January 27, 2000
Fostoria mayor seeks 'no parking zone' for trains
By Malinda Ruble
Staff Writer
FOSTORIA -- Railroad problems have plagued the city for the past century. On Tuesday, Mayor John Davoli asked the Ohio House Transportation and Public Safety Committee to do something about them.
The committee spent the day listening to support of House Bill 516, which would allow certain railroad crossings to be "no parking zones" and reduce the amount of blocked crossings in cities.
State Rep. Rex Damschroder, who introduced the bill, asked Davoli to speak to the committee this week.
Davoli read to the group this passage from a newspaper: "Citizens have complained for several years of the impertinence of railway trainmen, whose trains pass through the city, because of the time they spend in blocking the street crossings. At last night's session of council, the matter was brought up, and by a unanimous vote, the solicitor was instructed to draw-up a new ordinance governing the blockading of street crossing, and at the next council meeting, the old ordinance will be repealed and the new one adopted."
"This report was not from yesterday's paper, it was not from last week's or last month's, but from our local paper back in the year 1900," Davoli said. "Here we are, a hundred years later, still discussing the issue of blocked rail crossings.''
Davoli said House Bill 516 is a step to help the city eliminate some problems.
"A grade separation would cost between $5 million to $7 million and it would be a major construction project -- which we would still like, but this would be an excellent quick fix," Davoli said Wednesday.
Fostoria's problems with blocked crossings have only increased since the acquisition of Conrail by CSX and Norfolk Southern. Now the city is seeing more trains, longer trains and even more blocked crossings.
About 200 trains enter the city daily.
There are two "iron triangles" in the city where, if trains are blocking the crossings, the residents inside the triangle are isolated from emergency services.
"Blocked crossings in my city are not merely an inconvenience," the mayor told the state legislators. "Blocked crossings in Fostoria are having a very negative impact on the quality of life and the very serious potential for a negative impact on life itself.
"Now let's think about a house on fire or one of my fellow Fostorians having a heart attack and they live in these restricted iron triangle areas. Here it is quite easy to see the negative impact of life itself. Put yourselves in the shoes of a husband who has to watch his wife die waiting for an ambulance because it can't get through a blocked crossing. ... Put yourselves in the shoes of an expectant mother having to worry for nine months that when her time comes, will she be trapped with no way out?
"House Bill 516 gives her a way out and others a way in. Will House Bill 516 solve all of our problems? No, but it is a start and it will have a very positive impact on my city. We have been talking about blocked rail crossings for over a hundred years, now let's do something about it," he said.
Davoli said the railroads are trying out no-stop emergency railroad crossings in other counties as a pilot project.
The bill is expected to be voted on later this year.