Washington makes railroad counteroffer

WASHINGTON — City officials have sent a counteroffer to Canadian Pacific Railroad (CP) on development agreements under a proposed merger with Kansas City Southern, an acquisition that would raise daily train traffic in Washington County more than any other part of the country.

City officials said the talks were motivated by that increase. Currently at 4.3 trains per day, regulators estimate a jump in average daily train counts by 14.4 over three years from Muscatine to Ottumwa if the merger is approved.

“This is the first very important step in making an informed decision,” Mayor Jaron Rosien said. “Regardless of if we do no quiet zone, a full, or a partial … we understand that this is absolutely necessary.”

The railroad originally made two offers to the city. Under "Offer A,“ the company would pay the city $150,000 per crossing in exchange for the city’s closure of three (out of nine total) crossings. Offer B would pay $125,000 per crossing in exchange for the city’s closure of two crossings. Both offers would be matched by $100,000 from the state, as well as $55,000 from the company for a quiet zone study, according to Rosien.

The mayor pushed for an agreement more favorable to the city, with components including payment from the railroad to the tune of $250,000 per crossing, regardless of how many are closed, as well as waived costs for expenses to close crossings, and $1.75 million for the construction of quiet zones.

While federal regulators have not signaled plans to require sound mitigation investments by the company, Rosien said the higher ask was justified.

“I thought the counteroffer I threw out, as aggressive as it may be, is a great way to keep that ball rolling and see what comes back to us,” he said. “We are a smaller community, but the impact on Washington is very high.”

Council Member Bethany Glinsmann said she agreed, citing the proposed merger’s implications for disadvantaged communities within Washington.

“One of the pieces of information we should use as leverage is the impact of environmental justice,” she said. “(The Surface Transportation Board) says 82% of the homes that will be impacted in Washington are within an environmental justice bloc group … that means these are lower-income families, or minority families or otherwise kind of marginalized families. That could be a rationale for arguing for a bigger dollar value per crossing.”

Rosien said the city was on good terms with the train line and expected negotiations to stay civil.

“We have benefited, I will say, by having an open dialogue with the railroad,” he said. “Other communities have approached it differently, and so far I believe it has behooved us to communicate with candor.”

Railroad officials voiced a similar sentiment.

“We want to build a relationship, the railroad’s not going anywhere and neither is the community,” said CP Managing Director of U.S. Government Affairs Arielle Giordano. “So we hope that we can continue to have a productive conversation.”

However, the city still expects the company to respond with a counter offer of its own.

“This is more than we are likely to receive,” Rosien said. “But … this type of counteroffer assures that we would not spend a single taxpayer dollar in connection to this merger, and be able to do much-needed improvement to sidewalks, approaches, and toward potentially a quiet zone, if council sees fit.”

With a more aggressive counter offer on the table, the city has not ruled out closing crossings as leverage in negotiations. Doing so would reduce the maintenance burden on the railroad and draw approval from the state as a safety measure.

“For us, we have a lot, so it is feasible after this study that we could close some,” Rosien said. “Four would be great for them, maybe not so great for our constituents … I bet there are two that are very low on traffic that we could manage to find a compromise with.”

Council Member Steve Gault said he was skeptical about CP’s maintenance commitments.

“The railroad has been very negligent at taking care of the crossings in Washington sometimes, and I mean for long periods of time,” he said. “The one on 12th Street, it’s in bad shape now, and it was in bad shape last year, it seems like they never get fixed. So what’s going to change with that?”

Giordano said the company would use its communication channels to stay on top of things, but said timeframe-specific promises about maintenance were hard to make.

“It comes down to crew availability, contractor availability, but if there are issues with crossings, we will figure out a way to speak with the city to address them,” she said.

City council members voted unanimously to pursue a quiet zone study if an agreement is struck with the railroad to pay for it.

That study would evaluate anything and everything related to quiet zones, from impacted areas to costs to public opinion, according to City Administrator Deanna McCusker.

“It not only looks at areas of quiet, but it also will look at each our crossings, what we can do to make those crossings safer, or if we can close crossings,” she said. “There will be public information meetings as part of it, it’ll be an all-encompassing kind of study … (with) all the information necessary for you guys to make a decision about whether we do want to do a quiet zone, or a partial quiet zone.”

Some community members have encouraged the city to avoid quiet zones, despite the merger’s projected increase of train traffic by over 300% after three years.

“I think it is very important that trains blow their whistles at crossings,” said Russell Lyon, a Washington resident and railroad employee. “I can just imagine how safety would be jeopardized if they were silenced … I live fairly close to the tracks, and I would say most people get used to them.”

Establishing quiet zones does require installation of other safety measures. Many who have done it before say safety improved as a result.

“In order to silence the horns and create a railroad quiet zone, which is a Federal Railroad Administration designation, you have to meet certain requirements,” Former Fairfield City Council Member Michael Halley in an interview in February. He led the charge in his community to install quiet zones roughly a decade ago. “The way that you create the quiet zone is by making the crossings safer than they were before, which is kind of the opposite of the way a lot of people initially perceived it.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com