City & County of San Francisco v. Market Street Ry. Co.

The constitutionality of an ordinance of the City and County of San Francisco, requiring street cars while carrying passengers in that city to “be in charge of a motorman and a conductor” is here involved. The decree from which the appeal is taken adjudged the ordinance unconstitutional.

Transportation Conditions in the City

Market Street is 76% feet wide between curbs, and runs northeasterly through the *629 principal business district in the city. In that business district, the intersecting streets to the southeast extend at right angles from Market Street, and are crossed by others running parallel thereto. To the northwest of Market Street, all the streets that form the rectangular blocks are laid out to end at Market Street, one series running west at an acute angle and the cross streets running north at an obtuse angle. The residential area is laid out for the most part in lots, 25 feet wide, and lies to the west and south of the business district.

There are many hills in San Francisco. There are lines on streets having from 9% to 15.6% grades. Its area is about 42 square miles. Its boundary on the west is the Pacific Ocean, and on the north and east its boundary is San…

(concurring).

I concur in the conclusion of my associates that the city ordinances under attack have not become unreasonable, arbitrary or capricious by reason of the changes in the nature of street railway cars operated by one man, nor by reason of the financial burden resulting from a compliance with the ordinances, and, therefore, conclude that the ordinances do not violate the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, U. S.C.A.Const.Amend. 14.

The power of a state acting directly or through its municipal corporations to reg.ulate traffic upon public 'Streets is very broad and almost plenary. The streets belong to the public. Packard v. Banton, 264 U.S. 140 , 44 S.Ct. 257, 259 , 68 L.Ed. 596 ; Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U.S. 553 , 51 S.Ct. 582, 587 , 75 L.Ed. 1264 ; Packard v. O’Neil, 45 Idaho 427 , 262 P. 881, 885 , 56 A.L.R. 317 ; Ex parte Tindall, 102 Okl. 192 , 229 P. 125, 133 ; State v. Dixon, 335 Mo. 478 , 73 S.W.2d 385 ; Southern Motorways v. Perry, D.C., 39 F.2d 145, 147 .

It is conceded that the ordinance declaring that the street railway cars operated upon the streets of San Francisco be operated by two men, a motorman and conductor, was a reasonable regulation…