Court Opinion

ID: 9846782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:48:21.320797+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:49.321369
License: Public Domain

TUCKETT, Justice:
This is an original proceeding instituted by the plaintiff as a taxpayer of Salt Lake City to prevent the City from acquiring and operating a mass transportation system and from entering into a contract with the Salt Lake City Lines, Inc., a corporation, for the purchase of said system.
The Salt Lake City Lines, Inc., has for many years operated the public transportation system in Salt Lake City and in other nearby areas. Salt Lake City Lines has indicated that due to increasing deficits incurred by it that it intends to discontinue its operations and to wind up its business. By resolution of December 6, 1967, the Board of Commissioners of Salt Lake City resolved that the City, being the only entity capable of operating a transportation system, would operate a bus transportation system, and further, that the City would enter into negotiations with the Salt Lake City *340Lines, Inc., for the purchase of its facilities and property.
A system of public transportation has existed in Salt Lake City for a long period of time. The original system was that of a street railway on which were operated cars pulled by horses and mules. Thereafter the system evolved into an electric railway system and it now consists of passenger buses propelled by internal combustion engines. The rails on which the older systems operated have long since been dismantled and abandoned.
The plaintiff contends that Salt Lake City is without legal authority under the State Constitution or the statutes of the State to purchase or to operate a transportation system of the kind now in existence.
Salt Lake City being a legislative city as contrasted with a charter city, we must look to the acts of the legislature in determining what powers may be exercised by the City. Section 10-8-14, U.C.A.1953, deals with the subject matter of this action. The pertinent part of that section is as follows:
They [the cities] may construct, maintain and operate waterworks, gas works, electric light works, telephone lines or street railways, * * * or purchase or lease such works from any person or corporation, * * *.
The language of this section was adopted by the legislature prior to 1907. The court is faced with the problem of determining whether the legislature at the time it adopted the language above referred to intended to grant to the cities the power to operate transportation systems and whether it intended that such systems be confined to operation on rails.
A prior decision of the court, namely, Utah Rapid Transit Co. v. Ogden City,1 concluded that the language of the statute would not permit Ogden City to establish and operate a transportation system employing motor buses. We are not inclined to follow that case and the same is overruled. We are of the opinion that the legislature by granting to the cities the power of operating and acquiring street railways did in fact intend to empower the cities to furnish public transportation of passengers over the city streets by rail or otherwise. In the case of Utah Light & Traction Co. v. State Tax Commission of Utah,2 the Tax Commission was seeking to collect a sales tax upon fares paid on trolley coaches and motor buses. The legislature by an amendment to the sales tax law provided for an exemption in the following language:
That said tax shall not apply to intrastate movements of freight and express or to street railway fares.
After the court’s decision in the case of Utah Rapid Transit Co. v. Ogden City, the Tax Commission concluded that the court’s *341restrictive construction of the granted powers to cities respecting the maintenance and operation of street railways compelled it to collect a sales tax on all fares except those of streetcars. The court in that case had this to say:
The trolley coach and motorbus substitutions in place of street cars on rails or as an extension of the rail system are ordinarily considered as being within the scope of street railway service and systems or auxiliary thereto.
The court then concluded that the term “street railway” as used in the statute included trolley coaches and motor buses.
We are of the opinion that Salt Lake City under the constitution and the statutes of Utah has the power to acquire and to operate a transportation system as proposed by it, and the plaintiff’s petition for a writ of prohibition is denied. No costs awarded.
ELLETT, J., concurs.

. 89 Utah 546, 58 P.2d 1.

. 92 Utah 404, 68 P.2d 759.