Closing or Consolidating a Grade Crossing

Every crossing is a place where two transportation systems occupy the same ground, and the cheapest way to make one safe is to remove it. Closure is also the least popular option available, because a crossing that carries three hundred vehicles a day carries them somewhere they want to go. State law resolves that conflict by giving the decision to a regulatory body rather than to either party.

Where the authority sits

In many states a single commission holds exclusive power over crossings. A representative statute provides that no public road may be constructed across a railroad track at grade, and no track across a public road at grade, without first securing the commission's permission. A companion provision gives the commission exclusive power to determine and prescribe the manner and terms of installation, operation, maintenance, use and protection of each crossing, to alter or relocate a crossing, to abolish one by physical closing, and to require a separation of grades.

Other states place the power in the transportation department, and a few leave it with the local road authority subject to state review. The distinction matters mainly for where the petition is filed and what appellate route exists afterwards. The substance of the inquiry is similar everywhere.

Filing the petition

Standing is broad. A typical statute allows the governing body of a city or town, the legislative authority of a county, or the railroad whose line is crossed to petition the commission, alleging that public safety requires a separation, an alteration in the method and manner of an existing crossing and its approaches, or a change in the style and nature of the construction.

Adjoining owners generally cannot file, but they are entitled to notice and to appear. A neighborhood that wants a crossing closed for safety or noise reasons therefore works through its city or county, which has to be persuaded to sponsor the petition before anything else happens.

Closure petitions usually arrive from one of two directions. A road authority pursuing a corridor safety plan proposes consolidating several lightly used crossings onto one improved crossing. Or a railroad pursuing maintenance savings proposes closing a crossing it considers redundant. Either way the petition has to describe the crossing, the traffic it carries, the alternate routes available and the effect on emergency response.

Private crossings follow the agreement, not the commission

A private crossing exists to serve a farm, an industry or a handful of properties, and it is created by an agreement, an easement or a deed reservation rather than by a public order. Closing one is generally a contract question. The agreement will say whether the railroad may terminate, on what notice, and who pays to remove the surface.

The limit on that power is access. Where the crossing is the only means of reaching a parcel from a public road, the landowner is likely to hold an easement of necessity or a similar right, and a railroad cannot extinguish it by terminating a license. Disputes of this kind are resolved in state court on property principles rather than by the commission.

Upgrades to a private crossing follow the same logic. Because federal-aid crossing money is aimed primarily at public crossings, the landowner or the industry served usually pays for gates, lights or a better surface, and the terms are negotiated into a revised crossing agreement. That is one reason private crossings remain the least protected category on most systems.

The hearing and what persuades it

The proceeding is administrative. Notice goes to the railroad, the road authorities, and in most states to owners of property whose access is affected. A hearing follows, at which the commission takes evidence on traffic volumes, train counts, sight distance, crash history, the condition of the crossing surface and approaches, the length and quality of the detour, and the effect on emergency vehicles, school buses and agricultural equipment.

Opposition succeeds most often on emergency access. A fire district showing that closure adds several minutes to a response for a defined area is the strongest available argument, and commissions frequently condition approval on an alternate route or a new connection rather than denying outright. Arguments based on convenience alone rarely prevail.

The commission may also apportion cost. Where a separation of grades is ordered, the statute typically empowers the commission to prescribe the proportions in which the expense of construction, alteration, relocation or abolition is borne. That apportionment is often the most contested part of the case, because it decides who pays for a structure that will outlast everyone involved.

What has to happen after the order issues

An order is not self-executing. The road authority installs barricades and advance signing and, where required, a turnaround. The railroad removes the crossing surface and any warning devices. Utilities in the crossing are addressed under their own agreements. Where the closure was a condition of a quiet zone, the certification cannot be issued until the physical work is complete.

The record then has to be updated. The national crossing inventory carries a status for every crossing, and a closed crossing that remains listed as open continues to appear in safety rankings and to distort the ranking of neighboring crossings, a problem described in the article on how warning devices are selected and funded.

Closure also changes the legal picture on the ground. Once a crossing is removed, the point becomes ordinary right of way, and a person walking there is subject to the narrow duty described in the article on the duty owed to a trespasser rather than to crossing duties. If the line itself is later abandoned, the corridor questions in the article on railroad rights of way take over.