If any one has a chance to read this and let me know your thoughts or ideas that would be great. I'm still a little lost on why a trail can't share a rail corridor. They want to push us so far back away from the rail that a trail will be too costly to put in. The funny thing is, this rail isn't being used and no one can tell me any future plans for it other than preserving it for future commuter rail unless something pops up before then.
Thanks Heidi -----Original Message----- From: Huntington, Frank [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 3:29 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: Rails with Trails In answer your questions, 1. There are potentially ways of reduding the railroads liability exposure. Another party can hold the railroad harmless, or the legislature could pass legislation limiting railroads liability. But those options are not perfect. The railroad can still get sued and would need to defend it self. And there are still legitatmate safety concerns no matter how the liability is addressed. 2. Yes, the municpalities or the county could condemn a corridor adjacent to the corridor. They do not need WisDOT or railroad approval or concurrence to do that. The communities already own the rail corridor between Madison and Evansville, so they could purchase more land if they chose. As I noted in my last email, there are safer places to put a trail than next to a rail line. People look at a rail corridor and feel that it is either unused or under used. It appears to be a low cost and convient place to put a trail. However, there are legitamate safety, liability and railroad operating issues. For the non-rail entity it is easy to overlook or discount these concerns, but they do exist. Addressing these concerns can become costly. It may mean purchasing additional right of way, building bridges, putting up fences, grading and filing, etc. It doesn't take long for the percieved advantages to go away. It is true that people that people tend to walk along rail lines. This is trespassing, and it is a major concern for all of the railroads. More people are killed trespassing on rail corridors than at railroad crossings. The question is whether a trail would make it safer for pediestrians and bikers, or will it encourage more people to be near the tracks and actually increase trespassing into places they should not be. There is another side to this. Some of the trails in the state are located on corridors held under rails to trails programs for future rail use. These corridors can be converted back to rail use at any time if there is a need. However, many other trail corridors are owned by the trail sponsor. There are no provisions for converting these corridor back to rail unless the trail sponsor voluntarily allows it. In a few instances a railroad has requested that they be allowed to share the corridor with the trail to reach a new customer that wanted rail service. In exchange they were willing to consider making concessions in other locations. The trail sponsors and supporters in those cases were not willing to consider the request. My point is that when the situation is reveres trail sponsors don't consider it safe or desireable to share trail corridors with railroads. This is not a simple issue, and no I don't have any immediate solutions. At some point there may be enough incentive for somebody to take the first step and open the door for shared use. Hope this helps. Frank Huntington, Supervisor Rail Project and Property Management Unit Wisconsin Department of Transportation 4802 Sheboygan Ave., Rm 701 PO Box 7914 Madison, WI 53707-7914 Phone 608-267-3710 FAX 608-267-3567 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Heidi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2007 1:11 PM To: 'Huntington, Frank' Subject: RE: Rails with Trails Thank you for your information and it is valuable to help me understand. Is there any way to take that liability off their hands? What if the municipality or county were to condemn a portion of the land alongside the corridor to use for a trail? Have you heard of such a thing? Do you have any ideas that would help make this work better for everyone? Isn't there a way to separate the trail used portion of the corridor from the rail portion for liability issues? It is my understanding that people do and have always walked along these track even when trains were running, wouldn't it be safer to have a trail there to keep people off the tracks? Let me know if you have any suggestions. Thank you for your time and understanding! -----Original Message----- From: Huntington, Frank [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2007 3:59 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Tim Karp; 'Ken Lucht'; Joni Graves (E-mail) Subject: RE: Rails with Trails Heidi: It probably is safer for bikers to use a trail as opposed to riding on the road. That would be true whether the trail is on the rail corridor or some other place. In fact, there are places to put a trail that are safer than either a road or a rail corridor. So safety isn't the only issue involved in the location of any trail. The issue here is that the rail corridors are not public use facilities. Even though some of them are publicly owned, they are leased to private companies, such as the WSOR. Under the agreements covering WSOR's lease and operation of the rail lines, they are totally responsible for safety and liability issues. They hold the state, the transit commission and other public bodies harmless from any liability. If anything happens on the corridor it falls to them and their insurance company. Liability and insurance are serious issues for all railroads. This is especially true for a relatively small railroad such as WSOR. One or two serious incidents could threaten their abililty to obtain insurance at an affordable price, or at any price at all. The inability to get affordable insurance could put them out of service. Although the likelyhood of an incident on a trail located on a rail corridor may be relatively small, they can and do happen. So, why would any company want to take that risk? The main goal of our program is to preserve rail service. So while WisDOT is willing to consider joint use of our rail corridors under certain circumstances, we will take any concerns raised by the railroad very seriously, and are not likely to support joint use without the concurrance of the railroad. I hope this helps explain the railroads and WisDOT's concerns. Frank Huntington, Supervisor Rail Project and Property Management Unit Wisconsin Department of Transportation 4802 Sheboygan Ave., Rm 701 PO Box 7914 Madison, WI 53707-7914 Phone 608-267-3710 FAX 608-267-3567 e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Ken Lucht [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 9:05 AM To: Ken Lucht; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Frank Huntington (E-mail); Joni Graves (E-mail) Cc: Tim Karp Subject: RE: Rails with Trails Here is the attachment I was meaning to send.. -----Original Message----- From: Ken Lucht Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 9:04 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'; Frank Huntington (E-mail); Joni Graves (E-mail) Cc: Tim Karp Subject: RE: Rails with Trails Hello, I am not sure what year this study was conducted and I was unable to open the document, but the past 10 years has seen a lot of changes from the perspective of railroad equipment. Last month, I mentioned in an email that railcar lengths and locomotive engines are steadily being built longer and heavier in order to haul more product in single load. As a result of a recent derailment in Edgerton, WI, in which an 81 foot center beam flat car loaded with lumber derailed and ended up perpendicular to the rail line. Any recreational use of this corridor by way of a path or trail could have resulted in a tragedy. I am not sure if this study considers the length of railcars in the event of derailments, but more importantly I would be interested in knowing if this study considers the ever changing world of railroading in the 21st century -meaning the increased demand for rail shipping, increasing lengths of railcars, and increasing need for railroads to try and compete against just in time delivery. Here on the WSOR, the WisDOT has established a precedent of not allowing any non-railroad uses within 33 feet of the centerline on both sides of track. And, with the changes in the railroad industry, I would think it might be time to re-examine that distance. I am copying Tim Karp on this email in case he has any questions or comments. Tim is acutely familiar with railroad liability and especially how it pertains to WSOR operations. Ken -----Original Message----- From: Heidi [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 12:55 PM To: Frank Huntington (E-mail); Ken Lucht; Joni Graves (E-mail) Subject: FW: Rails with Trails According to this there are trails 25 feet from active rail lines and they do find it safer than on roads. Let me know what you think of this article. Heidi -----Original Message----- From: Ross, Arthur [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 10:25 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Rails with Trails Heidi, I noticed in your minutes that you were planning to research rails with trails projects. The Rails to Trails Conservancy did this a few years back and their report is available on-line at http://www.railtrails.org/resources/documents/resource_docs/Rails-with-T rails%20Report%20reprint_1-06_lr.pdf Good luck, Arthur Arthur Ross, Pedestrian-Bicycle Coordinator City of Madison Traffic Engineering Division 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Suite 100 PO Box 2986 Madison, WI 53701-2986 608/266-6225 _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
