MT: Grant process chugs along for railway elimination funds

Whitefish Public Works Director Craig Workman and Spencer Dodge, HDR strategic project manager, last week discussed the Whitefish rail corridor crossing study, a required step for receiving the railway elimination grant.

The Whitefish City Council approved a request by the city to apply for a railway crossing elimination grant from the Federal Rail Administration in September 2022. The city was awarded the grant the following year and last year, the consulting agreement went to HDR, a firm specializing in engineering and environmental services.

One major goal of the grant is to support potential elimination/replacement of at-grade crossings with accident and incident history located in close proximity to a BNSF Railway yard.

"Largely what we're focused on ... is State Park Road, Birch Point and Second Street," Dodge said. "Those are the three infrastructure challenges that we have when it comes to crossings in the town."

Dodge said the purpose of the planning study, in part, is to show due diligence, which is something the Federal Rail Administration likes to see. It also allows the agency to have a hand in the project from the start.

"Safety is FRA's number one priority," Dodge said. "So, we're looking at safety and access. And primarily, one of the things we really focused on in the grant application itself, were barriers to emergency services."

The study includes wildfire scenarios like a train on the Second Street crossing. Another important aspect of the study is public outreach and community involvement.

The grant is also intended to help freight and passenger rail operate safely, efficiently, and quickly and promote public safety for multimodal mobility.

"Our cyclists, our pedestrians who are moving through the area, we want to make sure we focus on that," Dodge said, adding they did not realize how many cyclists use the Second Street crossing.

The HDR study team has been helped by BNSF Railway during one of their on-site field visits.

"We got really great involvement with BNSF. Some of the operations folks, some of the yard folks here around town, specifically, that know this area better than anybody else," Dodge said. "They know how the trains work, they know how the trains don't work, if that may be the case, and so we were able to gather a lot of information through that."

Workman agreed that having some of the local BNSF Railway staff at the meeting was very helpful.

"I can tell you, the local BN staff is exhilarated that we're doing this project, because we had a lot of comments from them about things to address," Workman said.

Dodge explained that the funding for the Railroad Crossing Elimination program comes from supplemental funding that is not tied to the overall administrative budget for FRA.

The grant to cover the study required a 20% local match. The city agreed to pay $25,000, BNSF Railway will pay $75,000 and the grant covers $400,000.

The study review committee met Nov. 4, and two meetings are planned to review potential alternatives, and a virtual public meeting will be scheduled for next month.

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