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(The following article by Aaron Claverie was posted on the Imperial Valley Press website on May 9.)

CALEXICO — It’s not just Calexico.

All along the U.S.-Mexico border, wherever Union Pacific trains enter Mexico, there are traffic problems.

In the past few months, Calexico residents and city officials have been complaining about traffic jams caused by trains blocking intersections.

A woman who called this newspaper said she waited 20 minutes on Highway 98, trapped behind a train entering Mexico. There was no recourse for the woman, no alternate route, due to Calexico’s layout, which funnels the majority of east-west traffic onto two streets, Highway 98 and Grant Street.

If a train is long enough, Calexico is effectively cut in half while the locomotives switch cars at a switching station south of Grant.

When a train is blocking Highway 98 to the north, the only way to get to the west part of town from the east is a trip all the way up to Cole Road then down on Kloke Road, a 10-minute drive.

This has the woman who called and city officials worried about response times for emergency personnel.

There have been more complaints lately because Union Pacific’s Mexico-bound traffic has been growing. Due to the uptick in business, Union Pacific will spend about $2 billion on capital projects this year, about 68 percent of that on key corridors in Southern California, according to a story in the L.A. Daily News.

John Bromley, West Coast spokesman for Union Pacific, said Friday that he didn’t know what percentage of the $2 billion would be spent in the Imperial Valley. He said the money will be spread all over the company.

As for the traffic problems, he said the ultimate solution is an overpass.

Since Calexico is not just the only city with these problems, the federal government makes funds available for local cities to build overpasses and eliminate railroad crossings, he said.

Union Pacific, the only railroad to serve six gateways to Mexico, even chips in a percentage.

Mayor David Ouzan has said an overpass might be the only way to solve the Highway 98 mess.

However, before an overpass can be built, the state and the federal government have to complete years of studies. Bromley said the first step for the city would be to contact state officials, then work from there.