Easton City v. Miller

Citations

• 69 Pa. Super. 554
• 1918 Pa. Super. LEXIS 443

Syllabus

<p>Municipalities — Police powers — Street railways r— Direction- of traffic — Public Service Commission Act — Interstate commerce.</p> <p>An ordinance of a city providing that “all vehicles including street passenger cars shall, upon entering the public square known as Centre Square turn to the right thereof, and pass around said square as herein directed,” is not an unreasonable exercise of the p*oliee power of the city where it appears that the square in question was practically the heart of the city’s commercial life, and that on one of the approaches to it there passed between the hours of six o’clock a. m. and six o’clock p. m. 6,372 vehicles of all descriptions, including four hundred street cars which received and discharged daily from 25,000 to 40,000 passengers.</p> <p>The right of a city to enact such an ordinance was not taken away by the act creating the Public Service Commission.</p> <p>Such an ordinance is not an arbitrary, unreasonable or oppressive exercise of the power, because it involves some readjustment of the company’s schedule and some relocation of the tracks on a few streets.</p> <p>Such an ordinance does not impose a burden on interstate commerce even if some of the street cars which entered the square were engaged in such commerce.</p> <p>Street railways — Municipal consent — Municipal regulations — Police power.</p> <p>A company accepting a franchise that involves the use of a public street of a city or other municipality must accept it subject to the continuous right of such municipality to perform its strictly legal functions and obligations even though such performance may entail some expense upon the holder of the franchise in readjusting pole lines, water and gas pipes, street car tracks and the like, to the new situation brought about by the lawful act of the city.</p> <p>Public Service Commission — Jurisdiction — Municipalities — Street railways.</p> <p>Under the Public Service Commission Act the Commission may decline to approve