Perry promotes safety pact in San Antonio as train derails

Train derails as gov touts safety pact

UP agrees to look at putting tracks outside cities.

March 19, 2005

Patrick Driscoll and Mary Moreno
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2005

As Gov. Rick Perry announced a historic agreement Friday to spark efforts to get freight trains out of urban areas, emergency workers were rushing to San Antonio's latest train derailment just 15 miles away.

The wreck turned out to be minor, but the irony wasn't lost on local officials.

"It just goes to show, the long-term answer is to move the freight out of these areas," said County Judge Nelson Wolff, who joined Perry and Union Pacific Chairman Richard Davidson to announce such a plan.

A memorandum of understanding, signed by Perry and Davidson at the company's rail yard near KellyUSA, does not immediately commit any funds to track relocation or set deadlines.

It says public and private funds should be used to build tracks around the state's major cities, and that such costs should match, respectively, public and private benefits.

"That concept is key to making this happen," Davidson said.

Relocating through freight out of city centers would reduce hazardous cargo being transported through populated areas, make rail-street crossings safer, enable railroads to ship products faster, and open up old lines for commuter rail service or redevelopment as roads.

"It'll provide greater peace of mind for families worried about hazardous materials passing through their neighborhoods," Perry said.

Local fears shot to new levels last year after several major train wrecks that claimed five lives and, in two instances, released poisons.

A collision of two trains last June in rural Bexar County spewed a cloud of chorine that killed four people, injured about 50, and left officials wondering what the results would have been had it happened in the middle of San Antonio.

After Friday's train derailment near the Quarry Market, some witnesses called 911 and said they saw a plume of smoke. Emergency responders carefully approached the wreck from downwind but soon discovered no toxic chemicals were involved.

A set of wheels on a UP car had come off the tracks after a load of aluminum tubes shifted and some rolled off. The tubes apparently raised a lot of dust.

Also, one tube hit a railcar carrying coal, puncturing it, said District Fire Chief Randy Jenkins. None of the 107 cars in the train carried hazardous materials. And nobody was hurt.

The railcar went off the track under a bridge near the Quarry Golf Course. The derailment caused the train to stop, blocking off Basse, Jones Maltsberger and Sunset roads just east of U.S. 281 for about two hours.

Although the area where the derailment occurred is unusual in San Antonio in that the tracks are so close to a major shopping center and a busy freeway, Jenkins said the approach to train derailments is standard, regardless of where they occur.

"I'm not aware of a plan for that particular area," he said. "The area is unique, but the response is not unique. It's pretty standard what we would do."

Jenkins said the recent spate of train derailments also has given emergency workers valuable experience on how to react to one.

UP has averaged two dozen mostly minor wrecks a year in Bexar County over the past four years. The company reported 23 in 2004.

About 60 to 70 trains roll daily through the city, a crossroads for UP traffic in Texas . Some of the common chemicals that pass through are sulfuric acid, sodium hydroxide and chlorine.

Rerouting freight trains will not be easy, a Texas Department of Transportation official said last month.

Efforts in San Antonio likely will stretch into the next decade and could cost more than $1 billion, said Mario Medina, the department's multimodal director. And until new tracks are built, the number of trains is expected to surge.

An answer could come from the Trans Texas Corridor , a 4,000-mile network of toll roads, rail lines and utility lines to be built across the state over 50 years. State officials signed a contract last week with a private consortium to develop plans for the segment east of Interstate 35.

But no funding or specific projects to relocate rail lines have been identified, Perry said. The agreement with UP simply lays out guidelines to move forward.

pdriscoll@express-news.net

© 2005 San Antonio Express-News: www.mysanantonio.com

Plan being developed to move frieght rails

State, firms to engineer plan to move freight rails

Talks will continue on getting rail traffic out of urban areas

Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 2005

SAN ANTONIO -- The state and Union Pacific Corp. have been talking for months, looking for a way to move freight rails out of densely populated areas to reduce accidents and keep hazardous materials out of Texas ' major cities.

Gov. Rick Perry took a quick spin around the state Friday to say that the state and the rail giant have formally agreed to agree. And he'll be in Fort Worth today to announce a similar accord with the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.

But the estimated $10 billion needed to move most freight runs out to urban areas' rural fringes has not been identified, and specific projects have not been determined, Perry's office said.

Moving most of Union Pacific's two dozen or so freight runs through Round Rock, Austin and San Marcos to lonelier points east has been on the Central Texas agenda for years, actively so in the past two years. But finding the $500,000 to $700,000 to do that, and reaching terms with Union Pacific, has so far been a tricky task.

Texas has more rail crossings than any other state and consistently leads the nation in the number of vehicle-train accidents each year. Since 1984, more than 5,500 people have been killed or injured in vehicle-train collisions in Texas , Perry's office said.

Last month, about 200 San Marcos residents had to be evacuated after seven cars of a Union Pacific train, several of them carrying sulfuric acid, derailed. And late last year, federal regulators added 10 inspectors in San Antonio after six train accidents in the area left four people dead and released toxic chemicals.

Moving the rails also would help businesses move products from the warehouse to the market and open up valuable space for road construction, said Perry, who made the announcement at a Union Pacific rail yard in San Antonio and repeated it in Houston later in the day.

"Because trains will no longer have to slow down to pass through congested cities, shipments will reach their destination faster, saving Texas businesses valuable time and money that can be used to grow and create jobs," said Perry, a Republican.

In addition, if most freight runs move to other tracks, the urban rails -- such as the Union Pacific tracks down the center of MoPac Boulevard -- could be used part time for passenger rail.

"At one time, cities wanted railroads to come to their cities so they could grow," Omaha, Neb.-based Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley said. "And as time has gone on, now they want us out of the cities because of the noise and congestion trains can cause."

Perry has proposed a network of 4,000 miles of tollways and railways that would incorporate oil and gas pipelines and utility and water lines over the next 50 years, a project dubbed the Trans -Texas Corridor .

The corridor project carries an estimated price tag of $184 billion. Last week, the state signed an agreement with private contractor Cintra Zachry LP to begin developing plans for the first phase of the project, a 600-mile tollway from Oklahoma to Mexico that will run parallel to Interstate 35 for most of its length.

That agreement could provide a sizable chunk of the $10 billion for freight rail, as well as a location for alternate rail routes.

Cintra Zachry has said it would pay $1.2 billion in concession fees for the roads, money that Texas Transportation Commission Chairman Ric Williamson has said could be used to relocate freight rail service.


Copyright (c) 2005 Austin American-Statesman : www.statesman.com

Rail freight to be rerouted from downtown DFW

Officials advance reroute plan

GORDON DICKSON
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Copyright 2005

Elected leaders and railroad officials say they are a step closer to removing freight trains from downtown Fort Worth and other congested areas.

Gov. Rick Perry and officials from Fort Worth-based BNSF Railway will announce today that they have reached an agreement in principle to relocate rail lines out of large cities over the next several years, officials said.

Regional leaders say they support the plan, which includes rerouting rail lines west of Fort Worth and reconnecting to BNSF's intermodal hub near Alliance Airport.

Union Pacific Railroad, based in Omaha, Neb., has signed a similar agreement with Perry. That company's plans include moving much of its freight traffic, including a corridor through Arlington, to an area south of Dallas.

A goal of rail relocation is to improve traffic by reducing the number of points at which trains and automobiles intersect, officials said.

State officials say they also want to reduce the chances of a hazardous materials disaster caused by a derailment in a populated area.

"The state is starting to take an active role in moving these rail lines, which have been in place for over 100 years, out of our city centers," Perry spokesman Robert Black said Friday. "This is the first step in making that happen."

Another goal is to reduce auto-train fatalities. In the past 20 years, more than 5,500 people have been killed or injured in vehicle-train collisions in Texas .

No price tag or timetable for the projects has been established, but the railroads and Texas Department of Transportation have agreed to permanently assign staff members to study the issue.

"This is really an understanding that gives us guidelines on how we'll work a public-private partnership for possible relocation of tracks. We haven't agreed on projects," Union Pacific spokesman John Bromley said.

In Fort Worth, an area known as Tower 55 is among the most crowded railroad intersections in the United States. It's where BNSF and Union Pacific cross paths.

"Because trains will no longer have to slow down to pass through congested cities, shipments will reach their destination faster, saving Texas businesses valuable time and money that can be used to grow and create jobs," Perry said in a statement.

In the Metroplex, regional leaders hope to convert the freight lines into commuter lines, to provide an alternative to automobile travel, said Michael Morris, transportation director for the North Central Texas Council of Governments.

In areas such as Division Street in Arlington or U.S. 377 in Fort Worth, Haltom City, Keller and Watauga, it's not uncommon for freight trains to block major streets during rush hour.

In December, the private firm Cintra-Zachry pledged to pay the state $1.2 billion in transportation funds in exchange for the right to build a $6 billion toll road from North Texas to San Antonio. Some of that payment could be used to relocate rails out of the Fort Worth area, officials said.

Staff Writer Dan Piller Contributed to This Report.

IN THE KNOW

If you go

Gov. Rick Perry will discuss plans to remove railroad tracks from populated areas, including downtown Fort Worth, at a news conference scheduled for 1:45 p.m. today at BNSF Railway, 2650 Lou Menk Drive. Relieving rail congestion is part of the Trans -Texas Corridor plan.

ONLINE: www.keeptexasmoving.com

Gordon Dickson, (817) 685-3816 gdickson@star-telegram.com


Copyright 2005 Star-Telegram, Inc. www.dfw.com

Legislator files bill to put brakes on the Trans-Texas Corridor

Legislators seek limits on corridor

Local lawmaker urges moratorium on funds until '07

By RAD SALLEE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

State Rep. Garnet Coleman has filed a bill seeking to bar the state from spending money on the Trans-Texas Corridor until 2007 and calling for a committee to study the corridor plan and its use of toll and bond financing.

The Houston Democrat's bill, HB 3363, would place the same moratorium on tolling currently free roads. It was one of four bills — the others filed by Republicans — that seek to limit the corridor plan proposed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2002.

The Texas Department of Transportation is negotiating a 50-year contract with Cintra-Zachry, a Spanish-led group of companies, to build the first leg of the corridor parallel to I-35 from Oklahoma to Mexico.

The company proposes to start with a $6 billion toll road from Dallas to San Antonio, paying the state $1.2 billion and keeping other profits.

HB 1273, filed by Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, bars "noncompetition" clauses in contracts between the state and corridor developers that would prevent government from building roads nearby.

The bill would narrow the corridor's maximum width from 1,200 feet to 800 feet and require that state highways and farm-to-market roads intersecting it remain unobstructed and connect to it. A Cintra-Zachry spokesman said the company is not interested in doing that.

HB 1794 by Rep. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, calls for at least one public hearing in every county through which the corridor passes, with public disclosure of each of its proposed transportation modes, entrances and exits.

TxDOT spokeswoman Gaby Garcia declined to comment on the bills.

Houston Chronicle: www.chron.com

Texas Legislators try to place limits on Trans-Texas Corridor

Legislators seek to put limits on corridor

Local lawmaker urges moratorium on funding and a study of toll and bond financing

By RAD SALLEE
Houston Chronicle
Copyright 2005

State Rep. Garnet Coleman has filed a bill seeking to bar the state from spending money on the Trans -Texas Corridor until 2007 and calling for a committee to study the corridor plan and its use of toll and bond financing.

The Houston Democrat's bill, HB 3363, would place the same moratorium on tolling currently free roads. It was one of four bills - the others filed by Republicans - that seek to limit the controversial corridor plan proposed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2002.

The Texas Department of Transportation is negotiating a 50-year contract with Cintra-Zachry, a Spanish-led group of companies, to build the first leg of the corridor parallel to Interstate 35 from Oklahoma to Mexico.

The company proposes to start with a $6 billion toll road from Dallas to San Antonio, paying the state $1.2 billion and keeping other profits. Toll road extensions, rail and utility lines could come later.

HB 1273, which was filed by Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, bars "noncompetition" clauses in contracts between the state and corridor developers that would prevent government from building roads nearby.

The bill would narrow the corridor 's maximum width from 1,200 feet to 800 feet and require that state highways and farm-to-market roads intersecting it remain unobstructed and connect to it. It also would bar developers from being granted exclusive right to operate service stations and restaurants on the corridor . A Cintra-Zachry spokesman said the company is not interested in doing that.

HB 1794 by Rep. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, calls for at least one public hearing in every county through which the corridor passes, with public disclosure of each of its proposed transportation modes, entrances and exits.

HB 3419 by Rep. Rick Hardcastle, R-Vernon, would prohibit drilling for water in the corridor , compensate landowners for having their properties divided, and provide that land condemned for the corridor and unused for five years could be repurchased by the original owner at the same price.

Kolkhorst's bill was filed Feb. 21 and the others on March 11, the session's filing deadline.

Coleman acknowledged it will be difficult to get his bill out of the Transportation Committee but said he hopes to bring it to a floor vote as a rider.

Kolkhorst said she applauds Perry for "thinking big" about transportation but that she wants to ensure long-term corridor agreements include "safeguards" for future generations.

TxDOT spokeswoman Gaby Garcia declined to comment. She said current corridor plans are based on legislation approved in the previous session and that the department will continue to follow the Legislature's wishes.

Houston Chronicle: www.chron.com

Perry brags as he signs Comprehensive Development Agreement with Cintra-Zachry

Amid wreckage, Austin news conference, if you could get there

March 13, 2005

Robert Rivard, Editor
San Antonio Express-News
Copyright 2005

Texas Gov. Rick Perry was in the mood to boast Friday afternoon as he celebrated the first signed contract for the building of the Trans Texas Corridor .

"In Texas we do things bigger, better and first," Perry told transportation reporters covering the contract signing.

Even if the ambitious 50-year plan to remake the state's ground transportation grid is really the work of state transportation professionals, it has taken shape and gained a political foothold on Perry's watch. If it's realized, the undertaking could become an enduring legacy of his time as governor.

As a first step, a partnership formed by San Antonio's Zachry Construction Corp. and Spain's Cintra will design a four-lane tollway to ease congestion along Interstate 35 from San Antonio to Dallas-Fort Worth.

The plan also would reroute Union Pacific trains that now carry toxic chemicals on lines through the heart of San Antonio. One such train derailed last June in rural Bexar County, setting loose a cloud of toxic chlorine gas that killed three and injured 50, a tragedy that would have been far worse had the wreck occurred in the city.

Perry's enthusiasm belied the reality for motorists traveling - and I use the word loosely - along I-35 from San Antonio to Austin that same day.

Less than 15 miles to the south of the media event, emergency response workers labored much of the day and late into the evening, clearing the wreckage of two accidents on I-35. The northbound lanes were sealed shut for hours, causing gridlock that stretched south for miles as police waved motorists off the interstate.

An 18-wheeler struck a concrete embankment and caught fire early Friday morning, a wreck that kept lanes closed until 3: 30 p.m. I heard from a UTSA professor caught in the morass en route to Austin, but a quick check of state and media Web sites here and in Austin yielded no information to explain the stalled highway traffic. Finally, after a couple of hours behind the wheel and little or no chance of arriving before the end of a conference sponsored by the University of Texas , the professor turned back south and headed home.

Later that evening, I set out with my family for Austin to see Cirque du Soleil, which had erected its colorful tents on the site of the old airport. We were on the road before 6 p.m., plenty of time to make the 8 p.m. show - until we hit a line of stopped traffic on I-35 just north of Buda that stretched as far as the eye could see. One radio disc jockey reported the problem, and wondered aloud about the cause.

Almost 45 minutes later we had progressed a mile or two, far enough to reach an exit and the access road. Mile after mile to our left, the interstate traffic remained snarled.

Just inside the city limits, we watched as workers removed the remains of two destroyed vehicles, one of which looked like it had hit a roadside bomb. Later we learned that an infant died in the two-vehicle wreck, several adults were injured, and the northbound interstate remained closed late into the night.

Tens of thousands of travelers on the state's first day of spring break were affected by the unpublicized closures and thus were unable to avert being caught in the chaos, or to find out why they were stuck once it was too late.

All this on a single day on the road between San Antonio and Austin. And for state officials, at least, it wasn't even news or something that warranted telephone calls to all the area media to sound the alert.

I-35 has become a monument to inadequate planning and preparation. Mass transit such as high-speed train lines and light rail in the cities isn't even high on the public agenda. Too many elected officials are afraid to support transportation taxes, and instead spend their term-limited time in office ignoring the looming crisis.

The Trans Texas Corridor might be part of the solution, or it might be a fancy name for another half-century of highway construction that will only breed more traffic. After one day in the life of I-35, it was hard to see exactly how we Texans do things better, bigger and first - even for those of us with all the time in the world to think as we waited in idling vehicles, burning gas and time, wondering who died.

Robert Rivard rrivard@express-news.net

© 2005 San Antonio Express-News: www.mysanantonio.com