CRAWFORDSVILLE – The City of Crawfordsville is pleased to announce it has been awarded funding by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) under the Railroad Crossing Elimination Grant Program.
Grant funding will be used for a $1.6 million Market Street Railroad Crossing Elimination Planning and Development project. This funding will support project planning and development phases for a grade separation at Market Street, State Road 32, State Road 47, US 136, and the CSX Transportation railroad crossing in Crawfordsville. The planning process will qualify the City to seek funding for construction. Final design and construction phases will be included in a future grant request once planning and development phases have been completed.
The convergence of several Indiana State Highways to one point at a busy rail crossing creates serious issues in the community, more than just traffic delays. While there is an overpass rail crossing on Wabash Avenue that should allow traffic to flow unimpeded when a train blocks this crossing, the surrounding road network cannot accommodate the amount of traffic trying to use Wabash Avenue at once. Often, the combination of frustrated local citizens, visitors to the community unfamiliar with the detour, and truck traffic unable to navigate around the blocked crossing creates an incredibly unsafe situation for residents and visitors to the community alike.
Future projects will improve the crossing by eliminating the interaction between vehicles/pedestrians and rail traffic. The project will incorporate the necessary elements, including sidewalks, bike lanes, or multi-use trail paths. Fencing and other restrictive access measures along the rail line will be implemented further to reduce the risk of pedestrian interaction with rail traffic, as pedestrians are frequently spotted using the railroad as a path.
The community has struggled with this issue for decades, and several attempts to receive funding have been made in recent years. in 2018, the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) announced the Local Trax Rail Overpass program, which the City applied. Unfortunately, INDOT did not select Crawfordsville as a recipient community. Subsequently, the City applied for Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) grants from the Federal Transit Administration in 2018 and 2019, which were not selected for funding.
Following those failed attempts to secure funding, the City shifted to a data-focused approach, which was used to support the successful FRA grant application. As part of this process, data from the crossing was collected for over a year and compiled to empirically demonstrate the actual impact on residents, businesses, and public safety. The data showed the crossing was blocked for more than 277 hours during the study period, impacting the 16,492 vehicles that traverse the crossing on an average day, 9% of which are large semi-trucks. Using a formula created by the Federal Highway Administration, it was determined that these blockages resulted in a $2.67 million/year impact on residents and businesses in terms of lost time and productivity. Additionally, the estimated annual CO2 emission value created by idling vehicles waiting on the crossing to be cleared was valued at nearly $33,000/year.
Lastly, the public was engaged in a series of meetings expressing the negative impacts the crossing has had on their daily lives, and an online survey yielded 1,691 participants. 99% of survey participants reported having been stopped at the crossing and 43% had witnessed a pedestrian walk around the gates or through a stopped train. In a public meeting to obtain community input on the issue, one resident provided this accurate summary, “Stopped trains cause an atmosphere downtown that is supercharged with panic, speed, anger, and frustration. Unhealthy for the community and so unsafe.”
“This problem has challenged our community for many years, and we are excited to have a pathway to address it finally. This funding will allow us to plan for grade separation and will position us well for obtaining the funding to construct it, creating a permanent solution that equips Crawfordsville to come to terms with this problem once and for all,” said Crawfordsville Mayor Todd Barton.
“I want to thank everyone for their patience as we’ve worked through addressing this matter. I especially want to thank the Director of Operations and Community Development, Brandy Allen, for all her hard work on this successful grant application. She dedicated much time and effort to ensuring our application resonated with the Federal Railroad Administration and the US Department of Transportation,” Barton said.
Despite this crossing being located on state highways, the City of Crawfordsville has committed to contributing the required match funding due to the importance of this issue to the community.
Additional, detailed information regarding the study results and planning process will be provided in a soon-to-be-released special episode of the Crawfordsville Connection Podcast.
About the City of Crawfordsville: Crawfordsville is home to more than 16,000 residents and is the county seat in Montgomery County, Indiana. About an hour west of Indianapolis, the growing city is known for its state and nationally-recognized Mobile Integrated Health program, extensive outdoor recreational opportunities at Shades State Park and Sugar Creek, and is home to the Ironman Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Championships and Wabash College.
