Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1913-01-23
SAFEGUARDING THE FRANCHISE

The meeting held at the CONNER
cial Club, and the committee which
was appointed as result thereof to
investigate objections to the pro-
posed Minney franchise, will be of
inestimable value 20 the city of Ash
land if it results IN the proper safe
guarding of the interests of the city
in the matter of the terms of the
franchise.
There seemed a disposition on the
part of some present to permit the
company to occupy the streets upon
any terms whatsoever, to invite them
to come in and take possession of
the city, trusting to their good in
tentions for the future. Is this a
safe procedure? Has not the expert
ence of every city, big and little,
from San Francisco and Portland to
New York and Chicago been that
franchise which was claimed to be
of little value to the party asking it
became of immense worth long be-
fore it expired; that conditions which
seemed trivial on paper proved to
and which many city had to en-
dure for generations all because they
failed to insist on having the condi-
tions put plainly in the franchise?
Ashland by all means wants the
interurban road, but does it want it
at any cost? And will it get an in
terurban road or a street railway?
The charter provides for both or
either at the will of the recipient.
If an interurban only, then should
not the streets to be used be desig
nate in the charter? No steam line
would ask a permission to use the
streets without designating which
ones. Why should an electric inter
urban? If street car line, and one
would without doubt be of great ben
eft to the outlying portions of the
city, then there should be some pro-
vision regulating the frequency of
the service, The writer has in mind
more than one street railway in the
middle west which is holding streets
and preventing a company from com
ing in which would give the city
good service, by running two or
three cars each way per day, and
claiming that this fulfilled the con-
ditions of the franchise. If a COM
pany is not willing to take a street
car franchise which provides for
cars each way at least once an hour,
then they do not want a street car
franchise at all except to either hold
the streets against a competitor, to
sell the bonds for the interurban or
to further the sale of real estate.
The latter two propositions may
be legitimate, and probably are, but
can the citizens of the city of Ash
land afford to tie up their streets
for fifty years for the transitory
gains to be secured at this expense?
The Tidings firmly believes that
the committee appointed by the Com
mercial Club will carefully consider
every objection brought out at Mon
day nights meeting, and that they
will act as in their best Judgment is
to the interests of the city, but they
cannot be too careful in protecting
the city and the citizens and their
property in the matter.
A street car line, to be of benefit
to the city, must unite the outlying
portions of the city, and personally
the writer believes that with proper
restrictions, both upon the speed of
the cars and upon the drivers of au-
tomobiles, they could and should be
run from Billings to the normal, and
either along the main street or as
near it as possible, in order to best
serve the people. The normal build
ings will probably never be used as
a school again unless there is some
means of rapid transit between them
and the downtown portion of the
city, and the outlying portions of the
city will never build up rapidly un-
less there is access to them readily,
but there certainly is no necessity
for freight traffic upon the principal
streets.
1t is customary, however, in many
cities, for interurban lines to receive
freight almost anywhere along the
line, and a neat freight car is run
on many of the eastern electric lines,
which will delive, your freight al
most at your door if you are there
TO receive it,.
Another benefit OF the street car