Note 239 — Chapter XXIV · PUBLIC UTILITIES AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP

There are municipal street railways in San Francisco, Seattle, and New Orleans. Public operation of street railways, without public ownership, is the policy of Boston and several other cities. These street railways are operated on a service-at-cost plan. The government of the state or city takes over the street railway, appoints officials to manage it, and charges whatever fares are necessary to pay the expenses of operation (including whatever rate of interest is to be paid to the owners of the street railway). When wages go up, fares go up. In some cases service-at-cost has been proved to be a costly plan. When wages went up during and after the war, fares rose correspondingly. But although wages have come down since 1920 in private employments, they have not been reduced to the same extent on publicly-owned street railways, hence the fares remain where they were. To be fair to the public, the system ought to work both ways.