(The following article by Sara Harvey was posted on the Greenville News website on October 18.)
EASLEY, S.C. — Twenty-six times a day, trains hurtle through downtown Easley and become uncrossable barriers between Palmetto Baptist Hospital and 14,000 Easley residents on the south side of the tracks.
From the other direction, they separate the Easley Fire Department headquarters and 4,000 residents north of the tracks along Main Street. Station No. 2 is on the north side on Glenwood Road, but trains could block reinforcements from Station 1 in an emergency.
“Every second counts,” Fire Chief Butch Womack said. “In our situation, any time we get a call the people already need us there. It’s not a situation where they’re trying to schedule us to come.”
An overpass or underpass over the Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks would guarantee that a fire engine or ambulance could always get across in an emergency. However, an engineer has estimated that either project could cost between $30 million and $40 million, said Cecil Nalley, Easley director of public works.
“Wow,” said Easley area resident Elizabeth Blake. “That’s a lot of money. But I think it’s needed because there’s no way to get across it, especially if it’s an emergency. If it comes down to a person’s life, no price is too great.”
The cost was a ballpark figure based on similar projects, without looking at ways to lower the price, City Administrator Charles Helsel said.
“They should check on another way to get it done,” resident Woodrow Blake said.
A formal engineering study itself would cost between $200,000 and $300,000, Helsel said. A recent study by Wilbur Smith & Associates, an engineering firm hired to do a second rail crossing study for the City of Clemson, proposed a $9.7 million crossing from U.S. 76 over U.S. 123 and the tracks to Calhoun Street.
The main funding source for the study and project would be federal transportation dollars passed down through local planning organizations, which for Easley, Liberty and Pickens should soon be Greenville’s GRATS.
“That would be a large ticket item for them to handle” and could cause the project, if approved, to be stretched out over funding cycles, Helsel said. First, the city council must decide whether to pursue the project.
The idea has been around for years, City Councilman Larry Bagwell said.
“I hope I’m still living to see it,” Bagwell said. “It’s a situation where we’d all like to see something done about it, but it’s also a situation where there’s a tremendous cost involved. I would think there will be a lot more projects on the fire before we get to that one.”
All of City Council Ward 4, a third of Ward 5 and half of Ward 6 are on the northern, hospital-side of the tracks. On the south side, with the fire department, are Ward 3, Ward 2 and Ward 1, with 40 percent of the population.
“Ambulances scoot through there several times a day,” said Carla Oaks, who watches them from Kewpie’s Cafe, her Pendleton Street restaurant. “I think the crossing there is very dangerous, and sometimes the gates go down for no reason and it causes pandemonium with the traffic.”
Another funding source for improving the problem could open up should the federal government inject money into a high-speed rail project in the Upstate, Helsel said. U.S. Rep. Jim DeMint, a Greenville Republican, and Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, a Charleston Democrat, are both pushing to make high-speed rail a reality in the Upstate within 10 years to connect Atlanta, Charlotte and stops in between.
The city has talked about upgrading an existing overpass near the Easley YMCA, making the dip deeper, wider and at a more convenient angle, Womack said.
“Its still not the convenient spot for it,” he said. “We’d much rather have it in the downtown area, but we’re thinking of dollar signs.”
The likelihood of a train blocking an ambulance or fire engine and creating a greater emergency, on the scale of 1 to 10, is zero, City Councilman David Whittemore said.
With high-speed rail, however, the city would have to have some sort of over- or underpass, Whittemore said. He would like to see the tracks lowered someday and a bridge built over the top.
“Everything’s a vision and a dream, and an unfunded one at that,” Whittemore said.