SALT LAKE CITY — Federal railroad regulators say interstate commerce is more important than the quality of life of Glendale and Poplar Grove residents, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.
The Surface Transportation Board this week rejected Salt Lake City’s petition to abandon Union Pacific’s 900 South rail line.
“We have weighed the safety, traffic and quality of life concerns raised by the community and find that they do not outweigh the overriding federal interest in maintaining this line as part of the interstate rail network,” board members wrote.
The federal agency concluded Salt Lake City’s 1989 franchise agreement was not enough proof that “public convenience and necessity” required or permitted abandonment of the line.
“We’re certainly pleased,” said Union Pacific spokesman Mike Furtney. “We look forward to continuing to operate and do the best we can to make those operations as unobtrusive as possible for the people who live by the line.”
That’s cold comfort to beleaguered railroad neighbors who deal with the vibrations and whistles. Televisions are rattled out of entertainment centers and residents routinely are awakened at night.
In November, the board gave Union Pacific tacit approval to send 10 to 12 freight trains a day through Salt Lake City’s western neighborhoods. The railroad company sent test trains early in December, and now six to nine coal and freight trains rumble past schools and homes daily.
“This is how perverse this can be when the lackeys of the railroad industry, who have never ruled against the industry, can hear cases they are so far removed from,” said Mayor Rocky Anderson. “I’m sure there’s not one member of the board of directors of Union Pacific that has a home where their family’s quality of life is so undermined as to compare with what the people in our neighborhoods are going through.”
The mayor says the city will appeal to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.
Salt Lake City’s battle against the railroad giant is nearly a year old. Last summer, Union Pacific announced its plans to reactivate the line.
Anderson revoked the company’s contract to cross city streets and Salt Lake City hired a Washington, D.C., attorney to ferry the city’s case through the federal agency. At the same time, city attorneys filed suit in federal court.
The mayor says the company has violated its own contract.
“The Surface Transportation Board is saying the written promises of this corporation don’t mean anything unless the board says they do,” he said. “This board, like so many agencies of the federal government, is simply a branch of the industry.”
He saves even stronger words for the railroad giant: “They are terrible corporate citizens.”
While acknowledging no Union Pacific trains had traversed the rails from March 1999 to December 2001, the STB determined Salt Lake City’s Gateway redevelopment project and construction of shorter Interstate 15 viaducts forced the company to cut off the line — temporarily.
“Union Pacific has shown that it intended to use the line again and is now doing so,” the board noted. “There clearly is a potential for continued rail freight service here.”
In the end, they bowed to Union Pacific. “Union Pacific does not need our permission to reactivate the line or to reroute its trains,” the board wrote, “and it would be inappropriate to substitute our judgment for [Union Pacific’s] judgment.”
Poplar Grove Community Council Chairwoman Edie Trimmer was not surprised.
“One of the real disappointments to me is that there’s not one concession that the city got,” said Trimmer. Neighbors had pushed the STB to force the Omaha, Neb.-based train company to conduct an environmental assessment of the line — to no avail. The board also passed on claims the railroad line disproportionately affects low-income and minority residents.
“We’ve never had the opportunity for a full public hearing,” Trimmer added. Now, neighbors are banking on Salt Lake City’s federal lawsuit. U.S. District Court Judge Ted Stewart will hear arguments Tuesday.
Meantime, residents have hired an attorney and asked the Utah Department of Transportation — which oversees railroad street crossings — for files on each of the 900 South intersections.
In some cases, Trimmer says UDOT has not required Union Pacific to make any safety improvements at street crossings — some still are marked only by black and white “crossbuck” signs.