Cleveland & Major Freight Railroads Dispute Over Railroad Routing
Similar train traffic increases occurred in Cleveland, Ohio in 1998 except in this situation the city went into negotiation with the railroads to try to stop them from routing the trains through the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Unfortunately, the city lost this battle in a sense that the railroad still decided to move forward with the expansion in those poor areas. The best agreement the they could come to included CSX providing noise mitigation near the tracks through sound walls or additional building insulation, providing training for local hazardous materials response personnel, and access points along the line for emergency personnel. However, this wasn’t much of a negotiation because CSX had already proposed these terms. The article suggests that the city doesn’t have much power when it comes to railroad routing, especially when interstate commerce is involved.
“Mayor Michael White had staged a high-profile battle to prevent CSX from using a 19-mile railroad bypass of downtown Cleveland as its major route through town. This line, which under the merger plan would see tremendous increases in freight traffic, passes through poor communities on the eastern side of Cleveland that the city is working to rehabilitate”. – Don Phillips, Washington Post
See the full article below:
Citation
Phillips, Don. 1998. “Freight Railroads Win Dispute With Cleveland;Federal agency rejects City’s Plan to Route Traffic Around Poor Neighborhoods.” The Washington Post, May 27.