Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "San Francisco Transbay Terminal" in English language version.
On July 24, 1953, a strike paralyzed Key System for seventy-six days. The California Public Utilities Commission refused to grant permission to Key System to abandon its train service on "A" and "B" transbay lines. [...] [In February 1954,] Key System applied to the Commission to cut services further. This was granted whereupon Key System announced that it contemplated still more curtailments and asked for tax relief of $188,000 per year. [...] In July [1954], Key System served public notice that it intended to abandon all transbay trains and substitute coaches within one or two years. [...] In October [1954], Key System was allowed by the Public Utilities Commission to curtail services on the East Bay motor coach lines and to increase fares [...] In January 1955, Key System applied to abandon all its rail services, and a rapid transit district was created in the East Bay to replace it.
The elevated track area from the San Francisco Anchorage which faces Beale Street in San Francisco, around the Terminal Loop, and through the building, has now been repaved and the 14 motor coach lines of the Key System Transit Lines are now operating out of the terminal, thus relieving the city streets of this traffic. [...] Included in this remodeling was the construction of a new stairway to the garage area below the street level, the installation of fluorescent lights in the main waiting room and on the mezzanine floor, the opening of various previously closed areas for freer movement of pedestrian traffic throughout the building, and the installing of a new stairway flanked on both sides by escalators, leading from the lobby to the mezzanine level.
President A.T. Mercier said: 'This action was made inevitable by circumstances beyond our control.
'While patronage on this transbay commuter service has been declining and has been unremunerative [sic] for years, the losses have increased from the date of completion of the Bay Bridge in November, 1936. In 1920 there were 22,657,418 transbay passengers carried in this service, as compared with 9,937,466 in 1939, while the population of the East Bay cities and San Francisco increased more than 50 per cent in the same period. [...]
'Loss of business to vehicular travel over the bridge has been given impetus by progressive reduction of automobile tolls from 65 cents to 35 cents. Fur[ther] reduction in tolls is being considered, which would bring further increased losses to the Interurban. [...]
'Every possible solution of the problem looking to economies of operation or possibility of consolidation of the Interurban Electric with the Key System, has been considered. All of these efforts have failed, and we are, therefore, left with no alternative but to abandon our service at the earliest practicable date.'
