(The Grand Island Independent posted the following article on its website on April 15.)
LINCOLN, Neb. — Drivers in Nebraska spend an estimated 6,350 hours a day waiting for trains to go by.
They are stopped at one of the state’s 4,000 public and 2,700 private rail crossings. Some have to wait along the busiest rail corridor in the nation between Gibbon and North Platte, where each day about 132 Union Pacific trains pass through.
More than inconvenient for motorists, rail crossings are dangerous. Five people were killed in Nebraska in 2000 in public railway crossing accidents. Nationwide, 425 people were killed that year in public and private crossing incidents, and 1,219 were injured.
Those are a few of the reasons U.S. Rep. Doug Bereuter, R-Neb., asked Congress to hold a public hearing Tuesday in Lincoln on the need for more federal money to help close rail crossings.
“He thinks Nebraska is a place where these people need to come to grips with what is really going on,” said Bereuter spokeswoman Carol Lawrence about members of the House Transportation Committee’s subcommittee on highways, transit and pipelines.
Grand Island will be sending Public Works Director Steve Riehle to the public hearing, where he is hoping the government will be able to draw more attention to the issue. Riehle recently called upon the Grand Island City Council to fund a railroad corridor study that could lead to closed crossings and more overpasses and underpasses in the city.
“Closing crossings is where you really get people’s attention,” he said. “I think a lot of people realize it’s a matter of convenience but also a matter of safety, especially with the number of trains that go through Grand Island.”
Median barriers and other positive measures to encourage safety are aspects of the situation Riehle said he would like to talk about, as well as criteria and funding for putting overpasses or underpasses in certain areas.
“Either the bar is too low or there isn’t enough money to go around, and I suspect it’s more the money,” he said. “There are a lot more needs than money available.”
Gov. Mike Johanns and Speaker of the Legislature Curt Bromm of Wahoo were among people scheduled to testify at the hearing.
Union Pacific Railroad would like to close as many rail crossings as possible, spokesman John Bromley said.
“In a perfect world, we’d like to eliminate every one of them,” Bromley said. “They are a maintenance, safety and public relations problem. People hate to be blocked at crossings, and they hate to hear air horns.”
North Platte recently completed an extensive system of street viaducts, eliminating all crossings and the need for 1,064 daily train whistles in the city.
Still, rail crossing closures can be controversial, particularly if people believe emergency response teams will be hampered by having fewer rail crossings to choose from, Lincoln County Commissioner Joe Hewgley said. Other concerns include getting large pieces of farm equipment over the bridges, Hewgley said.
“Some people have been very supportive of it, some people have been very opposed to it,” said Hewgley, who has dealt with the issue in Lincoln County.
Nebraska receives about $4 million a year in federal aid for rail safety that can be used for projects like building bridges over railroad tracks and setting up signals at rail crossings, said Ellis Tompkins, rail and public transportation engineer for the state Department for Roads.
The state, local governments and railroads also spend about $4 million a year on rail safety projects.
But Nebraska alone needs $425 million if it is to build some 85 potential bridges across railroad tracks in the state, Tompkins said.
“Eight million dollars a year doesn’t go very far,” Tompkins said.
Bereuter agrees that more federal money is needed, Lawrence said.
Neither Bereuter’s office nor state officials were prepared to name a specific amount of federal money they would want.
However, the six-year federal highway bill is being prepared for passage sometime this fall or early next spring, Tompkins said.
“We hope to impress upon the subcommittee the need for some additional funding for rail safety projects in the Midwest and in Nebraska,” Tompkins said.