Funding Heavy Rail Bridges

Can we talk a minute about rail bridges??Specifically, can we talk about investment in and regulation of heavy rail bridges?

In my time working for and with Class 1 railroads, many of my favorite projects were heavy bridge projects.?And many of the most challenging and frustrating projects were, likewise, heavy bridge projects.?The general public doesn’t realize that railroad bridges are the only bridges that are not owned or operated by the government and that are paid for almost exclusively by railroads. ?This makes them an anomaly, and our system doesn’t handle the out of the ordinary well.?Although they are not owned or operated by the government like highway bridges, they are still regulated by a myriad of federal agencies, like the Federal Railroad Administration, which oversees safety, and the United States Coast Guard, which regulates navigation on the rivers many of those bridges cross and thus regulates bridges that cross navigable waters.?

First, let’s talk safety.?According to the Association for American Railroads, there has not been a fatality due to a structural issue with a rail bridge in over 60 years.?Considering there are more than 61,000 rail bridges in the United States, that’s an amazing feat. In fact, rail bridges are among the safest and best-maintained infrastructure classes in the United States.?So kudos to the railroads and to the FRA for their excellent track record (no pun intended) on safety and performance.?

The next important area of regulation is the need for U.S. Coast Guard permits for bridges that cross navigable waterways.?The U.S. Coast Guard does a great job of moving permits through their process, ensuring that all constituencies are considered, in as timely a manner as they can.?The constituencies- often with competing interests- include the railroad applicant, land-based neighbors, environmental entities, and the maritime community.?The U.S. Coast Guard as a federal agency is bound by the National Environmental Policy Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, and many, many Executive Orders.?If it weren’t for the need for the permit, these laws, regulations, and orders wouldn’t generally apply to the railroads. Most people don't realize that all those documents and studies and public meetings that make up the permitting process are paid for by the applicants, so a bridge that requires permits is already more expensive than a bridge that doesn't.

In addition, most private entities build their infrastructure to meet their needs and enhance the value of their holdings.?They generally are not designing with the input of their neighbors, beyond what is required by certain zoning regulations.?For example, a mall operator builds a mall to meet the needs of its future tenants and shoppers, which are the groups that will make the mall successful.?A housing development is built with the future owners of the houses in mind, and extra amenities are added to drive up the value of the real estate.?On the other hand, rail bridges that cross navigable waters must be built with their competitors in mind. U.S. Coast Guard regulations require that bridges be built to enhance future navigation, and much of that navigable traffic is in the form of barges carrying many of the same goods that otherwise might move by rail.?I’m not saying that’s bad; in fact, I agree with the idea that our navigable waters are a huge asset to our country in terms of both the economy and our need to combat climate change.?Regardless, it’s still odd that we ask railroads to pay significantly more to build bridges that are moveable or that are high enough not to impede their water-based competition.?A moveable bridge, with the machinery that makes it rise or swing, is significantly more expensive to build and maintain than a fixed bridge.?In fact, Structure Magazine in October 2011 looked at the lifecycle cost of a moveable (specifically, vertical lift) highway bridge, and assumed it to have a 75 year life, which is significantly shorter than the 100 year life span of a rail bridge.?They found that there was a whopping $91.7 million lifecycle cost attributed just to the moveable nature of the bridge.?The authors also found that while a fixed bridge would incur about $12,000 in maintenance costs annually, a moveable bridge would see $497,800 in annual operation and maintenance costs, with the biggest hit being for bridge operators, whom they assumed would work for $18 per hour.?With the current labor market, good luck finding a bridge tender for $18 an hour!

What can we do about it? How do we make the system more fair? This is where I am hopeful that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) can help.?It makes sense that some of the $66 billion for rail in the bill would be used to help railroads offset the added costs of making their bridges meet public needs.?It’s one thing to ask for railroads to pay for their own infrastructure.?It’s quite another to watch a bridge double, triple, or more, in cost because it has to be designed, constructed, operated, and maintained to meet non-railroad needs. ?

In fact, I would go a step further.??There is a law called the Truman-Hobbs Act, which provides funds to help pay to replace bridges that are considered hazards to navigation.?The law pays for the percentage of the useful life left in the bridge the U.S. Coast Guard has slated for replacement.?So, for example, if you have a 100 year asset bridge, and the current bridge is 75 years old, the U.S. Coast Guard can order that the bridge be replaced and pay for 25% of the cost (100 years minus 75 years equals 25 years, which just so happens to be 25%).?I would argue that for any bridge that needs to provide for navigation, the percentage of the costs attributable to the need for navigation should be borne by the government.?So if a fixed bridge would cost $5 million, but a moveable bridge required by the U.S. Coast Guard for navigation needs would cost $20 million, the Act should provide a mechanism for the U.S. Coast Guard to pay the difference between the two.?This does not account for the increases in cost to operate and maintain a moveable bridge, but it’s at least a step in the right direction. Since Truman-Hobbs is always seriously underfunded, this would also require an increase in Truman-Hobbs Act funding and likely new regulations regarding how to choose projects. I think the highway, rail, and maritime communities could all get behind an increase in Truman-Hobbs Act funding.

Railroads do an incredible job of investing in and maintaining their infrastructure, and they’ve shown that a private freight infrastructure model works.?The freight railroads are key to moving our economy, and they do it in a way that helps the environment.?Paying our share- the costs for private infrastructure to be built in a way that serves a public purpose- is really the least we can do.