(The following story by Heather Lockwood appeared at AnnArbor.com on July 13, 2010.)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Police kicked off a campaign this month to enforce trespassing laws on railroad property and say anyone caught walking along railroad tracks could be cited for a misdemeanor offense.
The campaign, which will last through August, means officers will enforce trespass laws on railroad property for the east-west commuter train line, including the tracks near the University of Michigan Hospital and Mitchell fields, according to a U-M police bulletin.
Rudy Husband, director of public relations for Norfolk Southern Corporation, said the effort is meant to remind people that trespassing on and around railroad tracks is “dangerous and illegal.”
“Every year we clean up our railroad underpass—it’s an area where people go and sleep,” he said. “Anybody who is on railroad property is trespassing.”
Federal Railroad Administration data shows Washtenaw County had five railroad casualties between 2007 and 2009, the second highest number among counties in the state. Only Wayne County had more with seven during that timeframe.
Officials with Ann Arbor police and U-M police said Norfolk Southern police are leading the effort and declined to comment.
The law governing trespassing on railroad property prohibits “walking, riding, driving, or being upon or along right-of-way,” which is defined as “the track or roadbed owned by a railroad and that property owned by a railroad which is located on either side of its tracks and which is readily recognizable to a reasonable person as being railroad property or is reasonably identified as such by fencing, the existence of railroad tracks or appropriate signs.”
Police say people who are walking, jogging or traveling near railroad tracks need to use authorized sidewalks and streets, rather than informal trails and worn paths, and cross the tracks only at marked railroad crossings.