§ 5. To Regulate Street and Electric Railway Companies.

The City of Houston shall have the power by ordinance or otherwise to regulate the speed of engines, locomotives and street cars within the limits of said City, and to require steam railway companies to keep the streets over which they run properly drained, and to light the same wherever deemed necessary; and to require steam and electric railway companies to construct and keep in repair from curb to curb bridges and crossings over all the ditches, and to construct and maintain drains and culverts where crossed by any line of said railways on all streets over which they run.

To direct and control the laying and construction of railroad tracks, turnouts and switches, and to regulate the grade of same, and to require them to conform to the grade of the streets of said City as they may be or are now established, and that said tracks, turnouts and switches be so constructed and laid out as to interfere as little as possible with the ordinary travel in the use of the streets.

The City of Houston shall have power by ordinance or otherwise to require steam railways using any portion of the streets of the City to pay all or any part of the paving, grading, draining and repair thereof along the street so used by such railway, and to light the same whenever and wherever deemed necessary or advisable.

Said City shall have power by ordinance or otherwise to require any street or electric railway company to pay the cost of the grading, paving repairing or repaving or otherwise improving the street or streets or intersections thereof used or occupied by such railway company, and such cost shall be a lien upon the property and franchises of the company. The portion of the street occupied by an electric or street railway company shall be deemed to be the space between its tracks and twelve inches on the outside of each of its rails, and all the space between double tracks, turnouts and switches.

Any railroad company or street railway company proposing, with the permission of the Council, to occupy any street or streets already occupied by any other such company, shall, besides paying for paving as may be required by the City Council or by the provisions of this Act, be required also to pay for paving between the tracks of said two roads to within twelve inches of the track of such other road, and such cost shall be a lien upon the property and franchises of the company.

Should any railroad or street railway company propose to lay a track on any street or portion of a street which shall have been improved under the provisions of this Act, it shall become liable for the portion of the cost of such improvement as the City Council may direct or as is fixed by this Act.

No railroad or street railway company shall be permitted to occupy any street or portion of a street, improved or otherwise, not previously occupied by it, except with the permission of the City Council.

The City Council shall have power by ordinance to require any street car or electric railway company, or other person or corporation operating street cars in, into or through the City of Houston, to issue to its passengers transfers from any of its lines to any other lines within the City, upon the payment by said passenger of the fare or rate prescribed for one continuous passage. (Act of 1905)