SALT LAKE CITY — No one wants to take the blame for sleepless nights, cracks in walls and nicks in siding — the byproducts of Union Pacific freight trains plowing along 900 South in Salt Lake City again.
According to the Salt Lake Tribunes, Mayor Rocky Anderson points to former Mayor Deedee Corradini. And Corradini’s staff point right back. Exhausted, angry and scared, residents are are caught in the middle of the battle of words and documents.
“It is so hard to get a clear picture of what happened,” says Edie Trimmer, Poplar Grove Community Council chairwoman. “It seems to me that both administrations did not give this the attention it was due. They did not inform themselves enough. They relied on fairly narrow approaches to the problem. They were really out of their depth in terms of dealing with Union Pacific. And our neighborhood is going to pay the price for it.”
Salt Lake City’s history with Union Pacific is long and storied. It predates both Anderson and Corradini. But Anderson is maneuvering a more hostile relationship between the city and the Omaha, Neb.-based railroad company than Corradini did.
Originally a passenger line, the 900 South route fell dormant for years. Union Pacific only reactivated the tracks to relieve downtown train congestion during the 2002 Winter Games. When Anderson learned last summer of the company’s plans to send up to 10 freight trains a day through Poplar Grove and Glendale, he summarily yanked the company’s agreement to cross city streets and set off a legal battle that still drags on.
Both the federal Surface Transportation Board and a federal judge have ruled against Salt Lake City. City attorneys intend to appeal both decisions. Meantime, Anderson is talking with railroad officials about sound walls and quiet zones. But frustrated neighbors want a scapegoat. At first, it seemed they had found one in Anderson. But he deflected the blame to Corradini, a two-term mayor who left office in 1999.
It’s a case of who knew what when — and who they told.
According to Anderson and his supporters, the Corradini administration learned early in 1998 that the 900 South line would not be abandoned, but did not inform residents. In conversations about Gateway redevelopment and rail consolidation, Union Pacific Rail Line Planning Manager Raymond Allamong says in an affidavit, he told Corradini’s Deputy Mayor Brian Hatch only part of the 900 South line would be closed.
“To me, it’s the smoking gun,” says Michael Clara, who lives near the track and has become a critic of the process. “They knew good and well that the rest of the line would not be abandoned. But no one ever told us that.”
At the least, Clara says, Hatch and Corradini should have revised several master plans to take out proposals for housing or trails along the 900 South line. If they had, Clara insists, residents would have been forewarned.
Anderson’s senior project manager, D.J. Baxter, backs Clara up. “If you had tried to follow the bread crumbs as a homeowner and checked up on the tracks, you wouldn’t find any reference to the line being used again,” Baxter says.
But Hatch counters that he did inform City Council members of the change in plans before they adopted the Gateway Master Plan and Rail Consolidation Plan. And when Anderson was elected, Hatch says he told then-Chief of Staff Mike Melendez of all the 900 South details. “I warned them. But my warnings were ignored,” Hatch says.
Some of the problem may be turnover in the mayor’s office. Melendez resigned after just six months in office and Baxter was hired. Baxter insists he and the mayor are doing everything they can to get trains off 900 South — yanking the franchise agreement, arguing in court, negotiating for a compromise, even trying to buy the tracks for $750,000.
“We’ve taken very aggressive, almost extraordinary efforts to both protect the neighborhoods and keep the trains from running,” Baxter says. “Our priority is to get the trains off of 900 South. But if it becomes clear there’s no way to accomplish that goal, we’re going to do everything we can to mitigate the impact those trains will have on the neighborhood.”
With two rulings against the city, neighbors are realistic — even pessimistic — about the city’s chances of prevailing in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. They hold out even less hope for negotiations with railroad officials. Whoever is at fault, Trimmer just wants the trains to stop. A new feasibility study paid for by Union Pacific and the city Redevelopment Agency reviews the $21.4 million cost of, among other things, realigning the turn at a downtown landmark called Grant Tower to speed trains’ passage out of the city. But that wouldn’t necessarily take trains off the 900 South line, says Union Pacific spokesman Mike Furtney.
Not good enough, Trimmer says. “We’re talking about mitigating factors. We should be talking about solutions on the main line that would make 900 South go away.”