WINONA, Minn. — Winona officials asked U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., on Wednesday to loosen funding and increase regulatory oversight to minimize railroad impacts in the city, the Winona Daily News reports.
Winona watches 25 trains a day roll through town, expects a 2 percent growth in rail traffic and encounters crossing delays near railroad switching yards at Mankato Avenue and Pelzer and Franklin streets, Mayor Jerry Miller told Dayton. Softening the blow will cost about $26 million.
Miller, the city council and Judy Bodway, economic development director and Winona Port Authority assistant executive secretary, met with the senator at city hall and presented him the city’s railroad snarl. Talk centered on the federal Surface Transportation Board’s approval of Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad’s coal shipping plan and how Winona was excluded from mandates to minimize coal train impacts.
Federal law regarding railroads “clearly has numerous deficiencies,” he said. “I think it’s a ridiculous evasion of responsibility on the Surface Transportation Board’s part.” Dayton said he doesn’t want Minnesota to be “used as a railroad thoroughfare.”
DM&E’s recent acquisition of I&M Rail Link would give DM&E new trackage rights from La Crescent through Winona to the Twin Cities, pending final approval from the transportation board. Miller said this would give DM&E even “more of a presence in the city.” It should require more federal analysis down the line from DM&E’s existing tracks, he said.
Projections show the city could see 32 more trains per day by 2020: eight from DM&E, 14 from Canadian Pacific Rail and 10 from Amtrak. Winona wants to build an overpass at Pelzer Street on the west side, an overpass at a future extension of Bundy Boulevard on the east side, and an underpass at Huff Street in the center of town. The city has some funds for overpasses and relocating switching yards but needs matching government dollars to make it happen, Bodway said.
“We’re not asking for a handout,” she told Dayton.
Said Miller: “Times have changed, and I think there’s got to be a way to get some help.”
“I agree,” said Dayton.
When asked about the contradiction of a large-coal shipping project and a national energy policy with scientific evidence that burning coal degrades the environment, Dayton said utilities and the free market drive policy making.
“Coal’s going to be part of the equation … it is going to keep the lights on, literally,” he said.
He said a better long-term energy policy should have been in place before DM&E’s project was approved. Dayton studied a map of Winona’s railroads, showing the busiest route through residential areas. When he saw the corridor along the river to serve industries, he asked: “Has that ever been considered as an alternative route?”
It’s the same question citizens have asked to take trains out of urban back yards. Miller and Bodway told Dayton this move would negatively impact river-front industries, block access to the river and cost $100 million.