Detroit residents seek expansions of railroad repair project
At the West Chicago Street and Central Avenue railroad crossing in Southwest Detroit, it's not uncommon to see drivers pull over and check their tires after driving over treacherous train tracks.
The wide gaps between the train tracks and the pavement at this crossing and dozens more around the city leave some drivers with popped tires, a situation resident and Detroit Love Where You Live Founder Valerie McPhaul is overly familiar with.
"I went through three tires on my car, not all at once, all on separate times on my way to work at 6 in the morning, hitting something, blowing a tire, and again, this is unacceptable," McPhaul said.
The damage to cars from this railroad crossing can leave some residents struggling to keep up with repair costs, according to McPhaul.
"If people are already living paycheck to paycheck, you've got a $1,200 repair, you still have to pay rent, feed your kids. It just creates a lot of unnecessary burden on the community," McPhaul said. The The
The Detroit City Council recently approved a contract worth over $6 million to replace aging infrastructure and fix dangerous railroad crossings in Detroit, but it could be years before residents see improvements.
The construction project, called the Central-Lonyo Elimination and Rail Adjustment (CLEAR Detroit) Project, received $5 million in federal funding from the Railroad Crossing Elimination grant program, part of the Federal Railroad Administration. The contract with HDR Michigan will begin preliminary engineering and environmental reviews for two bridges over Lonyo and Central streets.
"Today, the way that it's set up is people have to go over the bumpy railroad tracks, and then drive under some pretty old railroad bridges," said Sam Krassenstein, Detroit Public Works deputy director and chief of Infrastructure. "What this project does is it rebuilds the bridges completely, and it moves the railroad track so that you no longer have to drive over them."
The construction projects use a process called grade separation, which means moving the rail tracks out of the way of the road by building a bridge, so drivers no longer have to cross the tracks.
"Right now, we know we have a concept that appears to work. Now we get into the details, and we figure out what kind of bridge do we need to use? How do we keep the rail open during construction?" Krassenstein said.
The overall design of the project will take the rest of this year and all of 2027, according to Krassenstein. But construction is not set to begin for another three or five years. Krassenstein said DPW is working to monitor and repair dozens of other railroad crossings in Detroit while the two major repairs at Central Street and Lonyo Street are underway.
"We work with the railroads on making improvements to these crossings. So, the (railroad crossing) that was raised by Councilmember (Denzel) McCampbell and by the community is something on our radar that we're working with railroads like CSX," Krassenstein said.
While residents in Detroit's sixth district are looking forward to the improvements, residents in the seventh district are left wondering how many more tires they will lose to their own dangerous railroad crossings.
Detroit resident and Cheyenne Block Club President Martha Waller said that she and others in Detroit's 7th District are working with City Council Member Denzel McCampbell to continue drawing attention to these railroad crossings and push for repairs.
"We just want our railroad tracks to be nice and smooth like other communities," Waller said.
McPhaul, who is also a member of City Council Member Denzel McCampbell's Community Advisory Council, will start up a letter-writing campaign in the fall to put pressure on CSX, the railroad company in charge of the railroad, to make repairs.
"If any of (CSX's) CEOs or Board members had to cross these tracks even once, I'm sure they would want these things resolved," McPhaul said. "We're not asking for gold lined streets, this is not the land of Oz, we're just asking to fix this."
