the companies lighting the streets traversed by their electric lines.
The petition stated that for the last three years the companies named have been operating at a loss, and that the entire gross receipts have frequently been inadequate for operating expenses; that bondholders have frequently been compelled to contribute personally to aid the lines.
The Third Street and Suburban Railway Company alleges that the creditors have been compelled to advance money to the extent of thousands of dollars to keep it in existence.
The Consolidated Street Railway Company alleges that it has for two years been in the hands of a receiver, and that the court has been compelled to issue a mortgage in the form of a receiver's certificate amounting to $15,000 to maintain the road; that no interest has been paid on the bonds of the road for more than a year, and that the last interest was paid by further mortgaging the system.
The Union Trunk Line alleges that it is operating its system without any profit, and that it is not paying its fixed charges out of its gross receipts.
In the petition the three lines invite a committee from the house to examine their books and see for themselves the condition of these lines, and ask that the requirement of free lighting of streets be not enforced.
The report was referred to a joint committee of the two houses.
“Bondholders have frequently been compelled to contribute personally to aid the lines.”
The panic of 1893 hit Seattle's street railways hard, and here the companies lay their books open to prove it: a receiver's certificate, unpaid bond interest, creditors digging into their own pockets. The question they raise — when a transit system can't cover its costs, who pays for the streets and lights it depends on? — is still the fight over every transit levy and franchise renewal in the region.
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