(The following report by Reggie Beehner appeared on the Sun Herald website on July 11.)
BILOXI, Miss. — A CSX train travels between Caillavet Street and Porter Avenue in Biloxi across four crossings the Mississippi Department of Transportation and CSX would like to close.
When it comes to the numbers of motorists killed at railroad crossings, only two counties in the nation send more people to the morgue than Harrison County.
What makes Harrison County’s rising body count all the more startling is that the counties with deadlier numbers – Cook County in Chicago and Los Angeles County in California – are among the nation’s most densely populated, with 5.3 million and 9.8 million residents, respectively.
Harrison County, in contrast, has just 190,000 residents.
It is facts like these, Mississippi transportation officials say, that drives their campaign to close 20 to 30 percent of South Mississippi’s railroad crossings – a move they contend will lead to a significant reduction in train collisions.
But thus far, the campaign has not received a warm reception in South Mississippi. In fact, most oppose the plan, with some city officials expressing outright hostility.
Of the five cities facing closures – Biloxi, Gulfport, Bay St. Louis, Ocean Springs and Pass Christian – only Biloxi expressed a willingness to work with state transportation officials, although the city tacked on a list of demands that must be met to win its cooperation.
The others vowed to fight, warning that crossing closures would disrupt their communities’ traffic flow and pose delays for emergency vehicles.
Still, the cities may not have a choice. The Mississippi Department of Transportation, which is spearheading the project in conjunction with CSX, the railroad’s operator, holds “exclusive jurisdiction” over the railroad crossings and could force cities to accept the closures despite their objections.
But MDOT officials say that is not the route they want to take.
“We’re not trying to circumvent the cities – we’re trying to work with them,” said Butch Swales, assistant rails division engineer with MDOT. “Our list of crossings is still changing, but we’re trying to determine which would be the least troublesome for cities to close and still provide the greatest safety benefits.”
In 2002, Mississippi ranked among the nation’s top 10 states in railroad crossing collisions, with the CSX route along the Coast accounting for the vast majority of incidents, Swales said.
Much of the dangers, state and federal railroad officials say, stem from the region’s high number of rail crossings, many of which are spaced no more than a block apart. For instance, a three-quarter mile stretch of track in Gulfport holds 10 crossings, federal railroad officials said.
“A lot of people say they don’t want their crossing closed because it’s an inconvenience,” said Tom Drake, a grade crossing manager with the Federal Railroad Administration. “But when somebody won’t go 400 feet out of their way to an additional crossing, there’s a problem here.”
In an effort to persuade cities to close some crossings, MDOT and CSX have offered to upgrade the cities’ crossings that remain open, outfitting them at no cost to the city with warning lights and mechanical gates, measures that cost from $125,000 to $250,000 per crossing. In addition, MDOT proposes to build parallel connecting roads in areas where a crossing closure would result in a dead-end street.
Because of the expenses involved, those measures would be apportioned over a three- to five-year period, Swales said, adding that they would be completed before any crossings were closed.
Still, many city officials have opted to oppose the plan, replaying the events from more than a decade ago when MDOT floated a similar proposal and then dropped it due to lack of support.
In Gulfport, the City Council recently voted to reject MDOT’s offer and then voted again to override Mayor Ken Combs’ veto of the measure. In Bay St. Louis, city officials encouraged local residents to voice their opposition in letters to state lawmakers and transportation officials.
“If we’re going to close a crossing, then it ought to be up to us to determine that,” Bay St. Louis Mayor Eddie Favre said, adding that state lawmaker J.P. Compretta plans to introduce a bill next session that would transfer authority of rail crossings from MDOT to local municipalities.
Most city leaders say residents want their crossings to remain open. Many of the proposed closings, they say, are on narrow streets, some of which do not offer alternative routes. Others say their crossings have remained accident-free for decades, and that closing them would divert traffic to other, potentially more dangerous crossings.
For now, transportation officials acknowledge the proposal is a “hot-button issue,” one that might not be politically popular, but they vow to continue to work with residents and cities to reach a compromise.
“The primary driving force on this is safety,” Swales said. “But we want to work with the cities because they know best what roads need to be left open and which ones can be closed.”
Others, however, don’t see a harmonious resolution.
“The way it stands now, it looks like it’s going to be a showdown,” Favre said. “MDOT doesn’t look like its going to budge, and I don’t see the city budging. So I’ve got a feeling this will end up in the courts.”