First Step Towards Market St. Overpass

The long wait might be coming to an end.

For decades, motorists (including emergency responders) have had to deal with train delays on Market Street. The city just announced it has been awarded funding by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration under the Railroad Crossing Elimination Grant Program to begin a project that could eventually lead to an overpass there. 

“This problem has challenged our community for many years and we are excited to finally have a pathway for addressing it,” Crawfordsville Mayor Todd Barton said. “This funding will allow us to plan for a 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. I want to thank everyone for their patience as we’ve worked through addressing this matter and I especially want to thank 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 went on to say.”

The funding from the grant will be used for a $1.6 million Market Street Railroad Crossing Elimination Planning and Development project. This funding will support project planning and project development phases for a grade separation (overpass) at the Market Street / SR32 / SR47 / US136 and CSX Transportation railroad crossing on Market Street 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 is not able to 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.

The future project will improve the crossing by eliminating the interaction between vehicles/pedestrians and rail traffic and will incorporate the necessary elements including sidewalks, bike lanes, or multi-use trail paths within the project.  Fencing and other access restrictive measures along the rail line will be implemented to further reduce the risk of pedestrian interaction with rail traffic, as pedestrians are also 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, for 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, both of 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 more than a year and compiled to empirically demonstrate the true impact to residents, businesses, and public safety.  The data showed the crossing was blocked more than 277 hours during the study period, impacting the 16,492 vehicles that traverse the crossing on an average day, 9 percent of which are large semi-trucks.  Using a formula created by Federal Highway Administration, it was determined that these blockages resulted in a $2.67 million/year impact to 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, in which they expressed 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.”

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.