It is interesting to wonder why a snapshot is taken, whether it is for a purpose or just idly pointing the camera as an excuse to take a picture. My anything-railroad habit extends to streetcars (I always run one around the Christmas tree), so I am always glad when someone takes one.
This was taken from an unusually high angle that I assume must be from a building or from a ridge like the one in the far background. People are getting on and off this unusual car – it is only half enclosed (not sure I have ever seen another quite like it). I am also intrigued by the architecture of the houses along the street; they are every bit as unusual; one is a store on the street level with a very odd second story porch, false front and triangular bay window with skewed pediment above (Victorians and Edwardians would go to an expense for the unusual that is virtually foreign to our purposes). There is a blowup below.
The route signboard on the car is Alameda - Oakland. Laborious research finally turned up the Oakland Transit Company (O. T. Co. on the side of this car) which was the earlier name of the Key System started by the wealthy Death Valley borax ( 20-Mule Team!) tycoon Marion Smith who eventually operated lines in Alameda and Contra Costa counties and connected to the ferries; the succeeding system operated electric cars until 1946. The O. T. name places this image in the mid-1890s and it may be on College Avenue (?)