FRA explains internal review that brought change to bridge safety program

Written by Jenifer Nunez, assistant editor
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Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Sarah Feinberg, took to the U.S. Department of Transportation's (USDOT) website to explain the process the FRA has gone through to enhance safety of the nation's rail bridges.

 

In a USDOT Fastlane blog post, Administrator Feinberg explains that many of the rail bridges in the United States were built decades ago and, despite being structurally sound, can appear unsafe. She notes that many of these bridges are in the middle of America’s communities – in downtowns, near commerce, schools and offices and that many goods, including hazardous materials, move across these bridges each day.

“Rail bridges are owned and maintained by individual railroads,” she wrote. “It is each railroad’s responsibility to ensure that bridges are safe, structurally sound and maintained. In 2008, Congress required railroads to establish bridge safety management programs and inspect their bridges annually. And, it is our responsibility to review each of these programs, and to conduct random audits of annual inspections.

“In 2015, at my direction, FRA began reviewing how it carries out its oversight of these rail bridges. Since we began this process last year, we’ve taken multiple steps to do more to ensure the safety of these bridges and to get more information to the public. Any time we discovered something that needed to change, we took action.”

Feinberg says that FRA began urging railroads to be much more transparent with communities about the safety and structural soundness of their bridges. Congress agreed with the call for transparency, so when it passed the FAST Act, Congress required railroads to provide, at the request of state or local officials, a report on a bridge’s last inspection. This was one of the first FAST Act provisions FRA implemented.

Feinberg notes that the president also requested more resources from Congress for FRA as part of his Fiscal Year 2017 budget to double FRA’s bridge safety staff and to build a new national bridge inventory the public could access.

“But we didn’t stop there,” she noted.

When FRA finished its internal review, FRA found that it needed to make changes to the processes around how it carries out its bridge safety oversight.

“Starting in late 2015, FRA put our bridge safety specialists under the direct supervision of the leadership of the FRA Office of Safety. Previously, bridge specialists had reported to their own immediate supervisor of the bridge program – they now report directly to leadership. This enhanced management and oversight continues in 2016 and includes regular and frequent updates to FRA leadership.

“We have improved our process for prioritizing bridge safety oversight and audits. We have new, written guidance that instructs bridge specialists to consistently use a data-driven and risk-based approach when determining which types of reviews to conduct on which bridge owners and in what priority order. Specialists are required to adhere to the new prioritization and to use the newly updated Bridge Safety Standards Compliance Manual.
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FRA says it has renewed its focus on enforcement. FRA is finalizing instructions that provide specific direction to bridge specialists about reporting defects and violations, recommending civil penalties, referring information to the OIG for criminal investigation and verifying and documenting track owners’ completion of remedial actions to address regulatory non-compliance issues.

FRA launched a multi-pronged effort to identify owners of all bridges in private industrial plants and insular tourist railroads, to add to the inventory of nearly 800 bridge-owning railroads.

While Congress has charged individual railroads with carrying out much of the maintenance and work on rail bridge safety, FRA takes its own charge from the Congress very seriously, she notes.

“In keeping that charge, we will continue to conduct strenuous and consistent oversight of railroads’ bridge safety management plans,” Feinberg wrote. “With data driven practices, new leadership and stronger internal controls, FRA has taken another step to increase railroad safety. We will not hesitate to take additional steps if necessary.

“Communities across the country deserve to know more about the state of infrastructure they live and interact with every day. They also deserve to feel confidence in the soundness of that infrastructure and to feel safe.”

 

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