(The following article by Tracy Idell Hamilton was posted on the San Antonio Express-News website on June 10.)
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Union Pacific Railroad wants to build a new cargo terminal in Southwest Bexar County that could dramatically increase truck traffic in the area, while potentially reducing train traffic through the city’s core.
The facility, which would allow cargo containers to be moved quickly from train cars to 18-wheelers, could also spur additional development in the area.
The plan is reportedly in the late stages of site selection, according to those familiar with the project, and appears to have zeroed in on the area where the tracks run near Old Pearsall Road between Loop 410 and 1604.
UP would not confirm its intentions to build the facility, which one county official said would likely service the Toyota plant.
“There has been no announcement yet,” said spokesman Joe Arbona.
However, the company’s Web site hints at the project, listing “expansion of our intermodal facilities in San Antonio” in a November 2004 document.
Generally, Arbona said, “Union Pacific is constantly looking for strategically located sites all over the country” for intermodal terminals, and is regularly buying and selling real estate. An “intermodal” terminal incorporates two or more modes of transportation, such as ship to train, or in this case, train to truck.
Two UP intermodal terminals already exist in Bexar County, the “South San” terminal on Quintana Road near East Kelly and the “East Side” terminal south of I-35 and near North New Braunfels Avenue.
An area south of Old Pearsall Road, closer to I-35, is also being eyed as a potential location for the new terminal, sources say.
Both sites sit between several schools in the Southwest Independent School District.
A cluster of schools to the west, on Dragon Lane, just off 1604 and Pearsall, serves about 5,000 students. More schools are scattered to the east, just inside Loop 410.
School officials, concerned about increased truck traffic and student safety, met with UP officials Tuesday. Also present were county transportation officials, a representative from Mayor Phil Hardberger’s office, County Judge Nelson Wolff and Commissioner Sergio “Chico” Rodriguez, in whose district the terminal would be built.
“We’ve been meeting for quite a while, and now we’re bringing more people into the mix,” Rodriguez said. Next will come talks with Texas Department of Transportation about widening Pearsall Road and dealing with drainage issues.
Southwest Superintendent Velma Viega confirmed she asked for the meeting.
“Our intent was to make sure that as this becomes a reality — because it looks like it’s a when, not an if — we’re all working together,” she said.
Viega was not surprised to hear that a new terminal might be placed in the area, given the explosive growth in and around the school district.
“The world is changing for us,” she said of the once quiet rural district. “We’re projected to grow by 50 percent in the next three to five years.”
Arbona said intermodal terminals generally move goods such as auto parts, electronics, clothing and appliances, not the kind of hazardous cargo involved in the 2004 train derailment that killed four Bexar County residents and injured scores of others.
In that case, which occurred off Nelson Road and 1604, only a few miles north of the possible new terminal sites, a UP train struck a Burlington Northern train that hadn’t finished pulling onto a side track, piercing one of its tankers, which released a cloud of deadly gas over the area.
Transferring containers from train to truck is happening more rapidly, Arbona said. In the past, a truck pulled in to a terminal, took on one or two containers, and was out in three to four minutes.
“Now,” he said, “they can be in and out in about 90 seconds.”
Having a third terminal is likely to relieve some of the train traffic at the existing terminals, said Wolff, something that has concerned him since a string of accidents in 2004, including the chlorine leak. Since then, he has led efforts to reroute as much train traffic as possible out of the city’s core, and he believes the new terminal will help.
“It should reduce traffic through the inner city,” he said recently, “in the East Side and South San yards.”
But intermodal traffic is increasing. The Federal Railroad Administration says it is the fastest-growing segment of rail-carried commodities, increasing from 3.4 million in the early 1980s, when doublestack containers were first introduced, to 9.3 million in 2002. That growth is projected to continue as fuel prices keep rising, making trains a more efficient way to move goods around the country.
UP and other railroad companies’ growth has been phenomenal, Arbona said. “We haven’t seen numbers like this since World War II.”
To keep up, the company plans to spend $2.75 billion on capital improvements in 2006, according to its Web site, including $1.5 billion in track programs and $485 million for additional capacity and commercial facilities.
Union Pacific isn’t alone in its efforts to meet the growing demand.
The Port Authority of San Antonio, formerly the Greater Kelly Development Authority, is planning a major intermodal facility at East Kelly with massive rail, truck and air cargo hubs. The terminal would like to take advantage of trade from Asia that once docked on the West Coast but will increasingly dock in Mexico and ride the rails up into Texas.
Bruce Miller, CEO of the Port Authority, estimates that the amount of domestic cargo traffic will increase by two-thirds and international traffic will double by 2015.
“As we open up our facilities, the world opens up for San Antonio,” Miller said.
UP’s new terminal is not connected to the Port Authority, but Miller doesn’t see it as competition.
“If it happens, which I can’t confirm, it increases capacity,” he said. “The South San yard needs upgrading. More than 70 trains a day go through San Antonio, and the staging (to unload cargo) interferes with movement. Greater capacity means faster movement. You don’t want trains to sit.”
If and when the new terminal is built, it is likely to attract more development in the area, mainly warehouse and distribution centers.
That’s what happened recently in South Dallas, after UP opened its 360-acre, $100 million intermodal facility near the small towns of Wilmer and Hutchins last year.
The Dallas Intermodal Terminal is already handling more cargo than expected, and acreage around it is being snapped up.
Indianapolis-based Duke Realty Group recently closed on 39 acres near the site for a distribution center, according to the Dallas Business Journal, and the Allen Group of California will wrap its 5,000-acre development around the terminal, in a move similar to another development surrounding an intermodal terminal in North Fort Worth.