North Baltimore Passenger Railway Co. v. Mayor of Baltimore

Alvey, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The facts of this case and the allegations of the bill are the same as those in the case just decided, of the-North Baltimore Passenger Railway Company against the North Avenue Railway Company, with the addition in this case of allegations in respect to what is claimed by the plaintiff as a right to lay down and use tracks on what is known as North avenue bridge over Jones’ Falls, to the exclusion of the North Avenue Railway Company. The city is about to tear down the old bridge and to reconstruct it with new material, and in an improved manner; and as this work may be in course of construction for a considerable time, the Mayor and City Council have provided by ordinance, passed in 1891, for the erection of a temporary bridge over the Falls to accommodate the public until the new bridge is completed. In fact the temporary bridge has already been constructed.

The bridge that is about to be torn down for reconstruction is that referred to in the ordinance of the 8th of April, 1891, and over which the plaintiff company had laid its tracks. ²⁴⁹ To the hill in this case the Mayor and City Council and the City Commissioner, as well as the North Avenue Railway Company, are made parties; and the prayer of the bill is, that the North Avenue Railway Company be forever restrained from constructing or putting down any railway tracks or structure, either on the existing North avenue bridge over Jones’ Falls, or on the temporary bridge now being built over said Falls, or on the new North avenue bridge when built; and that the Mayor and City Council, and the Mayor and City Commissioner, all be restrained and enjoined from allowing the North Avenue Railway Company doing any of the things prayed to be restrained; and that they, and each of them, may be enjoined and commanded to allow the plaintiff, and the plaintiff alone, under the superintendence of the City Commissioner, as soon as the temporary bridge is ready to receive railway tracks, to remove its tracks from the existing North avenue bridge, and reconstruct and replace them on the said temporary bridge, and on the approaches thereto from North avenue, and to maintain and operate the same in all respects as it now maintains and operates its railway tracks on the existing North avenue bridge. This assertion and claim of the plaintiff of exclusive right of track-way over the bridge, both permanent and temporary, on North avenue, both the defendant company and the Mayor and City Council, by their answers, utterly deny, and insist that it is and will be within the power of the Mayor and City Council to allow any other company to place its own separate tracks on either the old bridge, over which the plaintiff company now has its tracks, or the temporary bridge, or the new bridge when completed. The Court below refused the injunction, and this Court is of opinion that it was entirely correct in so doing. ²⁵⁰ The bridge, known as North avenue bridge, over Jones' Falls, is exclusively the property of the City of Baltimore, erected and maintained for public use, and forms a part of North avenue, one of the highways of the city. And while the plaintiff has been granted the privilege of laying down street railway tracks on the bridge, it has thereby acquired no such exclusive right as can or ought to preclude the Mayor and City Council from granting to other companies the right to lay down separate and independent tracks over the bridge.

The Mayor and City Council. are given the right and power, by statute, to regulate the use of the streets and ways of the city, by railioay or other