The Federal Railroad Administration awarded a $1.1 million grant to Louisiana today so the state can upgrade and close railroad crossings along a 6-mile stretch of Kansas City Southern Railway Co. tracks from North to Louise streets in Baton Rouge.
FRA Administrator Sarah Feinberg visited Baton Rouge and announced the grant award this morning. The rail project is one of nine in eight states to receive nearly $10 million in federal grants to improve the safety of railroad crossings, The Associated Press reports.
Louisiana’s grant will pay for closing six crossings and upgrading nine others with gates and lights along the 6-mile stretch Kansas City Southern owns. The FRA says four people have been injured in 11 accidents at these 15 crossings since 2000. An average of eight trains per day travel along the route.
The other states receiving grant money are Arkansas, California, Illinois, Minnesota, North Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin. The grants target routes where trains carry crude oil and ethanol.
Feinberg says there was an “uptick” in deaths and injuries at rail crossings in 2014 after years of steadily declining numbers.
“We know that those numbers went way, way down during the recession, probably because there were fewer people on the roads and fewer trains traveling,” she says. “We’re not sure yet why those numbers have ticked up.”
But accidents at rail crossings are a “really old challenge,” Feinberg adds.
“It’s one that I think we’ve thrown a lot at over the years, over the decades, and we need to be thinking about it in new ways,” she says, noting that the FRA is working with technology companies to integrate federal rail data with mapping applications.
In 2014, 267 people died in collisions between trains and vehicles at U.S. railroad crossings. Only four states had more deaths at crossings in 2014 than Louisiana, which had 13.
Many of the crossings due for upgrades and closings in Baton Rouge are near McKinley Middle Magnet School. Sean Joffrion, the school’s principal, says many of his students have to cross the tracks at least twice every day.
“Knowing that the safety of the railroad crossings will be increased puts me as well as parents more at ease,” he says.
U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, R-Louisiana, says the grants are a “step in the right direction.”
“There’s a whole lot more that needs to be done in this region to further improve the interface between these various modes of transportation,” he says.
