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  • Spencer Officials Address Grand Ave. Railroad Crossing Concerns

Spencer Officials Address Grand Ave. Railroad Crossing Concerns

May 03, 2022 Steve Schwaller

(Spencer)– An incident last week at the Grand Avenue railroad crossing in downtown Spencer was a topic of discussion at Monday’s City Council meeting. The issue arose when the crossing arms were in the downward position for an extended period even when no train was in sight, causing traffic to back up. Police Chief Mark Warburton told the council there’s nothing they can do when something like that happens that involves the railroad…

“Unfortunately the Police Department just doesn’t have a magic button we can push and raise the arms up, right? This comes from the railroad. And so part of this new construction process will adopt the new changes there to keep those arms from staying down. The railroad’s making a conscious effort to make this right. We, at the Police Department, when we get those calls, we just can’t make a railroad move. There are certain federal regulations that they have to go through and they have to see those out, which supercede Spencer’s city ordinance.”

As we reported previously, some extensive renovations will be made to the Grand Avenue crossing. Public Works Director Mark White told the council plans still call for Grand Avenue to be closed in the area of the crossing beginning Monday, May 16th, with through traffic being detoured…

“About nine days, hard closure, completely closed on Grand Avenue. So it will be worth the wait because we’ll have a new crossing and upgraded safety improvements. This will be a D.O.T slash railroad project.”

White says plans call for that area of Grand Avenue to re-open to traffic Tuesday, May 23rd.

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