Curt Yeomans
Photo: U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., and Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose pose for a photo together outside the congresswoman’s office in Duluth last Friday after Bose’s visit with the congresswoman and local leaders to discuss railroad issues.
It’s an issue that Gwinnett County leaders and some of some of their municipal counterparts are working with U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath to address locally, but it’s also a nationwide problem: trains blocking local roads by either being so long that they take long periods of time to pass through or by parking in railroad crossings.
That was one of the issues that brought Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose to Duluth last Friday for a meeting with McBath and leaders from several Gwinnett cities as well as the county’s transportation department.
The talks focused on overall safety of railroads crossings, but the meeting also came months after the Federal Railroad Administration awarded $888,000 to Gwinnett to study eliminating three crossings in the county.
“The railroads go right through the heart of some of these communities directly,” Bose told the Daily Post in a one-on-one interview after the meeting. “We want to make sure that citizens feel safe to have the railroads go through and also to make sure that vehicles can go through from one side to the other, emergency responders can go from one side to another, also school kids can feel safe crossing railroads tracks in a reasonable manner.”
Right now, the plan in Gwinnett is to use federal funding to study the elimination of the crossings at Arcado, Oak/Gloster and Hosea Roads. All of those crossings are on the CSX rail line that runs through the county.
The idea is to find alternatives means that can be built to get cars over or under the train tracks without cars having to stop when trains pass by or are parked on the tracks.
McBath told the Daily Post that she wanted to be able to highlight what the Biden Administration’s infrastructure investments in Georgia were doing, particularly in regard to railroads. The railroads portion of that specifically highlighted the funding to study eliminating the railroad crossings in Gwinnett, she said.
“”I just wanted my leaders and stakeholders to be able to sit with (Bose), ask him questions specifically pertaining to the railroad issues that they’re having for quiet zones and safety protections, pedestrian protections and those kinds of things,” McBath said.
In 2022, there more than 30,000 reports of crossings being blocked by trains across the U.S., as well as there were more than 2,000 collisions at railroad crossings, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.“I meet regularly with members of Congress, like Congresswoman McBath and it is one of the top three things that constantly come up across the country,” Bose said. “It is an ongoing issue. Partly, and I was talking about this (with Gwinnett officials) too, some of that may have to do with the longer trains that are running now.
“In the past, trains used to be the size of 8,000 feet or less. Now, we’re seeing trains that are longer than that, and when you have longer trains, these blocked crossings that the communities used to go through a lot quicker, it naturally takes more time.”
Bose said the Federal Railroad Administration has set up an online portal where people can report continuous issues with blocked crossings. Representatives of the administration will then come out and evaluate the crossings to find ways to address the situation.
“We are looking at that. We are looking at blocked crossings,” Bose said.
McBath told the Daily Post that the issues extend beyond blocked crossings, however. She pointed to concerns about pedestrian crossings and the need for having quiet zones because of trains passing through or near residential areas as well.
“(We’re) just trying to make sure they’re safe, but that the railroad can still effectively do what it’s designed to do,” McBath said.