Court Opinion

ID: 9534704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:42:14.826826+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:31:41.938601
License: Public Domain

TRAYNOR, J.
I dissent.
The majority opinion declares that the allowance of recovery to the owner in this ease “depends largely upon the character and extent of his property right.” It seeks such a right in the right of ingress and egress which, it declares, “being by its terms general in nature requires definition and *367clarification as to its extent and character.” What follows is a definition amplifying that right to make it a basis for recovery in the present case in terms of the invasion of property rights. As there is no invasion of traditional rights, a new right is created by the simple process of redefinition. The frontiers of the right of ingress and egress are thus freely advanced to make the very recovery in question a foregone conclusion.
The real basis of the decision must he found in the considerations that moved the majority to grant recovery. The key to those considerations lies in the statement in the majority opinion that “If the question is one of first impression its answer depends chiefly upon matters of policy, a factor the nature of which, although at times discussed by the courts, is usually left undisclosed.” By way of revelation in the present case, the opinion goes on to declare that “on the one hand the policy underlying the eminent domain provision in the Constitution is to distribute throughout the community the loss inflicted upon the individual by the making of public improvements . . . On the other hand, fears have heen expressed that compensation allowed too liberally will seriously impede, if not stop, beneficial public improvements because of the greatly increased cost ... In some degree those opposed policies are manifested in the conflict between the constitutional mandate that compensation would be paid when private property is taken or damaged for a public purpose and the exercise of the police power where compensation need not be paid.”
One is led to expect that the solution of the problem will lie in the weighing of these two policies, but it is not clear that the majority arrives at its solution in this manner. A review of the facts is summarily followed by the rule for which the case now stands: “It would seem clear that the reasonable modes of egress and ingress embrace access to the next intersecting street in both directions. It should be noted that the right is more extensive than the mere opportunity to go on to the street immediately in front of the property.” Having thus reached its conclusion without stating why one policy outweighed the other, the opinion suggests that it balanced policies with the aid of precedents. “We are not confronted with the necessity of balancing the conflicting policies heretofore referred to without the aid of persuasive precedent.” It is thus left in doubt whether the weighing of poli*368cies or the persuasive precedents served as the basis of the opinion. There is. an intimation that it was the latter in the statement: “Many authorities and writers have either declared or intimated that the creation of a cul-de-sac, that is, the blocking of access to the next intersecting street in one direction is compensable, although the access still exists in the opposite direction to an intersecting street. In other words, the easement is to that extent.” A list of cases from other states, together with citations to texts and law reviews is appended to support this statement.2 The conclusion' is first reached and then justified in a manner that suggests a weighing of policies: “We do not fear that permitting recovery in cases of cul-de-sacs created in a municipality will seriously impede the construction of improvements, assuming the fear of such an event is real rather than fancied. The damage to the property owner is immediate and direct. The value of the use of the property is directly affected. To be able to get onto the street immediately in front of the property is of little value if that is as far as he can go. If his access to the next intersecting street in both directions and one way is cut off, his easement, if it has any value to him at all, has certainly been impaired. We conclude, therefore, that the right of access extends in both directions to the next intersecting street.” Being more concerned with the reduction in value of plaintiff’s property than with the fear that the allowance *369of recovery will impede improvements, the majority allows recovery and thus creates the property right.
It is implicit in the majority opinion, however, that such a property right was already inherent in the right, admittedly of obscure origin, of ingress and egress. The opinion states that in spite of the policy not to impede beneficial improvements “the courts cannot ignore sound and settled principles of law "safeguarding the rights and property of individuals. ’ ’ It also states, after describing the cul-de-sac in the present case, “that plaintiff’s property has been damaged by the impairment cannot be here questioned.” The statement that “If he has access to the next intersecting street in both directions and one way is cut' off, his easement, if it has any value to him at all, has certainly been impaired” assumes that plaintiff’s easement embraces the right in question.
Whether the majority opinion allows recovery on the ground that there has been an impairment of a property right inhering in the right of ingress and egress or on the ground that such a right should now be judicially created, I cannot subscribe to it.
The basic question in this appeal is whether the property that plaintiff alleged was taken or damaged existed at all. If the abutting owner has an easement in the street longitudinally to the next intersection in each direction, compensation must be paid for the impairment of that easement. (See United States v. Welch, 217 U. S. 333, 339 [30 S.Ct. 527, 54 L.Ed. 787].) If he does not have such an easement he can have no recovery even though the value of the abutting property may be diminished as a result of the improvement. (Reichelderfer v. Quinn, 287 U. S. 315, 319 [53 S.Ct. 177, 77 L.Ed. 331, 83 A.L.R. 1429]; Eachus v. Los Angeles etc. Ry. Co., 103 Cal. 614, 617 [37 P.750, 42 Am.St.Rep. 149]; Rose v. State of California, 19 Cal. 2d 713, 737, 744 [123 P.2d 505]; Rigney v. Chicago, 102 Ill. 64, 80; City of Winchester v. Ring, 312 Ill. 544, 550, 552 [144 N.E. 333, 36 A.L.R. 520], 118 A.L.R. 921.)
There is nothing in the history of the right of ingress and egress to indicate that it embraces any such easement. The right of ingress and egress is a creation of judicial decision.3 *370(See Crane v. Hahlo, 258 U.S. 142 [42 S.Ct. 214, 66 L.Ed. 514].) Its operation as a limitation on street improvements by municipalities and public utilities originated in the New York elevated railway cases. In the leading case of Story v. New York Elevated Railway Co., 90 N.Y. 122 [43 Am.Rep. 146], an injunction was sought to restrain the erection of an elevated railway in the street on which plaintiff’s property abutted. The court held that the use of the street for elevated railway purposes was inconsistent with the use of the right of way for street purposes. The city had subdivided the land originally, laid out the streets and lots, and conveyed the land by deeds containing a covenant that the streets shown on the maps should forever remain open as public streets and ways. The court cited the ordinary rule that a grantor making a conveyance that refers to a map showing streets cannot divert the lands to any use inconsistent with the normal uses of the street. The court held that this rule applied to the city in its role as subdivider. In Lahr v. Metropolitan Elevated Railway Co., 104 N.Y. 268 [10 N.E. 528], however, the court held that even where the abutters did not derive their title from the city and had no express covenant, such as existed in the Story ease, they nevertheless had an easement of access to the street. The basis of the decision was that under the New York statutes whereby streets were opened a trust was created for the benefit of the public at large and also for the benefit of abutting owners. The court held that an easement of access was implicit in the trust. Later, however, it took care to hold that the abutting owner’s rights are subordinate to any reasonable use of the street made by public *371authorities to facilitate general travel. (Reining v. New York L. & W. R. Co., 128 N.Y. 157 [28 N.E. 640, 14 L.R.A. 133]; Rigney v. New York C. & H. Co., 217 N.Y. 31 [111 N.E. 226].) Presumably the public right to use the street was reserved if the city subdivided and sold the lots in the street; conversely compensation for the normal uses of the street was paid if the street or highway was condemned or conveyed. (See Davis v. County Commissioners, 153 Mass. 218 [26 N.E. 848, 850, 11 L.R.A. 750]; 13 Va.L.Rev. 334.) While the normal uses of the street are bound to change with the times, the streets are invariably characterized as public rights of way.
In Eachus v. Los Angeles Railway Co., 103 Cal. 614 [37 P. 750, 42 Am.St.Rep. 149], upon which plaintiff relies heavily, the city had likewise subdivided and sold the property owned by the plaintiffs. California, like New York, later extended abutters’ easements to cases where title was not derived from the city.
The trust that arises from the appropriation of land for public thoroughfares is for the benefit of the public at large and only incidentally for the benefit of abutting owners. The extension of the abutting owner’s rights in the present case makes the primary consideration the benefit of abutting owners rather than the benefit of the public. Hitherto no California case has ever defined the right of ingress or egress as inclusive of an easement to the next intersecting street. The rule has been that the right of ingress and egress is limited to adequate and reasonable access to the property from the street, that it does not extend to the full width of the street, or to the full length thereof, or even to all points upon the street in front of the abutting property. It is sufficient if there is access to a street that in turn connects with the general street system. Any improvement that does not materially interfere with such access does no compensable damage. The California Vehicle Code and city traffic ordinances abound with regulations that limit a property owner’s freedom of movement upon the street on which his property abuts. Thus “U” turns or the making of left turns upon emerging from a building or private driveway are frequently prohibited, and the diversion of traffic into one-way streets is common. Frequently traffic moving in opposite directions is separated by some physical barrier such as a raised curbing. These re*372strietions have the same effect whether they ensue from traffic regulations or physical obstructions and there is no more reason to allow compensation because of the resulting diminution in property values or the inconvenience of circuity of travel in the one case than in the other.
. The newly created property right in this case is inconsistent not only with the trust from which the right of ingress and egress is derived, but with the established rule in this state and others that street improvements give rise to no compensable damage if there is no injury to the abutting owner different in- kind from that suffered by other property owners and the general public. This rule is repudiated in the majority opinion: “If he has a property right and it has been impaired, the damage is necessarily peculiar to himself and is different in kind than that suffered by him as a member of the public generally for his particular right as a property owner and not as a member of the public has been damaged.” This statement draws its conclusion from an assumption of the .very- thing to be proved. The question is whether or not the owner has a property right that has been impaired, and it pannot be assumed that he has without drawing a line between his property and all the other property in the community. When the majority opinion draws the line at the next intersection it arbitrarily attaches a right to abutting property in one block on the street, but not to abutting property on the same street in the next block or to property abutting on neighboring streets, even though they may likewise be diminished in value as a result of the improvement and the owners may be similarly inconvenienced by circuity of travel. Recovery therefore depends upon the accident of location.4
Whatever difficulties may arise in applying the rule requir.*373ing proof of special damage to the facts of a particular case (see Cram v. City of Laconia, 71 N.H. 41 [51 A. 635, 636, 57 L.R.A. 282]), it is an objective standard that has become a rule of property over the years. It should not be abandoned merely to be replaced by the subjective judgment of a majority of this court that singles out particular owners for compensation because of the diminution in the value of their property and the inconvenience of circuity of travel.
It has long been established that an injury is not peculiar to the abutting property merely because the improvement causes a diminution in the value of the property. (Eachus v. Los Angeles Ry. Co., 103 Cal. 614, 617 [37 P. 750, 42 Am. St.Rep. 149].) The rule is forcefully stated by Mr. Chief Justice Stone in Reichelderfer v. Quinn, 287 U.S. 315, 319 [53 S.C. 177, 77 L.Ed. 331, 83 A.L.R. 1429]: “But the existence of value alone does not generate interests protected by the Constitution against diminution by the government, however unreasonable its action may be. The beneficial use and hence the value of abutting property is decreased when a public street or canal is closed or obstructed by public authority, Meyer v. Richmond, 172 U.S. 82, 95 [19 S.Ct. 106, 41 L.Ed. 199]; cf. Whitney v. New York, 96 N.Y. 240; Fox v. Cincinnati, 104 U.S. 783 [26 L.Ed. 928]; Kirk v. Maumee Valley E. Co., 279 U.S. 797, 802, 803 [49 S.Ct. 507, 73 L.Ed. 963]; Smith v. Boston, 7 Cush. (Mass.) 254; Stanwood v. Malden, 157 Mass. 17 [31 N.E. 702,16 L.R.A. 591], or a street grade is raised, Smith v. Washington, 20 How. (U.S.) 135 [15 L.Ed. 858]; see Mead v. Portland, 200 U.S. 148, 162 [26 S.Ct. 171, 50 L.Ed. 413] or the location of a county seat, Newton v. Commissioners, supra [100 U.S. 548 (25 L.Ed 710) ] or of a railroad is changed. (Bryan v. Louisville & N. R. Co., 157 C.C.A. 98 [244 F. 650, 659].) But in such cases no private right is infringed.
“Beyond the traditional boundaries of the common law only some imperative justification in policy will lead the courts to recognize in old values new property rights.... The case is clear where the question is not of private rights alone, but the value was both created and diminished as an incident of the operations of the government. For if .the enjoyment of a benefit thus derived from the public acts of government were a source of legal rights to have it perpetuated, the powers of government would be exhausted by their exeriese.” *374In holding that owners of land adjacent to a public park had no easement in the park and therefore no claim to recovery because of the erection of a fire-engine house in the park that reduced the value of neighboring property, Mr. Chief Justice Stone declared: “The abutting owner cannot complain; the damage suffered by him ‘though greater in degree than that of the rest of the public, is the same in kind. ’ ” (See, also, Eachus v. Los Angeles etc. Ry. Co., 103 Cal. 614, 617 [37 P. 750, 42 Am.St.Rep. 149]; Rose v. State of California, 19 Cal.2d 713, 737, 744 [123 P.2d 505]; People v. Gianni, 130 Cal.App. 584, 586 [20 P.2d 87]; City of Stockton v. Marengo, 137 Cal.App. 760 [31 P.2d 467]; Levee Dist. No. 9 v. Farmer, 101 Cal. 178 [35 P. 569, 23 L.R.A. 388].)
The application in numerous cases in this state of the rule requiring a showing of special damages has established the law that if an obstruction cuts off the owner’s access from his premises to the street, he has suffered a special injury. (See Rose v. State of California, 19 Cal.2d 713 [123 P.2d 505]; Eachus v. Los Angeles etc. Ry. Co., 103 Cal. 614 [37 P. 750, 42 Am.St.Rep. 149]; McCandless v. City of Los Angeles, 214 Cal. 67 [4 P.2d 139]; Lane v. San Liego Elec. Ry. Co., 208 Cal. 29 [280 P. 109]; Wilcox v. Engebretson, 160 Cal. 288 [116 P. 750]; Williams v. Los Angeles Ry. Co., 150 Cal. 592 [89 P. 330]; Geurkink v. City of Petaluma, 112 Cal. 306 [44 P. 570]; Bigelow v. Ballerino, 111 Cal. 559 [44 P. 307].) It has also established the law that the inconvenience of circuity of travel does not call for compensation (see 49 A.L.R. 333; 93 A.L.R. 639), and that any inconvenience to the owner after he is on the street and wishes to travel over the system of public streets is a damage suffered in common with the general public and does not constitute an impairment of his easement. Thus, in Bigley v. Nunan, 53 Cal. 403, 404, the defendant, by the construction of a fence, occupied one-half of the public street immediately in front of plaintiff’s property but on the opposite side of the street therefrom. The fence shut off completely one-half of the street width in front of plaintiff’s property. The plaintiff sued the defendant to abate the nuisance, and for damages. The court held that if there was a nuisance it was a public one, and that a private person could not bring an action to abate a public nuisance unless he could show damage, to himself or his property that was peculiar to him as distinguished from *375damage to the public. The court held that the plaintiff could not make such a showing under the alleged facts, declaring: “The access from plaintiff’s lot to the street.,has not been cut off or impeded, and if plaintiff and his immediate neighbors have more occasion to pass through the street than the public at large, this is an inconvenience in degree only, and is not an injury in kind different from that sustained by the public.” The narrowing of a street by one-half immediately opposite a lot, is in principle no different from the closing of the street in one direction with access left unimpeded in the other.
In Reynolds v. Presidio etc. R. R. Co., 1 Cal.App. 229 [81 P. 1118], the complaint alleged that the laying of streetcar tracks near the boundary of plaintiff’s property has “obstructed ingress to and from said property.” In denying damages the court said: “There is no allegation that the obstruction prevents the plaintiff from having access to and from her property. . . . Such obstruction clearly would not prevent the plaintiff from getting on or off her lot to the public street.”
Where, however, the obstruction cuts off access to the street an injury results that is peculiar to the property and different in kind from that suffered by the general public. The distinction is forcefully brought out in Hargro v. Hodgdon, 89 Cal. 623, 628 [26 P. 1106], In that case the defendant constructed on a public alleyway a building that occupied the whole alley along the plaintiff’s property line. The court affirmed an order enjoining the maintenance of the building. After approving the doctrine that the obstruction of a public highway of itself does not constitute a special injury to an abutting property owner, the court stated: “But it has never been held that an individual can not maintain an action to abate an obstruction which, while obstructing the public highway, also cuts off access from his premises to the public highway. So far as it does this, it becomes a private nuisance. His complaint is, not that it obstructs the street or road, but that it prevents him from reaching it.” (See, also, Schaufele v. Doyle, 86 Cal. 107 [24 P. 834]; Strong v. Sullivan, 180 Cal. 331 [181 P. 59, 4 A.L.R. 343]; Williams v. Los Angeles Ry. Co., 150 Cal. 592, 594 [89 P. 330].)
In Hitch v. Scholle, 180 Cal. 467 [181 P. 657], the complaint alleged that the plaintiff owned certain land subject to an easement of way in the public and that the defendant *376obstructed this public highway by building and maintaining a. fence across it and threatened to plow up the highway. The court denied an injunction, declaring: “It is well settled that if an obstruction' which is wrongfully erected and maintained in a public highway constitutes a nuisance which injuriously affects a private person equally in common with the public at large, a private action may not be maintained to abate the nuisance. (Blanc v. Klumpke, 29 Cal. 156.) It is only where the free use of the property of a private person is interfered with by such an obstruction that he may have his private action to abate the nuisance resulting therefrom . . . there is no ground for an action by a private person to abate a public nuisance resulting from the obstruction of a public highway where it merely appears that the person would be subjected to personal inconvenience by the obstruction or placed under the necessity of traveling by a much more circuitous route to reach his destination.” (180 Cal. 467, 468, 470; see, also, 2 Wood on Nuisances, 853, see. 645; 42 Columb. L. Bev. 596, 613; 4 Best., Torts, 216 et seq.)
While these are nuisance eases they are directly in point, for an action to enjoin a public nuisance cannot be maintained unless it'constitutes an injury to a private right. It is established that a property right must be invaded before compensation is allowed under article I, section 14 of the California Constitution. The constitutional provision creates no property rights; it protects those that already exist. That which was damnum absque injuria before the adoption of the “or damaged” clause is still damnum absque injuria. “The provision (art. I, sec. 14) permits an action against the state, which cannot be sued without its consent.' It is designed, not to create new causes df action, but to give a remedy for a cause of action that would otherwise exist. The state is therefore not liable under this provision for an injury that is damnum absque injuria. If the property owner would have no cause of action were a private person to inflict the damage, he can have no claim for compensation from the state.” (Archer v. City of Los Angeles, 19 Cal.2d 19, 24 [119 P. 2d 1].)
The rule, however, is not derived solely from the nuisance cases. Thus in Brown v. Board of Supervisors, 124 Cal. 274 [57 P. 82], the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an order providing for the reduction in the width of Turk *377Street from 100 feet to 68 feet 7 inches. The abutting owners claimed that the improvement could not be made without providing compensation for the damage the improvement would cause their property. In sustaining a demurrer to their petition for certiorari the court declared: “The property which an abutting owner has in the street in front of his land is the right of access and of light and air, and for an infringement of these rights he is entitled to compensation. This right is peculiar and individual to the abutting owner, differing from the right of passing to and fro upon the street, which he enjoys in common with the public, and any infringement thereof gives him a right of action. . . . The appellants herein do not, however, claim that the reduction in the width of the street will in any respect interfere with their enjoyment of light and air, or that access to their lots is in any degree impaired. Indeed, in view of the fact that by the proposed reduction of the street it will have the same width as the majority of streets in the city, such contention could not be made. . . . The damage which the appellants may sustain by reason of a diminution in value of their lands is not damage for which they are entitled to compensation. . . . ‘The right of abutting owners in the streets is not of that absolute character that they can resist or prevent any and all interference with the street to their detriment, or which can he asserted to stay the hand of the municipality in the control, regulation, or improvement of the streets in the public interest, although it may be made to appear that the privileges which they had theretofore enjoyed, and the benefits they derived from the street in its existing condition, would-be curtailed or impaired to their injury by the changes proposed.’ (Reining v. New York etc. Ry. Co., 128 N.Y. 157 [28 N.E. 640, 14 L.RA. 133].) It has been held in other states that even the entire closing of a street upon which property abuts does not give to the owner a right of compensation, so long as there are other public streets by which he has access to his land. The mere inconvenience thereby experienced is not a damage for which he is entitled to compensation.” (124 Cal. 274, 280.)
In McCandless v. City of Los Angeles, 214 Cal. 67 [4 P.2d 139], involving a claim for damages under article I, section 14, recovery was allowed because the injury was regarded as peculiar to the abutting property. The court declared: *378“Cases illustrating the rule that an abutting property owner may suffer special damages peculiar to himself and independent of such damage as he sustains in common with other property owners and the public by reason of the construction of railroad tracks in the street adjacent to his property are these: O’Connor v. Southern Pac. R. R. Co., 122 Cal. 681 [55 P. 688]; Smith v. Southern Pac. R. R. Co., 146 Cal. 164 [79 P. 868, 106 Am.St.Rep. 17]; Fairchild v. Oakland & Bay Shore Ry. Co., 176 Cal. 629 [169 P. 388]; Lane v. San Diego Elec. Ry. Co., 208 Cal. 29 [280 P. 109].” (214 Cal. 67, 70, 71.) In holding that the subway, approach and railings as constructed greatly “interfered with the free use by the plaintiff of the street in front of her property for the purpose of ingress and egress” the court quoted from Brown v. Board of Supervisors, supra, as follows: “The property which an abutting owner has in the street in front of his land is the right of access and of light and air, and for an infringement of these rights he is entitled to compensation. This right is peculiar and individual to the abutting owner, differing from the right of passing to and fro upon the street, which he enjoys in common with the public, and any infringement thereof gives him a right of action.” (See, also, Eachus v. Los Angeles etc. Ry., 103 Cal. 614 [37 P. 750, 42 Am.St.Rep. 149]; Lane v. San Diego Electric Ry. Co., 208 Cal. 29 [280 P. 109]; Williams v. Los Angeles etc. Ry. Co., 150 Cal. 592, 594 [89 P. 330]; Hargro v. Hodgdon, 89 Cal. 623 [26 P. 1106]; Geurkink v. City of Petaluma, 112 Cal. 306 [44 P. 570]; Rose v. State of California, 19 Cal.2d 713 [123 P.2d 505].)
The identity of the tests in the nuisance cases and actions for damages under article I, section 14, is forcefully brought out in Brown v. Rea, 150 Cal. 171 [88 P. 713], in which the plaintiff sought to enjoin the construction of a railroad in a street. In sustaining a demurrer to the complaint the court declared: “Generally speaking, a public nuisance does not furnish ground for action by a private person, but such public nuisance may inflict upon an individual such peculiar injury as to entitle him to maintain a separate action for its abatement, or to recover damages therefor. . . . The injury to the individual must, however, be different in kind and not merely in degree from that suffered- by the general public. (Aram v. Schallenberger, 41 Cal. 449; Bigley v. Nunan, 53 Cal. 403; Hogan v. Central Pacific R. R. Co., 71 Cal. 83 [11 *379P. 876].) Ordinarily, an obstruction to a highway, if unauthorized and illegal, is a public nuisance. The injury is to the right to travel upon the highway, which right resides in the public generally. Such obstruction may, however, constitute a private nuisance as well. Every owner of land abutting upon a highway has a right of access from his land to the highway and from the highway to his land. This right of access is an easement, and an obstruction to the highway which at the same time obstructs this easement is a peculiar injury to the abutting landowner and gives him a cause of action.” Holding that the complaint was insufficient because it did not allege that the “right of passage between the street and his premises” was impaired, the court declared: “These facts alone do not make it appear to the court that the plaintiff’s right of passage between the street and his premises will be in any degree affected.” The court later stated: “We do not overlook the consideration that, under the constitutional provision that ‘private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without just compensation having first been made’ . . . damages may be recovered by an abutting owner for any public use of a street which damages his adjoining property or his easement of access to and from the street . . . But the complaint, whether seeking damages after the construction, or an injunction before, must show some actual or threatened injury to a private property right of the plaintiff, and this the present complaint fails to do.” (150 Cal. 171, 174, 175; see, also, Wolff v. City of Los Angeles, 49 Cal.App. 400 [193 P. 862]; City of San Mateo v. Railroad Commission, 9 Cal.2d 1 [68 P.2d 713].)
Under the majority opinion new private property rights representing millions of dollars have been carved out of public streets and highways, at the expense not alone of the public treasury but of the public safety. Of recent years the growth .of traffic has necessitated the construction of highways with fewer intersecting streets to expedite the flow of traffic and reduce the rate of motor vehicle accidents. Such highways have been constructed through the city of San Rafael, and the Arroyo Seco Parkway from Los Angeles to Pasadena, and the construction of many more is contemplated. In such eases it will be necessary either to close the cross streets or to carry them under or over the freeway, both costly projects. The plans contemplate overhead or subway cross*380ings every few blocks over the freeway, necessarily creating cul-de-sacs of the remaining streets. Similar improvements are involved in the separation of grades of railroads and highways, for it is usually necessary to make a dead end of one or more streets as a highway is raised or lowered to cross the railroad tracks. In the present case the cul-de-sac on Sterling Street was an integral part of the rearrangement of the streets of the city of San Francisco made necessary by the construction of the San Francisco-0akland Bay Bridge.
The cost of making such improvements may be prohibitive now that new rights are created for owners of property abutting on streets that would be at right angles to the improvements, for these rights must be condemned or ways constructed over or under the improvements. The construction of improvements is bound to be discouraged by the multitude of claims that would arise, the costs of negotiation with claimants or of litigation, and the amounts that claimants might recover. Such claims could only be met by public revenues that would otherwise be expended on the farther development and improvement of streets and highways.
It must be remembered that the question is not whether existing easements should be taken without compensation, but whether private rights should be created for an arbitrarily chosen group of private persons, necessitating tribute. from the public if it exercises public rights of long standing in the interest of safe and expeditious travel on public thoroughfares. .
Respondents’ petition for a rehearing was denied January 17,1944. Edmonds, J., and Traynor, J., voted for a rehearing.

There are also persuasive precedents against this conclusion: Meyer v. Richmond, 172 U.S. 82 [19 S.Ct. 106, 41 L.Ed. 199]; New York C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Bucsi, 128 Ohio St. 134 [190 N.E. 562]; City of Bellevue ex rel. Viokery v. Stedman, 138 Ohio St. 281 [34 N.E.2d 769]; Davis v. County Commissioners, 153 Mass. 218 [26 N.E. 848, 11 L.R.A. 750]; Nichols v. Inhabitants of Richmond, 162 Mass. 170 [38 N.E. 501]; Warner v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 86 Conn. 561 [86 A. 23]; Cram v. City of Laconia, 71 N.H. 41 [51 A. 635, 57 L.R.A. 282]; Kachele v. Bridgeport Hydraulic Co., 109 Conn. 151 [145 A. 756]; Micone v. City of Middletown, 110 Conn. 664 [149 A. 408]; Taylor v. Cooke, 113 Conn. 162 [154 A. 349]; Krebs v. Uhl, 160 Md. 584 [154 A. 131]; Chicago & N. W. Ry. Co. v. Railroad Com., 167 Wis. 185 [167 N.W. 266]; Arcadia Realty Co. v. City of St. Louis, 326 Mo. 273 [30 S.W.2d 995]; Wilson v. Kansas City, - Mo. -- [162 S.W.2d. 802]; City of Lynchburg v. Peters, 145 Va. 1 [133 S.E. 674]; Jarnagin v. Louisiana Highway Com., (La.App.) 5 So.2d 660; Powell v. McKelvey, 56 Idaho 291 [53 P.2d 626]; Kemp v. City of Seattle, 149 Wash. 197 [270 P. 431]; Ponischil v. Hoquiam Sash & Door Co., 41 Wash. 303 [83 P. 316]; City of Fort Smith v. Van Zandt, 197 Ark. 91 [122 S.W.2d 187]; Ralph v. Hazen, 68 App.D.C. 55 [93 F.2d 68]; Freeman v. City of Centralia, 67 Wash. 142 [120 P. 886, Ann.Cas. 1913D 786]; Richmond v. City of Hinton, 117 W.Va. 223 [185 S.E. 411]; Olsen v. Jacobs, 193 Wash. 506 [76 P.2d 607]; De Rossette v. Jefferson County, 288 Ky. 407 [156 S.W.2d 165].

The origin of the whole doctrine of abutters ’ rights is graphically described in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Holmes in Muhlker v. New York and H. R. R. Co., 197 U.S. 544, 572 [25 S.Ct. 522, 49 L.Ed. 872]:
1 ‘ The plaintiff’s rights, whether expressed in terms of property or of con*370tract, are all a construction of the courts, deduced by way of consequence from dedication to and trusts for the purposes of a public street. They never were granted to him or his predecessors in express words, or, probably, by any conscious implication. If at the outset the New York courts had decided that, apart from statute or express grant, the abutters on a street had only the rights of the public and no private easement of any kind, it would have been in no way amaaing. It would have been very possible to distinguish between the practical commercial advantages of the expectation that a street would remain open and a right in rem that it would femain so. . . . But again, if the plaintiff had an easement over the whole street he got it as a tacit incident of an appropriation of the street to the uses of the public. ... It was possible for the New York courts to hold, as they seem to have held, that the easement which they had declared to exist is subject to the fullest exercise of the primary right out of which it sprang, and that any change in the street for the benefit of public travel is a matter of public right, as against what I have called the parasitic right which the plaintiff claims."

The concurring opinion attempts to draw a distinction between abutting owners in the block on which the obstruction exists and other owners, on the ground that “All vehicles entering the block must either turn around or back out in order to leave it. ’ ’ This inconvenience is not essentially different from the inconvenience of circuity of travel, and it is not compensable for the very reasons advanced in the concurring opinion with regard to circuity of travel. (See also Jones Beach Boulevard Estates v. Moses, 268 N.Y. 362 [197 N.E. 313, 100 A.L.R. 487]; Ralph v. Hazen, 68 App.D.C. 55 [93 F.2d 68, 71]; City of Fort Smith v. Van Zandt, 197 Ark. 91 [122 S.W.2d 187].) It is commonplace in the operation of motor vehicles to turn around on streets or back out therefrom just as it is to back out from property where there is no space for turning the vehicles. The right of ingress and egress is no more impaired in such situations .than on a one-way street or divided highway where one cannot turn around or back out.