Camanche Iowa USA - A public hearing regarding the city of Camanche vacating its Fifth Avenue rail crossing on the CPKC rail line will be held at 18:00 on Tuesday, 21 May 2024, at City Hall.
 
"They have been pretty fair to deal with," Camanche Mayor Austin Pruett said about the rail line Monday as he explained that the city was approached by it with an offer last month.
 
"And the talks have been similar to prior conversations had."
 
Before the merging with Kansas City Southern, Canadian Pacific had approached the city of 4,572 people, with an offer of US$200,000 in exchange for vacating of two of the city's rail crossings, or US$300,000 for the closure of three.
 
The city countered the offer and asked $2.5 million, citing emergency services access concerns.
 
Canadian Pacific refused.
 
Then, the Surface Transportation Board in March 2023 announced the merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern to create the first single-line freight rail network connecting Mexico, the U.S., and Canada.
 
Part of the merger was to increase the capacity of spurs along the route to allow for rail cars to be pulled off the main line to avoid blocking crossings and stopping flows of traffic for extended periods of time, Camanche City Administrator Andrew Kida said last week.
 
The railway, Kida said, thus seeks to extend the spur at Fourth Avenue in Camanche back to Fifth Avenue.
 
The Fifth Avenue crossing, he said, is the least traveled crossing by automobiles in the city.
 
"So the motion in front of the Council at the next meeting will be to vacate the Fifth Avenue crossing," Kida said.
 
"In exchange for doing that, CPKC will compensate the city US$100,000, and we will be able to match that with a DOT grant for traffic safety within the city of Camanche."
 
If the city accepts, Kida said, the money received out of the agreement would be utilized to increase safety and improve the approaches at the Third Street crossing.
 
Deals With Other Cities
 
Canadian Pacific Railway had filed an application with the Surface Transportation Board, a federal regulatory authority, in October 2021 to acquire the Kansas City Southern Railway Company.
 
In September 2022, Clinton City Council moved to consider, and ultimately accept, an agreement in which the city would receive US$1 million in exchange for its support of the merger.
 
Acceptance of the agreement dictated that the city would agree not to seek mitigation conditions or oppose Canadian Pacific's application to the Surface Transportation Board.
 
The money the city of Clinton received from the agreement would be designated for the full signalization of the railroad crossing at Sixth Avenue North and Main Avenue, the only two railroad crossings not partially funded by Iowa DOT rail safety grants, and remaining funding would go toward the reconstruction of the west side of McKinley Street between 32nd Avenue North and 36th Avenue North.
 
As part of the Surface Transportation Board's review process, the proposed increase in rail traffic from seven to eight trains per day to 21-24 trains per day elicited a formal environmental review process.
 
Clinton City Administrator Matt Brooke said at the time the study indicated that apart from adverse impacts caused from train noise at some locations, the potential adverse impacts of the proposed acquisition would be "negligible, minor, and/or temporary."
 
Since Clinton had also already been working to establish a quiet zone, Brooke stated also that he believed Clinton would be "the most prepared to handle an increase in train traffic."
 
Similar negotiations were conducted by Canadian Pacific representatives with cities located along the route.
 
Ten cities total, seven located in Iowa, negotiated agreements, including LeClaire, Washington, and Fruitland.
 
Muscatine and Bettendorf each negotiated receiving US$3 million each and Davenport US$10 million.
 
Jenna Blount.