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Show siiiMlllppi iFOitEUiljliCOLUISItl Phoenix-Salt Lake Stage Line Asks For Franchise And Consolidated Con-solidated Line Enters Protest A Number Of Witnesses Are Examined The Commission Will Visit Bingham 'Before Rendering A Decision. A delegation of Bingham . people ! r -. were In tSalt Lake, Tuesday, In the Interest of the proposed new stage line from Phoenix to Salt Lake City, ( . and in the interest of the Consolidated Consolidat-ed line, operating between here, and Salt Lake, and other lines operating - in the canyon. They appeared be-, fore the utilities commission and of-j fered evidence- pro and con on the matter at hand. ! This hearing was the result of an application of Joe iMeych and others i prominent business men of Phoenix, - for a franchise to operate a stage line between Phoenix nd Salt Lake City1 by way of 'Bingham. When application! - was made the Consolidated line en-1 tered a protect against the granting of the franchise, claiming that their line afforded ample accommodation for the traffic and that, there was not enough business to support the new line, and that in' case two lines were in operation neither would receive adequate ad-equate patronage and that the ser vice would necessarily be poor. -The proposed new line in Its appli-' appli-' cation of course set out that the ser-2s ser-2s vice rendered by the old line was not satisfactory and pointed out the many ways in which It was deficient and promised if it were granted a franchise fran-chise it would be operated in strict accordance with the rules and regu - lationa of the utilities commission. The hearing Tuesday was conducted before Hon. Joshua Greenwood, president presi-dent of the Utilities Commission The SPhoenlx-Salt , (Lake line .was represen--B4 ted by Attorneys Hanson and Bice, " and the Consolidated line ty Attorney Attorn-ey General Dan P. Shields. Ia addition addi-tion to these ltoea there were present representatives of the Motorcycle line and the. iBingham livery A.uto IThe, both of which operate cars and vehicle to Copperfield and Highland Boy. Their objection was against further fur-ther stage lines operating directly in the canyon. . --'.The first witness for the new line wsui .Ton Melich. He stated that there 7 was a damand and a strong one for t a stage line from Phoenix to Salt ' Lake. He stated that the proposed -line would open a station and operate a stage line in accordance with the regulations of ihe commission, that they would not carry more than seven passengers to a car, that on no occa- - ; sion would they carry two passengers In tho front seat with the driver, that his company was financially able to render the service and he felt sure that there would be no shortage of passengers for the service the company com-pany proposed to give. He also stated stat-ed that he waa a merchant and did not at present own a car and that he waa not wanting to secure the line in . order that he might have a place for his car, but for the better accommodation accommo-dation for the people in his coinmun- - itv ard in the canyon. During Mr. Melich's testimony Judge Greenwood stated that the stage lines were not record of the traffic He said that at times during. the day and on special occasions the traffic was congested. But that frequently they operated cars without a single passenger. The s Consolidated line, he said, was at the present time operating (IS cars, but in view of tho fact that the traffic does not Just'fy the use of this number num-ber application will be made to the commission to permit the company to reduce its number of cars to 12, which he said, would be ample to care for the business. , IMr. Anderson, president of the Motorcycle Mo-torcycle Stage line, which operates in the canyon testified that there was already too much service to the adjacent ad-jacent points in the camp. He submitted sub-mitted his records and said that his company maintained a regular schedule sched-ule whether there was passengers or not. . ' permitted by the law to carry a torg-. er number of passengers than, the number for which the car was made to carry and that if a company violated vio-lated this regulation it was liable to lose it franchise. I The next, w'tnesq for the new line was iC. . MeNeely who testified to what the people in the camp said con-' cerning the old line service Then Joe Dolahey testified about the lines opersting between IBingham and Copperfield Cop-perfield and 'Highland Boy. This was ' the last witness for- the new line and those opposing the new stage presented present-ed their testimony They had ouite a number present and their testimony was entirely different and decidedly contradictory of that offered by the promoters of the new line. - The first witness for the Consolidated Consoli-dated line was Mr. Culver, who stated at the outset that he was manager of , that line. He testified concerning the operation of the stage line. He said that there was not business here sufficient suf-ficient to justify the establiHhment of another line. He stated that it was necessary some time ago to increase tfc ra-e- to $l ?0 for a single trip and $2.50 for a round trip, that the facts concem'ng the revenues were submitted sub-mitted to the commission and that they found it necessary to grant the raise In order that the solvency of hnnlnaal mflrlit llA mfljln tnltl pA Ttft Air. rinen e.na oiner representatives representa-tives of the iBingham Lfvery Auto line testified that they maintained a regular regu-lar schedule regardlesis of the number of passengers they carr-' When the evidence was all In Mr. Rice of the counl for the Phoenix Company asked that a decision be deferred de-ferred until the testimony of C. L, Countryman could be had. The opposition oppo-sition admitted that Mr. Countryman would testify that the. service was unsatisfactory, un-satisfactory, but Judge Greenwood decided de-cided that it would be necessary to make a more thorough investigation cf the situation ?nd in order to do this the commission would have to vlsit Bingham and talk It over with the people here. j It wis also brought out at the hearing hear-ing that none of the stages were complying com-plying with the commission rules relative re-lative to the matter of publicity with the exception of the IBingham Livery line. That company carries its schedule sche-dule in the local paper and has also distributed cavds containing this in-' formation. .. , - The Rules and Regulations of the Commission in the section - entitled "Rule VIII, Loading (a)" says, "No owner or operator of any motor vehicle, ve-hicle, owned and operated by the automobile au-tomobile corporation, shall be permitted permit-ted to carry thereon a number of passengers pas-sengers in excess of the rated seat- said that the company operated its cars on schedule time and carried the passengers who applied, that they did not overcrowd the cars, that eight was the maximum number of passengers hauled lp one car and if nine or more applied for transportation at the scheduled sche-duled time for leavtng Bingham or Salt Lake the load was divided and two cars were dispatched. He said that on one occasion about the Fourth of July he did take nine passengers In rr.e 'a", hut lhat this wasmutually agreeable with the passengers them-' selves, and that there' was ample room in his car to care for them. He sa'd that the average load carried by thenars was between four and five and this, he said, was shown by the lng capacity of the vehicle aa designed design-ed by the manufacturer." The day following the hearing a representative of the Consolidated line took occasion to notify us that the stage would carry no more express ex-press for The Press Bulletin, although It carries great bundles of express every day for the Salt Lake papers. This paper has paid the Consolidated for every package of express either received or dispatched and we suppose sup-pose the Salt Lake papers have done the same. We also presume that the notice given us is general and that the ctage line will quit carrying the Salt Lake papers to Bingham. If it does not It will be discriminating in favor ot our competitors. |