LeCLAIRE, Iowa – Now that the merger of the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads has been approved, communities in their path are planning on how to deal with the eventual increase in train traffic. That includes the City of LeClaire. The city reached a $750,000 settlement with Canadian Pacific last year, and it […]
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LeCLAIRE, Iowa – Now that the merger of the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads has been approved, communities in their path are planning on how to deal with the eventual increase in train traffic.
That includes the City of LeClaire. The city reached a $750,000 settlement with Canadian Pacific last year, and it has begun to explore how to mitigate the impact of the train traffic on the city, especially in a downtown that is heavily reliant on tourism.
In February, the city council approved submitting three grant applications to the Iowa Department of Transportation for improvements to railroad intersections at Eagle Ridge Road, Canal Shore Drive and West Canal Shore Drive.
The grants sought $425,000 in funding apiece, said LeClaire City Administrator Dennis Bockenstedt.
Officials also are speaking with businesses about potential changes to railroad intersections in the downtown.
The thriving tourism district, a mix of shops, restaurants, bars and other attractions, has made the city a regional destination – and the prospect of a vast increase in train traffic is not popular, according to business leaders interviewed by the QCBJ.
But what to do about it?
The city is exploring a range of options, which were identified in a study commissioned last year by Canadian Pacific aimed at investigating ways to improve safety and minimize the impact of train noise. The options for the crossings at Wisconsin and Jones streets, which are in the heart of the city’s downtown, included standard gates and lights; establishing quad-gates; closing the Wisconsin Street crossing; and establishing one-ways at Wisconsin and Jones.
The city council has ruled out the street closing option, Mr. Bockenstedt said.
Standard gates and lights also wouldn’t be enough to qualify the area for a federally designated “quiet zone,” he added. Establishing a quiet zone would mean making sufficient safety improvements to railroad intersections in order to gain federal approval to waive the requirement that trains sound their horns as they pass.
The cost to establish quad-gates at the downtown intersections was estimated at $1.1 million in the Canadian Pacific-commissioned report. Mr. Bockenstedt said that this option would be less likely to attract grants funding, however.
Meanwhile, the one-way option, which also would include gates at the intersections, was estimated to cost $450,000, according to the report.
This is a preliminary estimate, Mr. Bocketstedt said.
The council is interested in the one-way idea because it is less expensive, the city administrator said, but the city is still gathering feedback.
“The council’s in a data-gathering mode. We’re taking in input from citizens, residents, business owners, to really dial in which improvements to move ahead on,” Mr. Bockenstedt said.
There appear to be a range of opinions among businesspeople about what to do.
Donna Walley, the owner of Aunt Hattie’s Fanciful Emporium, said noise from trains already has an impact, and that a quiet zone wouldn’t affect the bells from the increasing number of trains as they come through town.
“It sounds great to have the quiet zone. It sounds wonderful,” she said, while acknowledging that many businesses want one. “But,” Ms. Walley added, “there are things people aren’t putting into the equation, like the bells.”
She said she wants to make sure crossings are safe. But Ms. Walley also worries that traffic would be backed up when the cross bars are down if the one-way option is pursued.
Rich Henning, owner of Happy Joe’s Pizza and Ice Cream, says the train traffic already is disruptive and goes too fast through town.
“It’s a bullet blazing through here,” he said. “It hurts your body if you’re out by the tracks.”
His business is located about 20 yards from the tracks, with outside seating.
As for the options to mitigate the impact, Mr. Henning says the city shouldn’t do anything; that a quiet zone requires the city to do too many things, including shouldering maintenance costs for fences and gates, and that the costs outweigh benefits.
He adds gates and fences also have drawbacks.
The railroad, he says, is not being a good neighbor. “The railroad should invest 100% into this, and they’re not. They’re expecting us to do it,” he said.
Mr. Bockenstedt told the QCBJ in an interview in late May that the issue could come before the council again in the next month or two. The city also may end up asking for an up-to-date quiet zone study to ensure that prospective improvements would qualify for the federal designation.
Other cities, like Davenport and Bettendorf, which also reached financial settlements with Canadian Pacific, also have talked about using those funds to make improvements to their railroad crossings in order to qualify for quiet zone designations.
Studying the possibility of quiet zones, and their implementation, can sometimes be a lengthy process, sometimes taking years.
The merged railroads, now known as CPKC, had said during the U.S. Surface Transportation Board’s deliberations that train traffic through the Quad-Cities will probably nearly triple as a result of the merger.
