(The following editorial appeared on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram website on May 2, 2010.)
FORT WORTH, Texas — America’s railroads have a good track record when it comes to hauling toxic inhalants. Accidents are extremely rare even though volume is extremely high — trains hauled 72,000 tank cars of such dangerous cargo in 2008.
One source told Star-Telegram reporter Gordon Dickson for a story published Friday that about 1,300 chlorine-filled tank cars a week go though Union Pacific’s Davidson Yard south and southwest of downtown Fort Worth. Even at that pace, the yard’s safety record with those shipments is strong.
Tarrant County is at the intersection of major rail corridors. Union Pacific’s tracks run east-west through the heart of the county and Fort Worth. Running north-south through that same heart are the lines of Fort Worth-based BNSF Railway, also with a good safety record on tank cars loaded with toxic inhalants.
Still, good safety records don’t mean mishaps can’t occur, and even one accident could be catastrophic in such a congested urban area. Add the threat of a terrorist attack involving one of those rail cars and there is reason to worry.
Dickson cited a Homeland Security report that said a cloud of chlorine gas could kill up to 17,500 people and injure 100,000 others within miles.
Why take the chance — especially when an alternative is available and has even been approved by voters?
In 2005, Texans approved a constitutional amendment creating the Rail Relocation and Improvement Fund and authorizing grants to help finance the relocation, rehabilitation and expansion of rail facilities. The vote wasn’t even close, 53.8 percent to 46.2 percent. In Tarrant County, the measure passed by 59.5 percent to 40.5 percent.
The fund would help pay to move the county’s busiest rail lines outside major population areas. Urban lines would still be here for delivery of goods (and for use by commuter trains), but a lot of traffic could be routed around the city.
Since 2007, federal law has required railroads to move hazardous cargo around, rather than through, major U.S. cities. No such bypass is available in Tarrant County, although it could be. Why hasn’t it happened? Money, of course. Such a project would cost millions if not billions.
Although the Rail Relocation and Improvement Fund exists, so far it’s still an empty shell. In a maddening twist, it could have money available for needed projects but doesn’t.
State Sen. Wendy Davis of Fort Worth and Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon and Sen. Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio pointed out in a Sunday Star-Telegram commentary that the Legislature last year budgeted $182 million for the fund. But the Texas Department of Transportation has laid claim to that money for highways, because it says the wording of the appropriation allows it to do so.
Davis, Jones McClendon and Wentworth want the Transportation Department to release the money for rail projects.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has been asked to settle the dispute. Let’s hope he does so soon.
Tarrant County’s history was shaped by railroads, and they’ll be an essential and vibrant part of the urban area’s economic life for the foreseeable future. But that does not mean all freight traffic must move through the area’s most densely populated and busiest parts. Finding another way was the reason the Rail Relocation and Improvement Fund was created.
This is not a time for profligate spending by any level of government, but it is still a time for planning things that clearly will be needed. Money from the fund could and should be used to begin planning major freight rail routes around Tarrant County cities.