SPRINGDALE -- City leaders thought they had granted a favor when they closed a railroad crossing on a street in the burgeoning downtown district.
But when they asked the Arkansas & Missouri Railroad to open a new crossing on Maple Avenue, a block south from the closed one on Meadow Avenue, they found that their favor went only one way.
Railroad officials countered with conditions -- one being that the city pay to build the new crossing.
Conditions were listed in letters between City Attorney Ernest Cate and Joel Johnson of Hayes, Johnson & Conley, the Fort Smith attorneys representing the railroad. They included fencing from the Meadow Avenue site to the Maple Avenue crossing, closing the crossing a block farther south at Caudle Avenue, and maintaining some existing crossings.
"Their lawyers were pretty firm with what they wanted," Cate said. "But we talked and eventually agreed that the other things were not as pressing as this Maple crossing."
The railroad company also asked the city to close Hewitt Street, which serves as the eastern boundary of the railroad company's headquarters and shop. It's expected that soon the railroad will announce plans to expand those facilities and tie them into the city's revitalization project.
In March 2018, the railroad company granted the city's request to close the crossing at Meadow Avenue. That closure helped control traffic around Tyson Foods' new offices, said Wyman Morgan, director of finance and administration for the city.
The new crossing and extension of Maple Avenue will provide drivers, hikers and bikers another way to access downtown and a soon-to-be-renovated city park.
Maple Avenue is two blocks from the center of Springdale's revitalization efforts.
FUNDING APPROVED
On Tuesday night, the Springdale City Council approved $486,860 to build the new crossing at Maple Avenue and meet the railroad company's other conditions.
Council member Brian Powell hesitated before he cast his vote, saying he didn't like the company's behavior and likened it to bullying.
"The agreement was that we give them everything," he said.
The city plans to spend $2.5 million on the project, which includes the cost of the crossing. The money will come from the $92.7 million bond program for streets that voters approved in 2018, Morgan said.
The city also must pay a yearly $13,500 maintenance fee and continuing liability insurance, for which the premiums have not been set, Cate said.
The city recorded 15,919 vehicles traveling through the Maple Avenue intersection with Holcombe Street from July 15 to July 29, according to Ryan Carr, a senior project manager in the city's engineering department. Also 225 bicycles traveled through that intersection during the same time period.
The new railroad crossing will open access to the eastern part of the city for the Fire Department, Mayor Doug Sprouse said. The closing of the Meadow Avenue crossing left the firetrucks from Station 1 on Holcombe Street without a good way to get to emergency calls, said Fire Chief Mike Irwin.
"I really wanted to vote no," Powell said of the agreement. "But I know how badly this crossing is needed -- and that's just for the fire and police service. The No. 1 thing the city is responsible for is to ensure the safety of its residents, and to do that, the infrastructure must be set."
Sprouse added that the crossing at Maple Avenue will be much safer than the one at Meadow Avenue, which had no signals and is immediately south of the railroad's excursion train depot and railroad museum. The buildings blocked motorists' view of the tracks.
The new crossing will "have a fully functional safety apparatus with flashing lights to signal a crossing," said Ron Sparks, the chief of the local railroad's police department. A gate will include two arms that will block vehicle traffic from both directions, and four arms to stop pedestrians crossing the tracks, Baldwin said.
"The railroads hold a lot of the cards," Sprouse said. "I guess back when railroads were being built 100 years ago, they got a lot of good legislation passed."
The Arkansas & Missouri railroad operates over 140 miles of tracks stretching from the Arkansas River Valley to southern Missouri. The railroad has reported 13 incidents at its crossings since 2015. The railroad also saw four fatalities in the same time period.
Arkansas was among the top 13 states in number of interactions between trains and pedestrians or drivers in 2018. The state saw 51 railroad-related collisions, leading to 10 deaths and 16 injuries, according to Operation Lifesaver, a national rail safety organization.
Railroads and cities must abide by railroad construction regulations developed by the Arkansas Department of Transportation. The state guidelines also include federal Department of Transportation requirements.
Brad Baldwin, the director of engineering and public works for Springdale, said railroad rights of way trump all others. In fact, a railroad company can turn away the city's first responders from working on accidents that occur on the tracks. The Arkansas & Missouri police force investigates all incidents involving automobiles on its tracks, he said.
Railroad officials did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment or respond to questions submitted via email.
RAIL REGULATIONS
Towns that attracted railroads in the 1800s and early 1900s tended to produce regulations that favored railroad companies, said Pat McKnight, a park ranger at the Steamtown National Historic Park in Scranton, Pa.
"The railroad was the biggest business in town and brought commerce," McKnight said. "Hundreds of thousands of employees worked on the railroad. Like any business, the railroad supported different politicians. And historically, any railroad accidents turned out in favor of the railroad."
But, "actually, it's a matter of order," said Peter Hansen of Winter Park, Fla., railroad historian and the editor of Railroad History.
"The railroad was there first," he said. "It's simple physics: It's harder to stop a train at a crossing than a car."
"For the railroad, the best crossing is no crossing," he added.
A train traveling at 30 mph might take a mile to stop depending on its size and weight, according to the Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Resource Guide published by the Federal Railroad Administration.
In Fayetteville, city leaders worked with the Arkansas & Missouri to open a new crossing in 2006.
The railroad runs through Fayetteville, Springdale and Rogers from south to north, so the tracks are barriers to east-west travel, said Chris Brown, the city engineer for Fayetteville. But as his city's footprint continues to expand, more crossings are needed.
Brown said the city had to pay for installation of the crossing and insurance against accidents during the construction and into perpetuity for the 2006 project.
The Razorback Greenway trail system crosses under the railroad tracks at one point, and railroad officials wanted to be relieved of liability in case of an accident there, Brown said. He gave the example of something falling off the tracks and hitting someone on the trail below.
Fayetteville is currently in negotiations with the railroad to open two more crossings, Brown said. This time, the railroad wants the city to pay perpetual maintenance costs and for help in maintaining the crossing gates.
"Basically, when we want to put in new railroad crossings, we expect to pay for it," Brown said.
"Crossings of a railroad are a liability in terms of safety and maintenance," he said. "They are detrimental to their operation, so they don't go out about looking for new crossings."
SundayMonday on 09/02/2019