It might not look like it, but the Page Street crossing could be the roughest in Kewanee. [Photo by Mike Berry]
The news has been good for Kewanee drivers lately. Badly-needed new striping is being applied to Main and Tenney streets.
The city has budgeted $750,000 for street repairs this year.
Besides that, a major street program could be on the horizon, as city officials are planning to apply for a Federal Aid Urban Street grant.
But one of the greatest threats to the comfort of Kewanee drivers and passengers won’t be addressed by the city.
That threat is the city’s railroad crossings. Those are repaired not by the city, but by the Burlington Northern railroad. Kewanee has nine crossings, from Page Street to Kent Street. And it’s not smooth sailing (or motoring) over any of them.
Page Street is the worst, I think. Tremont Street isn’t much better.
Even the Main Street crossing, which I imagine sees the most traffic of any of them, is getting rough.
Ironically, if you risk your life and your car’s suspension and cross the tracks on Page Street, then turn south to Midland Country Club, you’ll find that the crossing by the club is smooth as silk.
It doesn’t help that in some cases the streets leading up to the crossings are also bad. This is particularly true on the north side of the Tremont Street crossing. Those streets, of course, are the city’s responsibility. But it doesn’t make much sense to fix them if the crossing next to them is rough.
I realize that there are probably thousands of crossings over Burlington Northern’s 32,500 miles of track. And the railroad can’t afford to repave all of them. But it would be nice if at least the worst Kewanee crossings were fixed.
I’d like to invite whoever at BN is responsible for crossing repairs to come to Kewanee and take a ride with me. I’d drive over all of our crossings at 25 mph or so and count how many times the railroad official’s head smashes into the roof of the car.
Maybe that would get some action.
