The objection of the Sutter Street Improvement Club to the overhead trolley was set forth in the following statement, issued less than a month before the great fire of 1906:
“The Sutter Street Improvement Club is unalterably opposed to the construction of an overhead trolley line on the Sutter Street system. We desire that the public should have no misconception of our position. We propose to contest to the end any attempt to get an overhead trolley on the entire Sutter Street system, and for that purpose we pledge ourselves, and promise to provide the necessary counsel to maintain our position in the courts. We want the public with us in this fight, as the fight is being made in the interests of the whole people.
“Our own investigations make us absolutely certain that if the public understands the true situation, it will not be misled by the specious arguments of the United Railroads. The conduit electric system, despite what the United Railroads and its representatives may say, is practicable, safe, efficient and superior to an overhead trolley. We are further satisfied that the company is seeking, by an offer of $200,000 which they offer to the people, to save itself an expense of several million dollars, which the conduit electric system would cost, if it should be required to reconstruct all its lines using the conduits; but we believe—and we are certain that the citizens of San Francisco will agree with us in this—that since the United Railroads, through the watering of its stock, has already made many millions of dollars out of its properties, and is now taking, and will take many millions of profits from our people, that it can afford to contribute to San Francisco the cost of the most attractive and efficient system of electric railroads. The United Railroads has put forward many arguments which have been and are easily met:
“First: It contended, as the public will remember, that the conduit electric system was impracticable on account of the accumulation of rain water in its conduits. This claim it has been forced to abandon.
“Second: It proclaimed loudly that the added cost of construction of an electric conduit was such that the life of its franchise would not justify the outlay. Now, they have abandoned this claim, and assert that it is not the cost of construction, but that there are other reasons.
“Third: They have declared that a uniform system was desirable. They now admit that a completely uniform system is impracticable, owing to grades, making it necessary to operate some lines by cable. Their only contention now is that the overhead trolley system is more efficient than either the cable or conduit electric system.
“Mr. C. E. Grunsky is our authority for the statement that in making the change from the conduit electric to the trolley, in passing from city to suburbs, there are no objectionable features, nor danger. Sir Alex. B. W. Kennedy, consulting engineer to the London County Council, in recommending the adoption of the conduit electric system for London’s municipal street railways, said: ‘There is no difficulty in arranging the cars so that they can be run from the underground (conduit) to the overhead and vice versa, either with no stoppage at all at the point of change, or with a stopping of only a few seconds. There is no engineering difficulty whatever in using a mixed tramway system, i.e., partly underground (conduit) and partly overhead.’
“We would suggest that the public compare the present overhead trolley system, operated by the United Railroads these many years in this city and county, with the service rendered by the California Cable Railway. There is no overhead trolley system in San Francisco to-day which surpasses the service given by the California Street Company.
“It is claimed that the public will be given a speedier and more efficient service if the overhead trolley is permitted. We ask the thousands of citizens who have been compelled to wait for overhead trolley cars, and to stand up in those overhead vehicles, whether or not the overhead trolley has thus afforded them satisfactory service? If we may judge the future by the experience with the overhead trolley of the past, it means fewer cars (hence less expense to the United Railroads), overcrowding and discomfort of passengers. The only advantage which thus far has come from the system seems to be to the company itself. It employs fewer men as a result of that system, but the comfort and convenience of the public have not been substantially bettered by it as against the cable.
“Before asking our people to give them an overhead trolley system throughout the whole city, the United Railroads would do well to show on some one of their overhead trolley lines now in operation a frequent, efficient and satisfactory service to the public. We do not want for San Francisco an extension and perpetuation of the unsightly, noisy, dangerous, uncomfortable and inefficient system of overhead trolleys as operated by the United Railroads to-day.