Jasper County approves removal of Iowa Street bridge despite protests

Although neighbors were unsuccessful in convincing the Jasper County Board of Supervisors to replace a bridge that now forces them to use a railroad crossing as the only other accessway, they were provided honest feedback and insight by a representative from Iowa Interstate Railroad regarding their safety concerns.

Adam Sutherland, director of safety and security at Iowa Interstate Railroad, told neighbors that the engineers manning the trains at the crossing at Iowa Street will now be notified the road is the only way in or out of the neighborhood, since the bridge is officially closed and will be removed. It may help prevent blocking.

“I’m going to put a bulletin out to our employees to have a conscious effort of, hey, this is their only access point,” Sutherland said. “We have odometers and so forth that we can measure the footage … If we’re going west, you know, we’re going to hit our odometer and be like, ‘OK, we cleared Iowa Street.’”

Several of the neighbor complaints have been about trains blocking the crossing for long periods of time. They questioned how a train could block the road for so long. By law, trains cannot block a crossing for more than 10 minutes at a time. Sutherland gave Jasper County residents the brutally honest truth.

“You guys are going to hate to hear this,” he said. “Block 10 minutes, I can move a foot and then 10 minutes start again. Ten minutes I can move another foot.”

Sutherland also explained that every train is manned and can be moved in case of an emergency. When it comes to trains blocking Iowa Street, he said there are times when a train is very long — almost a mile-and-a-half long — but the street is only blocked about 30 minutes or less to build up air pressure.

“Any time is train time,” Sutherland said. “There is no schedule.”

While Sutherland indicated he could not give neighbors a commitment that a train would not block the only way in or out of their homes, he did say an emergency test or a mock trail could be done to test how long it would take to get the train moved past the crossing in the event an ambulance needs to access a home.

Jasper County EMA Director Jamey Robinson said dispatch would call the railroad’s dispatch in an emergency to get the train moved prior to first responders arriving to the scene. Sutherland said the engineer in the train would get that call immediately to get the train moving.

At the previous public hearing regarding the bridge removal, Robinson said adjustments were made to the county’s dispatch system indicating to dispatchers that neighbors’ homes are north of a railroad crossing. When a 911 call is made in that neighborhood, dispatchers will be alerted to the exact railroad crossing.

Dispatch can then call Iowa Interstate Railroad to get any trains off Iowa Street.

“They’ll have the crossing number and the (phone) number,” Robinson said. “Dispatch is going to call the rail proactively and check to see while responders are responding if there is a train there and to start getting it moved … If there is something there, it should be moved.”

Other neighbors worried the addition of the new rail park would increase train traffic and therefore increase the number of blockages on Iowa Street. Sutherland said they would not be able to tell. Supervisor Brandon Talsma added that it is ultimately unclear what traffic will look like.

“If it develops the way that we would like to see it develop and the railroad would like to see it develop, every entity building out there is going to be a rail customer,” he said. “If it’s slow and us and the railroad say this is taking too long, we might only end up with one rail entity out there and the rest don’t need rail.”

Sutherland suggested that trains could technically be longer, but nothing that would be distinguishable to the neighbors and other passersby.

“The train lengths will always be the same, hypothetically,” Sutherland said.

Regardless of the information from the railroad, neighbors still disagreed with the removal of the bridge. Many felt removing it meant it would never get replaced. County Engineer Michael Frietsch stressed he searched for grant opportunities but was ultimately unsuccessful.

Although Frietsch initially turned down alternative solutions at the last hearing, he said he is open to anything. Supervisors emphasized the same thing.

“I don’t think by any means we’re saying we’re done with this conversation,” Talsma said. “We’re going to continue to try to look for alternatives. But I’m not going to make definitive statements about hypothetical situations.”

Supervisor Thad Nearmyer told the neighbors he appreciated them coming to the public hearings. Many of them he knows very well, and he said he would never try to purposefully harm them or put them in danger. He felt like the plan from EMA and sheriff’s office will help, along with the camera placed at the crossing.

He also gave props to Mindy Adkison, a resident who lives along Iowa Street, who had looked for alternative ways to replace the bridge and had even sought out the opinion of another county engineer. She proposed a railcar bridge be used to replace the current structure but was met with a hard no from the county.

“We do care about what’s happening out there,” Nearmyer said. “…How we got to this point, we hashed that over. But it’s been 40 years of inaction that’s led us to this point. But here we are. So we have to make a decision. But it’s not the end for you. I know Mindy is going to be a bulldog about this.”