Officials weigh safety, cost of improvements
DELAWARE — Widening roads to ease congestion is necessary in growing communities. But engineers and public officials face challenges when railroad crossings are in the way.
Do they widen around the tracks? Build a bridge over them? Or create a trench underneath?
The costs can be enormous, but the potential safety payoff is profound.
Bridges and underpasses all but eliminate vehicletrain collisions. But spending millions of dollars to do so may not always be possible, county engineers say.
The latest example is along East Orange Road in southern Delaware County, a main gateway to Orange Township and its many new housing projects.
Last week, Delaware County commissioners approved more than $333,000 for design and engineering work to continue the widening of Orange Road east from Route 23. The next phase extends from North Central Drive, but ends where train tracks cross the busy road.
Three sets of tracks cross here, close to the township’s administration building, where more than 30 Norfolk Southern and CSX trains pass daily.
And while there have been no recent fatalities or serious crashes, numerous school buses and young drivers pass over the tracks daily going to and from nearby schools.
The township has ultimate jurisdiction over the roads and how to widen and pay for them.
Lee Bodnar, Orange Township administrator, said trustees have “lightly discussed” the idea of building over or under the tracks. But he said there are no “imminent” plans.
Bodnar said estimates for an underpass are about $18 million.
If approved, that would be about four times the entire budget of Madison County’s engineering department, said Bryan Dhume, Madison County engineer. Development is expected to create more crossing hazards, but there are limited funds.
“As engineers and people who live in the community, we want to be able to pay for these projects. But we’re struggling just to maintain the roads that we have,” Dhume said.
Jeff Stauch, Union County’s engineer, also struggles balancing resources with safety needs in the state’s fastestgrowing county.
“It’s without question a safety benefit,” he said of bridges. “But there’s never going to be enough money to go around.”
His annual engineering budget is about $7 million.
Big spending on a single safety upgrade might not be as efficient as spreading funds across a variety of improvements, some experts believe.
“Governments have better places to spend their money,” said Christopher Pflaum, president of Kansas-based Spectrum Economics, a consultant to railroads. “You will save more lives doing a lot of other things rather than spending on crossings.”
And railroads rarely contribute money to big improvements, preferring routine maintenance instead, said Dave Pidgeon, a Norfolk Southern spokesman.
“From our perspective, (bridges or underpasses) are the safest kind of crossing,” he said. “But our responsibility is for safe and fluid trains along those tracks. We don’t own the roads.”
The company has 2,760 crossings in Ohio.
“Dealing with the railroads is always a problem,” said Ted Beidler, projects engineer for Franklin County, noting land purchases or complex legal agreements before work can begin. There are also deeper issues.
“What price do you put on a life?” Beidler asked. “Unfortunately, we do put a price on that.”
Engineers and planners use crash data, traffic volumes and future growth to help predict the likelihood of an injury or death decades into the future.
Franklin County has widened many roads across rail lines but has built no bridges in the past 20 years, said Beidler.
Delaware County, by contrast, dedicates a portion of its sales tax to roads and engineering.
Six years ago, the county spent $11 million on a bridge over the CSX tracks in Liberty Township along Home Road, where about 10,000 vehicles pass daily, about 500 more than Orange Road.
“Safety at the railroad crossing was the primary driver on that project,” said Rob Riley, chief deputy engineer for the county, partly because of its proximity to Liberty High School.