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(The following story by Susan Voyles appeared on the Reno Gazette-Journal website on February 3.)

RENO, Nevada — In the 21⁄2 years since the Reno railroad trench has opened, it hasn’t flooded, been destroyed by earthquake or bankrupted the city as predicted by some.

Thousands of people a day cross street bridges over the tracks, no longer stopped whenever a train goes through town. Train whistles no longer wake tourists in their hotel beds in the middle of the night.

“It’s the driest place in town,” boasts Robert Lee, a Reno senior civil engineer in public works, saying the big pumps did their job in clearing the trench in the New Year’s Eve flood of 2005, two months after the trench opened.

Accidents between trains and cars or pedestrians at 11 former rail crossings were eliminated. “Nobody has been hit by a train” since the trench opened in November 2005, Lee said.

Even critics, such as former council candidate Glade Hall and environmental lawyer Richard Harris, agree Granite Construction Co. brought the project in on time and on budget.

“I concede Granite Construction did a good job on and on budget,” said Harris, who still is concerned about an inactive fault under the trench. “My lingering concern is if the city could have expended one-half billion dollars on improvements in facilities in Reno, that would have been of greater benefit to the citizens at large.”

Never before had Reno seen such as fight over a hole in the ground. Officially called ReTRAC, the project involved lowering a set of tracks to a depth of up to 32 feet for 2.25 miles and then building 11 crossings over it.

It was the divisive issue in the city elections of 2000; and it got even hotter in the campaign of 2002, when Granite was awarded $170 million contract to build it that summer.

In voicing his opinion, H. Tom Orrell, a mayoral candidate in 2002, called for a lynching of former mayor Jeff Griffin and three council members for approving that contract. “In the old days, we would have strung them out on an old tree,” Orrell said.

Two days before the November 2002 election put Mayor Bob Cashell in office, the candidate had a few choice words about lowering the tracks. “I don’t like the way it was crammed down people’s throats,” Cashell said. “But we have fought long enough.”

After the election, he and the council made sure the public was kept informed of its progress. A large bulletin board on costs and work schedules was put up outside council chambers so the public could monitor it month by month.

The conflict even spilled over into city-county politics. The Washoe County Commission put an advisory vote on the 2002 ballot asking voters whether the commissioner should urge the city to complete the project. Only 37 percent of voters answered yes.

Griffin, who had been in the shipping business, raised fears of more than 40 or 50 trains a day thundering through downtown Reno, predicting more double-stack trains would head east from an improved port in Oakland. But that hasn’t happened because Union Pacific Railroad would have to chisel taller train tunnels through the Sierra to get those trains to Reno. Tall trains cross father north through the Feather River Canyon.

An average of 16 trains a day go through downtown these days, two more trains a day since the debate began in 1996. That year, Reno and Wichita, Kan., were singled out by federal transportation officials as the only two cities in the country that could be harmed by an expected increase in train traffic resulting from the merger of Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads.

In all, the trench has cost the city $282 million. Interest on the debt used to build it would bring the total to close to $500 million. A one-eighth cent sales tax, a 1 percent hotel room tax and a downtown property tax for decades to come will be used to pay for it.

“In my view, the problem was never whether the trench was a good addition,” said Hall, a Reno lawyer. “But whether we would be able to do it within cost and the issue of priorities. We could have built three high schools with that money.”

Before Reno spends any more money to fix up the area around the trench, Hall said the city should set aside money for those businesses that were hurt. He said he plans to appeal a district court case he lost last week in Washoe District Court seeking $500,000 from lost rent and a forced property sale for Palm Springs Transfer and Storage, formerly on Bell Street.

“I think there should be compensation for some people who were driven out of business,” Hall said.

Fitzgeralds Casino-Hotel, which had a shoo-fly or temporary track laid right outside its hotel door, is the only business to have won a major benefit. For that hardship, it was excused from paying more than $400,000 in property taxes for the project.

Reno city lawyers Tracy Chase and Jonathan Shipman said no lawsuits are pending that seek collateral damage resulting from the project.