Strategies for Improving the Project Agreement Process between Highway Agencies and Railroads (2010) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 8-47
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. Although the current American rail network is 44% smaller in terms of miles, it is carrying record volumes.
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Because of the interrelated nature of the nation's rail network, this congestion would affect every region of the country. Frustrated shippers would potentially shift freight to already congested highways, the study suggested.
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They reserve the right to shut down any operation deemed unsafe. In addition, they require indemnification for contractor error and require Railroad Protective Liability Insurance with amounts that vary from $2 million per incident to $10 million aggregate.
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Railroads will not accept interruption to train traffic as the highway agencies build overhead bridges, resurface grade crossings, or work adjacent to tracks. One rail executive noted that closures measured in hours rather than days are what the railroad will accept.
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However, railroads routinely are cautious when the highway agency needs railroad property. Railroads may not acquiesce to takings because of the effect they could have on the railroads' future ability to add more tracks or sidings.
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Despite its 905 pages, however, the Green Book provides minimal guidance on projects involving railroads. Much of the guidance that is provided addresses signage and signals by referencing the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
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The railroads generally have different processes for the various types of projects. Among the common categories of projects the railroads have developed are the following: • Pipe and wire crossings of tracks or yards; • Short-term maintenance work that requires temporary access to railroad property;
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• Provide an estimate of costs for preliminary engineering. • Begin the preliminary engineering agreement.
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• Record right-of-way or easement changes. • Prepare the final billing.
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• BNSF and UP developed a joint set of standards and guidelines for the development of projects. • Kansas City Southern Railway developed a program for the simplified acquisition of low-cost Railroad Protective Liability Insurance.
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A systematic problem-identification-and-analysis process does not seem to have occurred between railroads and the state DOTs with which they interact. • The development of master agreements and standard project agreements has occurred in many instances but not universally.
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The reflectivity of signs degrades in less than a decade, and pavement marking materials seldom perform well after three years of constant abrasion from vehicular traffic. Signs and pavement markings are essential safety features of highways and require continuous repairs.
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Agreements, like projects, generally fall into the following categories, each of which may involve a type of agreement or a major area within a larger agreement:• Planning study agreements, in which the railroad agrees to provide personnel, operating data, and planning assumptions so the highway agency can conduct long-term planning about how railroad facilities may interact with local highway and transit operations; • Preliminary engineering study agreements for highway agencies to evaluate project concepts or weigh environmental options for multiple alternatives for a potential project; • Project review agreements, which address the review of detailed plans; • Construction agreements, in which the contractor's means and methods are limited to ensure safe train operations during construction; • Long-term maintenance agreements for the finished projects; • Routine maintenance agreements to resurface or repair existing at-grade crossings or existing overhead or under-grade crossing structures; • Safety project agreements to install lights, gates, signals, signage, or other safety appurtenances at crossings; • Agreements to close crossings or to develop new ones; • Agreements to grade separate at-grade crossings; • Various right-of-entry agreements so that crews can access railroad properties in order to study geological, environmental, or hydrological aspects of adjacent highway properties; • Various utility agreements allowing highway agencies to improve pipes, drainage features, or even utility pipes and wires that cross or run parallel to the railroads; • Lateral encroachment agreements where improvements to an adjacent roadway may infringe, even temporarily during construction, on the railroad; and • Agreements concerning rehabilitation of at-grade crossings. Many projects include several of these aspects, which therefore may be consolidated into one larger, complex agreement.
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As a result of these variations, the project agreement process can be diverse. The Project Development Process Every project that uses federal funds must be developed from an official, formal Project Development Process (PDP)
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These would include another successive iteration of detail about the following: • Precise designs on where and how drainage structures will function; • The temporary work limits that may extend outside the final rights-of-way as equipment maneuvers and excavations occur during construction; • Precise delineation of right-of-way takings in sufficient detail for filing deed descriptions, appraisals, and right-of-way negotiations; • Precise plan sheets for every stage and aspect of the project; • Precise cost estimates by project item and stage; • Maintenance of traffic plans; and • Plans for landscaping or restoring the site after construction. Once all these details are approved, the highway agency begins the often complex, expensive, and sometimes contentious processes of acquiring the rights-of-way and convinc-ing the utility companies to relocate affected utilities before the project commences.
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Agencies have objected to having to pay monopolistic fees for the railroads to provide internal crews for force account work, flagging, and inspection. The highway agencies also have complained of having to provide longer structures to provide room for track expansion, even when the track expansion needs are uncertain.
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6. Have preliminary engineering agreements.
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Most Class I railroads have a public projects manager who coordinates the work between the agencies and the railroads. Prioritization of project work was also done by the public projects manager, an area outside the railroad technical team.
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One of the railroads discussed having hundreds of thousands of dollars of uncompensated expenses attributed to its public projects division as a result. The participants at the advisory panel meeting felt that in view of the project objective to smooth relationships and devise mitigation strategies to improve the workings between railroads and local and state transportation agencies, this issue needed to be resolved and a better and simpler mechanism to compensate railroads for preliminary engineering work needed to be devised.
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In addition, a letter of authorization is issued by the Texas DOT, which serves as a standard preliminary engineering agreement allowing the railroad to charge the DOT for reviews and consultations. After initial concurrence from the railroad regarding project approach, the project manager secures the field surveys, soil drillings, signal diagnostics, and other items that will be fundamental to the project.
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• The state and railroad agree that Railroad Protective Liability Insurance of $5 million per instance and up to $10 million aggregate will be provided at state expense. • The state will cover the railroad's costs for construction inspection, preliminary engineering, and force account work.
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Preconstruction Meeting Preconstruction meetings are held 2 to 3 weeks before the estimated start of construction. The meetings bring together representatives of the state, highway authority (city/county officials)
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The well-established Iowa process also eliminates the need for general liability and Railroad Protective Liability Insurance. All the work is done by the DOT staff and railroad personnel, so both are covered by their own self-insured coverage.
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Master Agreements Another strategy used by the Florida DOT is to have a standardized master agreement for each project and then to use a one-page letter modification for individual approvals. Routine approvals such as the authorization of reviews can be handled with a simplified one-page form, saving the central office, the districts, and the railroads considerable time.
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Another practice discussed was that some districts provided preliminary engineering agreements before receiving the Public Utility Commission agreement while others did not, causing project delays. The discussion highlighted some inconsistencies in practices across districts that led to project delays.
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Therefore, an unprecedented number of state highway projects are impacting railroad operations. Class I railroads in Washington provide specific design standards for highway improvements around railroads, and WSDOT advises its project offices to incorporate these standards to the extent possible early in design phases.
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The regional utility engineer provides the coordination required on utility aspects of the projects, except for megaprojects where the region dedicates a fulltime utility coordinator to manage the complexity and volume of utility design/coordination required in such large projects. All detailed engineering work is coordinated and supervised by the region itself.
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It also details steps to expedite various reviews and approvals for different types of projects including grade separation, railroad–highway grade crossing and temporary railroad crossing. This detailed documentation ensures that agency personnel working on projects know how and when to act on tasks to ensure successful and timely completion of projects.
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The self-interest of highway agency officials to receive prompt reviews has led many of them to adopt updated practices to ensure that railroads more quickly approve project agreements. The history of most of these practices has been rooted in efforts to improve project delivery.
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The current federal levels include $2 million for general liability and $6 million for Railroad Protective Liability Insurance. However, highway agencies report frequent insistence of insurance for $25 million or more for projects in urbanized areas.
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Illinois has used ISO processes for project management and other managerial functions. Like the other systems considered here, ISO provides a strategic managerial system that can be applied to processes for managing almost anything, including project agreements.
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• Adopt standard billing agreements that reduce the administrative costs of both the railroads and the highway agencies. • Adopt master agreements in which both parties agree to standard provisions within all projects to streamline the project agreement process.
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Using federal funds to pay for higher amounts requires case-by-case federal approvals. • Reimbursement for preliminary engineering.
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FHWA's Federal Aid Policy Guide of June 6, 2005, provides the following guidance for its state divisions to determine if the higher liability limits are warranted: AMOUNT OF COVERAGE (23 CFR 646.111) In determining whether a larger dollar amount of coverage is necessary for a particular project, consideration should be given to: (1)
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On the basis of the railroad's early reaction, the state possibly could decide not to pursue the project as feasible, or to fundamentally change the project concept. While most parties agree that early, often, and continuous communication is beneficial, the federal eligibility requirement can be an impediment, according to several highway agencies and railroads.
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Required Time Frames for Reviews The greatest number of open-ended comments from state and local highway agencies regarding the railroad agreement process was a request for timely responses from the railroads. Timeliness was a consistent theme from highway agencies that ran through every phase of this project.
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From page 44... ...
The use of critical-path scheduling is common in the construction industry and often has been used for the project-development process, as well. In such a process, the review milestones are identified in advance and the highway agency reaches understanding with the various review agencies as to when submittals should be expected and what the desired response times are.
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publicly funded highway capacity improvement projects that cross or affect existing railroad rights-of-way are not funded and designed to benefit railroad operations [and]
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"Railroad force account work reimbursed with public funds should be performed and billed as if it was being paid for by their own company, rather than considered ‘free money' to perform work outside of what is required/necessary to accommodate the highway improvement project work," said one state. "Also it would be extremely beneficial if DOT contractors could do some or all of the RR crossing work.
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From page 47... ...
5. Office of Freight Management and Operations, Federal Highway Administration, U.S.
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