Brunswick council ponders train blockage solutions

Nov. 18—The Brunswick City Council was presented with several architectural concepts the city could take to help traffic get past trains that block the tracks on South Maple Avenue.

CSX, a railroad company, has significant rail yard operations in the city's downtown. Part of that yard is a railroad track that cuts through South Maple Avenue. It separates the city and the Brunswick Family Campground, which attracts more than 20,000 people a year.

South Maple Avenue is the only road that links both sides. That becomes an issue when trains block the road, sometimes for hours at a time, and leave people and cars stranded and stuck. It's been an issue for years, according to documents from the city.

In August, an Amtrak train hit a tractor-trailer at the crossing. No one was injured, but put a spotlight on the issue of train blockages, which Mayor Nathan Brown blamed for the incident.

Michael Pieranunzi, from Century Engineering, presented five options that Brunswick could take to try to circumvent the blockages.

The first option would be to add a stair tower to the Burkittsville Road Bridge. It would be on the canal side of the bridge, so that people can head off the bridge and head down to the campsite.

According to the presentation, the stair tower would be one of the cheaper options and would cost between $300,000 and $500,000.

The only downside, Pieranunzi said, is that the stair tower would have to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act to receive federal funding. It also would be difficult for cyclists to use.

Option two is a pedestrian bridge with access ramps on either side. The ramp on the downtown side would be accessed from Maryland Avenue, which is west of where the current crossing is.

While the pedestrian bridge would be more expensive than the stair tower, it would also allow for small motorized vehicles to get across, Pieranunzi said. It would cost between $2.5 million and $3 million.

Another pedestrian bridge Pieranunzi presented, labeled as option five, would be accessed from South Maple Avenue rather than Maryland Avenue. The cost would be the same, according to the presentation.

While the first options had bridges involved, option three proposed a new crossing farther west from the current crossing, where the trains wouldn't block it. The new crossing could be an alternate route in case the original crossing is blocked.

The current crossing could also get special paving or landscaping. This would be the cheapest option, costing between $150,000 and $200,000.

However, Pieranunzi said, if Brunswick decides to open a new crossing, CSX would require the city to close three active crossings.

The fourth option was the most ambitious, and not one Pieranunzi recommended. He offered the idea of attaching a pedestrian bridge with ramps to the existing Burkittsville Road bridge.

This would also be the most expensive option, between $3.5 million and $4 million.

Pieranunzi also acknowledged the option of a completely new vehicular bridge, so that people, cars, and cyclists could cross the rail yard.

In a rubric that ranked the six options on price, access, potential hurdles and more, the vehicular bridge was placed as the worst option Brunswick could choose. The Maryland Avenue pedestrian bridge, based on the rubric, was the best option.

Councilwoman Angel White said that in a perfect world, she would want something that could get vehicles over, since there's always the concern of getting medical help across the rail yard. A pedestrian bridge could somewhat fill that need, she said.

"Our ambulance company does have an ATV and that ATV does have a backboard, so they can at least bring that patient across back to safety," she said.

Councilman Daniel Yochelson agreed.

"The only viable solutions in my mind are two and five because of the fact you can get a Gator [utility vehicle] or something over there to at least stabilize someone," he said.

Councilman Brian Sandusky wanted to know if the Burkittsville Road bridge had been surveyed to see if it could handle an attached pedestrian bridge.

Pieranunzi said it had, and it was more than 50 years old. His own engineer had concerns about the pedestrian bridge attachment option, he said.

Brown said there was still a lot to be done with these solutions.

"Tonight was just kind of the initial presentation based on where we've been going for the last couple of years to get to this point," Brown said.

In the meantime, Pieranunzi offered some more short-term solutions the city could take to handle blockages. For example, he said the city could set up cameras at the South Maple Avenue crossing and have a live stream on its website that people could check and see if trains are blocking the crossing.

"That will be something that could just be very quickly done by installing cameras and having a live web feed right on your system," he said.

Follow Clara Niel on Twitter: @clarasniel