CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — For drivers frustrated with delays at railroad crossings, for the first time there is now a regional effort aimed at finding solutions.
For the last several months, engineers with the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization (HRTPO) have been analyzing the 307 public, at-grade railroad crossings throughout the 16 localities that make up the Hampton Roads area.
Each was given a score, based on the amount of road and rail traffic it sees, safety record and delays produced. The higher the score, the higher the priority the crossing would be given when it comes to improvements.
The top 25 railroad crossings engineers believe need to be focused on were revealed for the first time at HRTPO’s May board meeting.
Next comes trying to find out what exactly can happen to make specific railroad crossings more efficient for both drivers and trains, as well as finding the money to make the changes happen.
“So many people get stuck at rail crossings and register the complaints and so we definitely heard those complaints and want to help address those,” Keith Nichols, a principal transportation engineer for HRTPO, said. ‘But we also know how important freight movement is to our region … I think it’ll help if we have regional backing on this.”
Seven separate railroads own and operate tracks in Hampton Roads with the Port of Virginia and waterfront coal terminals being major customers. There are also three Amtrak stations.
In recent years, changes in the railroad industry have lead to longer trains that either take longer to cross streets or stand over the roadway as length prevents them from clearing the crossing during switching operations.
While states have tried to implement laws regulating the amount of time a crossing can be blocked, fining railroads under Virginia law has proved difficult. Railroads can argue the rule could have the unintended effect of requiring a crew to violate other federal safety requirements like air brake testing and crew changes.
It’s one of the reasons Nichols said his team will be looking at how state and federal dollars can be leveraged to improve certain crossings.
Top 10 Crossings by map
- Norfolk – Hampton Boulevard and Terminal Boulevard
- Norfolk – Granby Street
- Norfolk – Church Street
- Norfolk – Chesapeake Boulevard
- Norfolk – Little Creek Road
- Suffolk – Washington Street
- Chesapeake – Liberty Street
- Norfolk – Princess Anne Road
- Chesapeake – Portlock Road
- Portsmouth – George Washington Highway
Number one on the list is the Virginia Port Authority’s tracks crossing intersection of Hampton Boulevard and Terminal Boulevard outside of Norfolk International Terminals.
“Heavy traffic volumes, a large number of trains, long bottlenecks because of slow moving trains going in and out. So definitely that location has a lot of these factors, more so than a lot of other locations,” Nichols said.
In 2021, the City of Norfolk in partnership with the Port of Virginia began sending text alerts when trains were preparing to cross.
However the solutions HRTPO will likely be exploring, would be mirroring the what happened to the railroad crossing further North on Hampton Boulevard. It was removed and an underpass was built to relieve congestion in 2012.
“So there’s a lot of new federal and state funding sources that we can use to hopefully help improve some of these crossings,” Nichols said. “We would like to put this report out and show that, ‘hey, these are the most important crossings in our region. These are the ones we want to seek additional funding for,’ and hopefully we can be successful in getting some of these new federal and state grant funding programs to help make improvements at these locations.”
The top five identified crossings are all in the City of Norfolk and outside of the crossing outside of the port, they are all owned by Norfolk Southern. Crossings in Suffolk, Chesapeake and Portsmouth also make the top 10.
Several localities are already working to obtain federal money earmarked for the elimination of railroad crossings. Suffolk is more than halfway complete on construction of an overpass that eliminates a crossing that has caused havoc on Nansemond Parkway.
Chesapeake has aimed at building overpasses at Freeman Avenue and Portlock Road crossings.
“I think it’ll help if we have regional backing on this,” Nichols said. “And instead of just having a city looking at it, state backing will also help.”
Nichols said the next step is for the top 25 locations will be analyzed in further detail and then list of candidate/recommended improvements to be produced for the top 10 locations initially. That could be completed as soon as early next year.
In the mean time, Nichols said people still need to report blocked crossings.
“Pease continue to report to the FRA website in terms of the issues you’re seeing, feel free to email us and contact us as well to to let us know about it,” Nichols said. “Like I said, we’d like to incorporate all this as we drill down at these top 25 crossings and see what some of the particular issues are at those locations and what we can do to help improve them.”
