Utah Lawmakers have their sights on Union Pacific after years of construction delays 

• Benjamin Wood
• Drivers wait for a stopped train on 800 South.

CAPITOL HILL—In his five years as a state lawmaker, Paradise Republican Rep. Casey Snider told his colleagues last week, the most frustrating work he's engaged in is attempting to broker agreements between Cache County cities and the freight rail operator that runs through them.

Snider described asking railroad leadership for information or meetings, only for months to go by with little or even no response. And he bristled while relating how Logan City had built a new, signalized intersection near an old rail crossing—where Snider said he'd never once seen a train in operation—and how it sits covered and unused today because the railroad has yet to give its requisite signoff.

"It's important that we have the ability to move forward rather than being bottlenecked and treated as, maybe, second-class citizens in some of these areas," Snider said. "Railroads are holding government entities hostage by simply saying, 'No,' or never responding."

Snider's comments came during a charged meeting of the House Transportation Committee, in which four separate bills related to conflicts, concerns and criticisms of freight rail were heard and approved with unanimous support.

Municipal leaders shared stories of infrastructure projects being delayed for a decade or more, including those meant to improve the safety of both vehicle and pedestrian rail crossings or to provide children with a safe route to school. Rail workers described a pattern of dangerous conditions and little ability to report concerns —or to see efficacy from reporting—to internal superiors and watchdog agencies at the federal level.

And lawmakers described their own frustrations attempting to lobby for action on behalf of their constituents or even when dealing with railroads when they held prior positions. "I think if you've been on a city council, you probably have a railroad story," Rep. Karen Peterson, R-Clinton, said.

And while Snider and most others refrained from naming the specific rail company at the heart of their anecdotes, one entity loomed large in both the text and subtext: Union Pacific.

"These bills that are before the committee today come from a place and a desire to work together," Union Pacific spokesman Nathan Anderson said during one of several trips to the committee microphone. "We share that, and we have a shared desire for safety."

Local Motives
Snider's bill, HB51, would empower municipalities to advance infrastructure upgrades around rail lines, even without support of the rail operator, if the project is deemed to be in both the public interest and the interest of rail operations. He said his bill draws on federal case law to provide cities with leverage and, hopefully, to break through impasses that too often stifle development and growth planning.

"This bill is about moving beyond that frustration. I don't want any other community to have to go through what my community goes through every day," Snider said. "We've had plenty of politics in the background. This bill is a substantive policy shift so people don't have to play politics anymore."

HB51 was just one of the four shots fired by the House Transportation Committee. The panel also supported HJR16, a resolution from Ogden Republican Rep. Ryan Wilcox calling on the federal government to reconsider the sweeping land rights awarded to rail operators—many of which date back to the Manifest Destiny era of western expansion; HB232, from Centerville Republican Rep. Paul Cutler, which clarifies and bolsters the authority of the Utah Department of Transportation to adjudicate maintenance concerns and other responsibilities at rail crossings; and perhaps most notably, HB63 from Hooper Republican Rep. Mike Schultz, which creates a new state-level office of rail safety.

By Monday, all four bills had passed the full Utah House with near-unanimous support.

Schultz said that roughly 30 states have already created their own rail oversight bodies, and that the costs of Utah's program would be borne by the rail operators themselves. Statewide, he said, hundreds of projects are stalled pending railroad approval. "The problem is nothing happens, nothing gets done," Schultz said. "It's frustrating overall, but when it comes to safety, I don't think that's an area where we should lack at all."

While the short description of those bills may not seem particularly forceful, their combined weight got the attention of Union Pacific. Anderson spoke against each of the four bills on behalf of the rail operator, suggesting the enactment of those laws could impede freight operations and infringe on the railroad's private property rights. He also detailed company safety protocols that allow any train worker to hit the brakes if they see a problem and described an exemplary safety record within Utah under the existing dynamic of primarily-federal supervision.

"We operate a 33,000-mile, outdoor factory," Anderson said. "Without this state rail office of safety, we have achieved among the highest levels of safety across the entire railroad."

But those comments were undermined by testimony from rail union representatives, who described their firsthand experiences working in unsafe conditions and how their colleagues either stay silent out of fear of retribution or report concerns only to see them go unheard and unaddressed. "There's lots of company taglines out there," said Jeremy Hansen with SMART Transportation Division. "They don't go very far in reality."

Daniel Brewer, another SMART representative, said safety concerns have only grown as rail operators trim staffing levels while lengthening trains—a cost-cutting approach that sees fewer employees responsible for more train cars. Brewer described Schultz's proposal to create a state office of rail safety as the most substantive piece of local rail safety legislation in more than 50 years.

"My co-workers are the people who did this work," Brewer said. "They are overworked and understaffed, and we need someone to come in and acknowledge that and put the feet to the fire of this railroad company that we work for."

Grande Scheme
In Salt Lake, investment into west-side neighborhoods and ongoing efforts to reconnect the two halves of the city are frequently tied up in conflicts with Union Pacific. While some projects have moved forward—like a new pedestrian bridge under construction on 300 North near West High School—others sit stalled and incomplete or have been rendered unusably cumbersome by freight safety requirements.

The western portion of Salt Lake City's 9-Line trail has been built for years, but it's cut off from the newer portions east of the tracks due to a gap beneath Interstate 15, where city planners have worked to create a gate design that passes railroad muster while still allowing cyclists to travel conveniently. And the newly constructed Folsom Trail that links Poplar Grove to the North Temple FrontRunner station falls short of its ultimate target—the Jordan River Parkway trail—because of rail rights-of-way, while also boasting an absurd cluster of rail crossings at 600 West that compels trails users to backtrack and presumes to offer a safe pathway of winding, fenced-off areas. In reality, the design compels pedestrians and cyclists to cut their own informal route through the interchange, or to avoid the area entirely.

Beyond the city's work on trails, west-side residents are routinely blocked by freight trains at crossings on 300 North, 200 South, 800 South and 900 South—in some cases for up to an hour or more—jeopardizing their ability to reach jobs, schools, medical appointments and other time-sensitive destinations. The delays are so imposing that individuals can regularly be seen climbing between train cars to get through.

"This problem has been so impactful in my community for so many years," said Salt Lake City Councilman Alejandro Puy, who represents the west side. "[These bills] will help and improve the lives of residents here in Salt Lake City and across the state."

Union Pacific also holds what amounts to a pocket veto over the so-called Rio Grande Plan, a citizen-led effort to bury freight and passenger rail in a train box on 500 South, which would improve transit connections and open up large swaths of derelict land for redevelopment. Anderson said that Union Pacific is familiar with the Rio Grande proposal but has no formal position on it and that it raises questions around the train box's capacity for ventilation, maintenance, customer service and potential expansion.

He added that the railroad is working with the city to explore not just one idea but "many solutions" for mitigating the safety and connectivity issues around its lines.

"We have seen the [Rio Grande Plan] renderings but we have not had any serious engineering discussions to address the concerns that would bring up," Anderson said.

While burying rail is an obviously complex task, even more traditional efforts to move people up and over the tracks have faced intransigence, in some cases necessitating court action to move forward. In the House Transportation Committee, Vineyard Mayor Julie Fullmer described how her city—which is functionally landlocked between rail on one side and Utah Lake on the other—had to push a dispute with Union Pacific to the Utah Supreme Court in order to complete a road route into and out of town.

"Historical rights given to railroads to act as a good public partner and a public good have been abused, monopolizing the land, preventing growth and connection to jobs and higher education," she said.

The Utah Legislature has engaged in this type of signaling before, including bills sponsored during the 2022 legislative session that were ultimately shelved. But Ezra Nair, Vineyard's city manager, encouraged lawmakers to follow through and enact changes in law, noting that even the threat of the legislation has appeared to prompt a shift in Union Pacific's responsiveness.

"We've had some of the best discussions that we've ever had throughout the past year, simply because this legislation is being proposed," Nair said. "I fear what would happen if this legislation didn't move forward."