Native American tribes get approval on the installation of PTC wireless transmitters
Best laid plans of government gone awry by their own ignorance. [oops]
At least they’re still in the approval stage. Not railroad related, but better than what these folks are dealing with…
The left hand (congress) does not know what the right hand (congress) did. Let congress sort it out.
And there is still no guarantee that this unfunded mandate will ever work completely.[(-D][(-D][(-D]
Today, everybody has potential veto power over every proposal to build anything in the U.S.
Aren’t we lucky that the country all of us – including the NIMBYs – enjoy was built before everybody had this power?
While I will concede that the construction of the tower in question could have been handled better, I find it perversely amusing that the residents of the area are complaining about a radio tower that would presumably improve emergency service response times.
Wonder if this is a blessing in disguise. If delay for antenna sites is up to three years and it’s not uniform across the rail network, then implementation becomes becomes phased over a number of years, de-facto.
Don,
I agree entirely.
Mac
Is it possible, that some of the many entities involved might decide that they are entitled to some sort of monetary compensation for their- I dunno- pain and suffering? That could potentially shift the time frame from a couple of years to a couple of decades.
What happens, if a significant archeological site is discovered at one of the sights? Suppose it’s just the tip of the iceberg, and the area is huge, and has a transcon running right through the middle of it?
Well, if they don’t want those PTC towers being haunted they better go slow on this! Hey, I’m not superstitious but why take chances? Ever see “Poltergeist?”
Very appropriate story for the Halloween season.
…and the FRA can save face.
I’m sure they’re all for the tower, but NIMBY…
Of course, some may be BANANA’s (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything).
[quote user=“Murphy Siding”]
Is it possible, that some of the many entities involved might decide that they are entitled to some sort of monetary compensation for their- I dunno- pain and suffering? That could potentially shift the time frame from a couple of years to a couple of decades.
Murphy S. Said “… What happens, if a significant archeological site is discovered at one of the sights? Suppose it’s just the tip of the iceberg, and the area is huge, and has a transcon running right through the middle of it?..”
Murphy, If you would like a little insight when a larger Interstate Project runs afoul of a local effort to stop ( headed by Lawyers on their way to a HANDSOME RETIREMENT )
Link @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_to_Preserve_Overton_Park_v._Volpe
I lived in Memphis through most of the 20 plus years this case went back and forth in the courts, all the way to finally ending up at SCOTUS. It was a horror; the current net result is that I-40 goes form West to East, but has a break/gap in Memphis. The original plan called eventually for an expenditure of something North of $280 million Bucks( to complete the link, approx. a mile. It was never built, but a guess would be that more than that were spent to enhance the perimeter roads around Memphis. The Lawyers got wealthy and retired. The ROW was razed and the houses rebuilt, and all the traffic must travel thousands of miles each year to go around…
That is what can happen in a similar scenario you describe. For a railroad it
Other than the above we also have to wait for clearance from the government for environmental concerns such as endangered species and such. The government shutdown put us behind on a new tower in Wyoming. It is a mainline microwave site several miles from the ROW.
As stated in the article, most of the PTC poles we are installing are trackside. You will see those steel poles along the ROW with a dipole and GPS antenna all over the place. I would assume that if anything of importance were in the area, it would have been discovered by now, although we are going anywhere from 8’ to 14’ in the ground, so you never know. If we found something, that would certainly be a show stopper.
We are in a process now that will require the replacement of several towers, but they will placed next to the existing towers, so it should be pretty straight forward. As someone alluded to in this thread, there are many third parties that co-locate on our towers such as cell carriers and emergency services, so it would be of great advantage to not impede the process too much.