A federally imposed deadline for an Alaska Railroad safety upgrade is butting up against the state’s dire fiscal circumstances, as legislators Monday signaled that they may not be able to supply the money the railroad says it needs to finish the project.
Railroad executives told a state Senate committee Monday that they needed nearly $20 million in this year’s budget to complete a $160 million system called positive train control, which is designed to automatically prevent collisions and derailments.
State officials have already put $34 million toward the project over the last two years. But the railroad says it needs another $18 million to finish the job, or the Federal Railroad Administration could impose fines or other penalties. The most severe penalty is to shut down passenger service.
At Monday’s committee hearing, however, both legislators and railroad executives said that they weren’t convinced that the safety system was the most efficient use of money. “It’s really hard to get to a justification for that investment,” said Sen. Peter Micciche, R-Soldotna. “The federal government, though their intentions are valuable, doesn’t always understand how to best reduce risk.”
Railroad officials didn’t dispute the point, though they stressed that they don’t have the ability to shut the project down. One slide in their presentation to the committee came with the heading “No Way Out.” “If I had $160 million to spend on the infrastructure of the Alaska Railroad, I would not put it into positive train control,” said CEO Bill O’Leary. “It’s just that I don’t have any choice in the matter.” O’Leary said the money being spent on the safety system could otherwise be spent for deferred maintenance, including on bridges and roadbed.
Similar concerns have been expressed at a national level — one official in Pennsylvania said a rail line there had to shut down a rotting bridge because the money it was forced to spend on positive train control didn’t leave enough for repairs.
A 2009 study by the Federal Railroad Administration that took into account the statistical value of a human life estimated that the cost of installing the safety systems was some 20 times higher than the expected benefits over a 20-year period.
The railroad administration, however, stands behind the program.
Via adn.com
image credit APEonline
