PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Every Christmas season needs its Grinch, and I think I’ve found this year’s, according to an editorial written by ruth Ann Baker and published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He doesn’t live in the area; he just passes through, making his meanness all the easier. He won’t steal Christmas from a whole town, it’s true, just possibly from a few local businesses. But his actions will cost a whole town a whole lot of money and frustration.
“He” is a railroad. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. is our Grinch. Others have been less charitable than I, what with my warm, fuzzy Dr. Seuss analogy. Others have used words like “Gestapo tactics” and various unprintables.
Norfolk Southern’s tracks run for many miles along the northern bank of the Allegheny River. In O’Hara, three roads cross the tracks from Old Freeport Road, providing access to the businesses that have sprung up along the riverbank in recent years. The westernmost crossing is nothing more than a warehouse driveway. At the eastern end, two highway ramps intersect awkwardly with the Fairview Drive railroad crossing and both Freeport roads, old and new. Here, screeching brakes and bleating horns warn the foolhardy to get out of the way of the cars flying off Route 28 toward Blawnox.
That leaves the central crossing at Riverfront Drive as both the most direct and most orderly access to the riverside developments. Bright and early on the first Monday of December, Norfolk Southern representatives showed up with cranes, concrete Jersey barriers, a backhoe and a private police force, and shut down the Riverfront Drive crossing. They did so without any warning to the community.
“We had no obligation to notify anybody,” contends railway spokesman Rudy Husband.
Mabon Lichtenfels, project manager for Continental Communities, strolled over that morning to see what the commotion was about. “When I tried to walk through the right-of-way, they said, ‘Remove yourself or be arrested for trespassing,'” he says. “I find that offensive as a neighbor.”
But these neighbors have long been at odds. Here’s a short history of their conflict.
The yacht club had been leasing the Riverfront crossing from Norfolk Southern for years when it sold land to Continental Communities to develop The Docks apartment complex next door.
Lichtenfels contends that from the get-go, Continental Communities sought to improve the Riverfront crossing to accommodate any potential traffic increase.
Norfolk Southern refused to agree to any specific improvement plan and instead sued the yacht club and the developer over their agreement. Commonwealth Court sent the case to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission for resolution. O’Hara then declared Riverfront Drive a public road and the crossing, by extension, a public crossing. It also cites the original 1893 deed from Mary Delafield to the township — with its explicit reservation of three crossings for public use.
The township’s application was pending before the PUC hearing in early 2003 and an on-site PUC inspection Dec. 4, when Norfolk Southern came in with its heavy equipment and heavy-handed ways.
“They brought in a backhoe and ripped the actual roadway out,” Lichtenfels notes. “If the Jersey barriers went away today, a car still couldn’t use the roadway. It looks vindictive.”
Norfolk Southern’s justification also sound suspicious. “We removed the crossing in the interests of public safety,” Husband says. The railroad’s traffic study does predict a 700 percent increase in traffic upon the completion of all 383 rental units at The Docks. However, only 80 are completed and leased.
Moreover, Lichtenfels notes, “limiting traffic to the Fairview crossing backs cars up across the track.” The nearby fire department no longer has quick access to the riverfront, and as recently as last Friday, two tractor trailers got “hung up” at the Fairview intersection, shutting down all access to the Allegheny side throughout the midday.
“They’ve created a much more dangerous situation,” Lichtenfels says of Norfolk Southern.
The PUC hearing is two months away, but O’Hara has filed an emergency request to restore the crossing in the meantime. “We’re hoping to hear any day,” Lichtenfels says.
That may not be soon enough to rescue the Christmas shopping season for the handful of businesses near the yacht club. Was this really necessary?
“It happened two weeks ago,” says Husband, the railroad’s spokesman. “There’s no point in playing Monday morning quarterback.”
Maybe there is — if for no other reason than to encourage the people being, um, railroaded by this big ol’ Grinch. Norfolk Southern operatees 300 locomotives over 21,500 miles of track in 22 states. Its only local interest is in getting merchandise to Pittsburgh-area warehouses at the lowest possible cost. It has no need to be a “good neighbor” in O’Hara, but it does have an intense interest in limiting liability and transferring safety costs to others. The railroad wants the most elaborate, expensive crossing possible and it wants someone else to pay for it. Hence the hardball tactics.
No caroling Whos of Whoville are going to open this Grinch’s eyes to the meaning of neighborly cooperation. So here’s hoping the PUC teaches Norfolk Southern a lesson with a little tough love and a big post-Christmas bill — all in the spirit of the season, of course.
(Ruth Ann Baker is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. This editorial was published in the Post-Gazette on Wednesday, December 18.)