Executive Order  No. 11: (1st Series) Wartime public transportation and taxi service

WHEREAS, the existing shortage of motor vehicles, tires, equipment and fuel has resulted in a curtailment in the use of private transportation facilities; and

WHEREAS, by reason of said curtailment the facilities and equipment of common and contract carriers of persons and property have been and will continue to be subjected to increasing use and demands; and

WHEREAS, it is apparent that all transportation facilities and equipment must be utilized, maintained and operated with the maximum possible efficiency, economy and coordination in order to insure the orderly and expeditious transportation of persons and property necessary to the effective prosecution of the war:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Leverett Saltonstall, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, acting under the provisions of Acts of 1942, chapter 13, section 2 (2), and section 3, and all other authority vested in me, do hereby issue this order as a measure necessary and expedient for meeting the supreme emergency of the existing state of war between the United States and any foreign country.

The Department of Public Utilities, hereinafter referred to as the Department, is hereby authorized and empowered as follows:

1. To issue special licenses without public hearings, for the carriage of passengers for hire by motor vehicle in any city or town in the Commonwealth whenever said Department shall have determined that the transportation facilities available to said city or town are inadequate, overtaxed or insufficient.

Licenses shall not be required to procure local licenses for the operation of motor vehicles in the transportation of passengers for hire, in or through any city or town in which the said operation is licensed hereunder. Such special licenses shall be effective for such periods of time as the Department may prescribe, not to exceed, in any event, the effective period of this order and shall be revocable at the discretion of the Department.

Applications for such licenses shall be in writing on forms prescribed by the Department. Whenever any such license shall be issued by the Department it shall forthwith notify, in writing, the clerk of every city and town in which the said license is to be operative. The notice herein required to be given shall set forth the name and address of the person to whom said license has been issued, the effective date of such license, and such other information as the Department shall deem advisable.

2. To order or permit any common carrier of passengers to provide additional transportation services, equipment or facilities in any city or town, or in any part of the Common- wealth. Orders or permits may be issued pursuant to this paragraph without public hearings whenever the Department shall have determined that the public convenience or necessity requires that such additional services, equipment or facilities be provided.

3. To order or permit, without posting or any other notice and without public hearing, but after a determination by the Department that the public convenience or necessity so requires, the elimination or diminution of transportation services offered or provided at any time by a common carrier within the Commonwealth.

4. To cooperate with and assist the Federal Office of Defense Transportation in all matters which are now, or which may hereafter be within the jurisdiction of the Department.

5. Special licenses, orders or permits which may be issued by the Department under authority of this order, shall be subject to such conditions or regulations as the Department may prescribe from time to time.

6. Before taking any action pursuant to the provisions of this order, the Department shall make a determination, after such investigation as it deems advisable, that the public convenience or necessity requires the action proposed to be taken.

7. In every action taken by the Department under the authority of this order, it shall forthwith enter on its records a statement of the facts material to the action taken, the reasons therefor, the date on which the action was taken, the name of each Commissioner of the Department participating in the decision and such other information as the Department deems pertinent and material.

8. Any carrier required to perform or to refrain from performing any act by an order of the Department issued under the authority hereof may apply to the Department for a hearing on said order within twenty days after receipt of notice thereof, and shall state its reasons for applying for said hearing in the application therefor. The Department shall hold a hearing on said application within twenty days from receipt of the request therefor, and following such hearing shall affirm, modify or revoke said order as the public convenience or necessity may, in the opinion of the Department, require. An application for a hearing filed hereunder shall not stay the operation or execution of the order upon which said hearing is requested, but said order shall continue in full force and effect until modified, revoked or superseded by further order of the Department.

GIVEN at the Executive Chamber in Boston, this twenty-fifth day of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and forty- two, and of the Independence of the United States of America, the one hundred and sixty-sixth.

By His Excellency the Governor,
LEVERETT SALTONSTALL

FREDERIC W. COOK,
Secretary of the Commonwealth