Grade separation costs.

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

My brain wandered onto another “Wouldn’t it be cool if…” topic and I was wondering if anyone has a ball park figure on the cost of a routine grade separation and/or flyover construction.

I was pondering what it would be like, if the UP Northwest line would be transformed into a fully separated high speed corridor (73 grade crossings from Harvard in and 4 at-grade junctions that I could see). With McHenry County isolated from the interstate system (most populous county in the US without direct access to an interstate), I would hazard to claim that there would be a huge spike in usage if the speeds were doubled.

Naturally, each crossing would be different and have different costs, but is there a general area in which the price falls? 1 mil? 5 mil? 10 mil? $3.62 pre-fabbed on sale at Lowes?

2

The January 2008 Trains magazine has an article that states a new grade crossing costs approximately $370,000 while an overpass costs in the neighborhood of $10 million and up. So you can do about 27 grade crossing for the price of one overpass.

3

Hmm, I will have to go see if I’ve gotten that issue yet. Thanks, $10 million gives a perspective.

4

There’s no such thing as a typical cost for a grade crossing or for a grade separation for highway, or railway flyover (a fact for which I’m thankful as it helps keep me employed). Average costs are historic and are meaningless to predict the future. Every situation on the planet is different.

For ballpark ranges:

Signalize an existing two-lane rural road, no traffic interties, no cantilevers, no wayside signaling system involvement: $250,000. Add $150,000 for each cantilever, add $150,000 for quad gates for a Quiet Zone, add $150,000 for each traffic light intertie, add $50,000 to $3,000,000 if there are wayside signaling locations within the approaches, add $50,000 to $300,000 for any roadway changes and crossing surface improvement.

Grade separate an existing two-lane rural road at-grade crossing in open flat country with no nearby intersections, crossing angle not greater than 80 degrees, span not greater than 100 feet, easy runout, no right-of-way acquistions, good soils, no drainage issues, no utility relocations, simple bypass during construction: $3,000,000.

Grade separate an four-lane arterial road, nearby intersections, nearby business entrance revisions, frontage roads to reach those businesses, traffic light changes, high angle, long spans and multiple spans, poor soils, drainage issues, MSE walls, extensive utility relocations, elevation challenges, $50,000,000 not including buying out the businesses which are ruined by the diminishment of access.

Flyover one railroad over another: $60 million-$500 million, without looking at them I have no idea.

Right-of-way acquisition costs – can be enough to make you think it would be cheaper to build railroads on the moon.

Add 10-20% for design, permitting, right-of-way, survey, geotech, public involvement, 404 permits, etc., etc.

RWM

5

Awesome info. I know that in 2003 Metra had identified 225 crossings as high priority to se

6

Who typically pays for these grade crossing improvements?

7

Average of $11 million each.

Elevating roadways to get across the railway at grade is not a bad idea if the alternative is a $20 million rail bridge for which there’s no state or federal 90% matching. Even at that, not too many small municipalities can bond $2-3 million for a bridge, on top of schools, roads, police, fire, and other basics without putting their property taxpayers into severe hardship.

Before thinking it’s a good idea to build underpasses, you’d want to know where you encounter ground water locally. It gets expensive to build an underpass down into the water table, and if the water table is contaminated such as from a superfund site – a likelihood that always looms along railway lines – the price tag for dealing with that can escalate into the billion-dollar range.

Look around where adjacent businesses and residences are to these crossings. The runout from the underpass will cut off many of them, and maintaining roadway access to them might be impossible, making it necessary to buy them out.

Look around at utility lines – overhead 150KV lines can cost something like $250,000 to move one tower. High-pressure gas and petroleum lines can cost $15,000 per foot to relocate.

RWM

8

Are these estimates for a single mainline or would it include a double tracked main? I’m pretty sure, the UP NW line is at least double tracked the whole way and triple tracked for a good distance.

9

Go look at what happened with the Alameda Corridor in LA…after you have recovered from sticker shock, watch the NIMBYs scream about all the the time and inconvenience they would go through to build it. (It is a process, not instant gratification)

10

Would the “big 6” do all of the planning for these kind of projects in house, or do they now out-source this kind of work ?

11

The possible list of pockets includes the federal government (several different funding sources), state government, county, municipality, local taxing district, adjacent property owners, large businessess who would benefit, and the railway. Generally whomever needs it the most pays the most. The share is worked out through negotiations. Often the railway pays something, but not a large percentage. There are instances where the railway pays a substantial percentage in order to obtain something else it wants, such as the city to drop opposition to a zoning change to construct a new yard, or for a merger.

RWM

12

Planning at railways traditionally has been in-house but more and more, outside consultants are being brought in to provide environmental analysis, economic analysis, legal analysis, and rail traffic modeling and analysis. Roadway planning is not a railway function, as a rule. Railways will identify roadways they want to get out of the way (so they can build a yard, siding, etc.,) but where the road ends up going, and how, is under the aegis of the roadway owner.

RWM

13

Grade-crossing costs are always impacted by double track for additional crossing surface. There’s often no effect on grade-crossing signal cost so long as the approaches don’t reach past any wayside signaling, but if they do, the costs can become so expensive a grade separation can become less expensive. Generally in 2MT territory there’s lots of complicated wayside signaling in the vicinity.

Grade-separation costs won’t change for single-track vs. double-track if the road is going over the railway, assuming the roadway spans the entire right-of-way. If it’s rail over road, they costs obviously double. A lot depends on construction staging, working room, need for shoo-flys, etc.

RWM