STEP grants awarded to Wisconsin, North Dakota and Louisiana

Written by Jenifer Nunez, assistant editor
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The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) selected nine rail projects in eight states to receive nearly $10 million to upgrade and increase the safety of railroad crossings along energy routes under the Railroad Safety Grants for the Safe Transportation of Energy Products (STEP) by Rail Program. FRA received 34 eligible applications requesting five times the $10 million available for the program, or $50.8 million.

 

Three states, Wisconsin, Louisiana and North Dakota will benefit from more than $5 million in funds.

Wisconsin will use its $3 million to improve safety and security for Waukesha County communities along rail lines carrying crude oil.

“I have been sounding the alarm for two years on the need to put in place strong rail safety protections and am proud to announce this critical investment in Wisconsin’s rail infrastructure,” said U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI).

Louisiana will use its $1.1 million to increase safety at railroad crossings along six miles of Kansas City Southern tracks from North Street to Louise Street in Baton Rouge.

“These grants will reduce accidents and fatalities at railroad crossings and help modernize our nation’s rail system,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “Through a combination of these grants, education and enforcement, we can – and will – achieve our goal of preventing accidents and deaths at railroad crossings.”

Of the 15 crossings along the route, six will be closed and nine will be upgraded to have lights, gates and other road improvements. Since 2000, there have been 11 accidents that have resulted in four injuries along this corridor in Baton Rouge. An average of eight trains travel along this route each day. In 2014, Louisiana ranked in the top five states for fatalities at railroad crossings with 13 fatalities.

“Families in this neighborhood travel across these tracks every day taking their children to school and going to work. But these crossings do not have all the safety measures that families and this community deserve with so many trains transporting crude oil and other energy products. [This] investment will go a long way to keep families safe and move us closer to achieving the goal of reducing fatalities at railroad crossings,” said FRA Administrator Sarah Feinberg.

North Dakota will use its more than $1 million award to upgrade grade crossings on the energy corridor with active warning signals at five locations: 126th Ave NW of Epping; 86th Ave NW east of Ross, Grand Forks Cr16 Niagara; Grand Forks CR20 West of Larimore and 79th Ave NE Ramsey County CMC 3638 NW of Devils Lake.

“We’ve been working hard to maintain and improve our state’s infrastructure, especially our railways,” said Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND). “This funding will go towards upgrading grade crossings, which will improve rail safety and allow us to continue building an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy plan for our nation.”

FRA notes that highway-rail grade crossings collisions are the second-leading cause of all railroad-related fatalities. While the number of fatalities has decreased for the last several decades, this number increased in 2014 for the first time this decade.

The FRA unveiled the availability of the funds last September. The guidelines for the grant applications set by the FRA encouraged states to include innovative solutions to improve safety, especially at highway-rail grade crossings.

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