City will not block off three train crossings

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, March 26, 2002

When it comes to closing streets to cars and pedestrians in favor of trains, Albert Lea told the Minnesota Department of Transportation thanks, but no thanks.

Tuesday, March 26, 2002

When it comes to closing streets to cars and pedestrians in favor of trains, Albert Lea told the Minnesota Department of Transportation thanks, but no thanks.

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The council listened to public comments about a proposal to close railroad crossings on Winter Avenue, Water Street and South Washington Avenue at a hearing on Monday night in the council chambers.

After hearing city manager Paul Sparks report that MnDOT was giving the city complete authority to make the final decisions about street closures, the council voted to accept MnDOT’s recommendations on crossing upgrades, but to keep closings out of the plan.

The council heard opposition towards road closings from a number of residents of the neighborhood most likely to be affected by the closures of Water Street and Winter Avenue, as well as a representative of the Buy-n-Save grocery store. Access to their business would be affected by the decision to close the road at the railroad crossing on Washington Avenue.

Mike Murtaugh, a resident of the neighborhood just north of where the proposed closure on Winter Avenue would be, said that closing that street would make it much more difficult for residents to get to and from their homes in winter, because of the number of hills and the narrowness of the streets.

&uot;Closing Winter Avenue limits options for residents and unnecessarily isolates that neighborhood,&uot; Murtaugh said.

Another resident, Tony Samudio, also worried that residents might end up being trapped in a neighborhood with no through streets during heavy snow or ice storms.

Pat Corrigan is a former resident of the area who also spoke at the hearing, but he said that the crossings have always been potentially dangerous, based on his observations over the years. He supported MnDOT’s plan to close the streets.

Other residents who spoke at the meeting worried about the children who cross the railroad tracks on Water Street as they walk to and from school.

Council member Ron Sorenson also expressed concern about children, since with the road closed, there would no longer be the requirement that trains blow their whistle as a warning.

Speaking for city staff, Sparks said that the Streets Department was opposed to closing Water Street because of problems that created for plowing streets in winter. According to Sparks, the representatives from MnDOT whom he spoke to about the street closings did not feel that rejecting those recommendations would jeopardize the rest of their proposed changes.

The railroad crossing at Washington is the only one of the three sites where there has been a recorded accident, but that one was the result of a semi hitting a train, said Sparks. Trains at that crossing are allowed to go up to 48 miles per hour and several travel those tracks each day. The tracks that cross Winter and Water are used infrequently, according to records of train traffic on that line.

Julie Carr, a staff member from MnDOT, brought the recommendations to the council at the end of February. The council needed to decide one way or the other on the street closings in order for the project to be kept in MnDOT’s budget. The work on the railroad closings is scheduled to begin in 2005.