Mar 01, 2009

Lenwood Road Railroad Bridge

Barstow Industrial Park

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By: Abbey Sewell

Desert Dispatch - BARSTOW

--One of the city's priority projects, a planned bridge over the railroad tracks at Lenwood Road to provide access to the Barstow Industrial Park, kicked off last week.

City staff had an initial meeting Wednesday with representatives of Parsons Transportation G ro u p a n d U R S Corporation Americas, the firms providing project management and engineering consultant for the approximately $25 million project.

URS is beginning its work on environmental reports and engineering. The intent of the meeting was to make sure that the consultants understood the city's intentions on the project, and the parties will continue to meet monthly from now on, said project manager Khalil Saba of Parsons.

Because there are federal funds designated for the project, they will need to perform environmental review in accordance with both the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act, Saba said.

That will complicate the process, but Saba said, "At this time, based on the information we have, we're not envisioning a lengthy environmental process."

He anticipated having the environmental documents and preliminary engineering completed by November 2010, with final designs and right of way acquisition done by April of 2012. Construction would start in May or June of 2012.

The railroad bridge is largely intended to provide access to the Barstow Industrial Park, a 1,200 acre plot of land designated for industrial development, without forcing vehicles to stop at the railroad tracks to wait for trains to cross. The only existing tenant of the industrial park is Valmont Newmark International, a concrete pole manufacturer. A planned Wal-Mart distribution center is held up by a lawsuit over the environmental review process until at least May.

IDS Real Estate, the developer of the industrial park, signed an agreement in 2008 with BNSF Railway to build a rail spur that would carry freight into the industrial park, contingent on IDS completing environmental work on the project, said BNSF spokeswoman Lena Kent.

City spokesman John Rader said IDS is expecting to complete the environmental work by the summer and is waiting until the rail spur is in place before marketing the property further. IDS representatives could not be reached Friday.

Although the bridge and the industrial park are two separate projects, they are interconnected, Rader said.

"The development of the Barstow Industrial Park will place increased pressure on the city to improve the traffic circulation in this area due to the 8,000 to 14,000 projected jobs at build out of the park, increased train and truck traffic," he said.

Duane Baker, director of management services with the San Bernardino Associated Governments, which has a role in distributing transportation funds from state and federal sources, said SANBAG also considers the railroad bridge a high priority in facilitating the movement of goods and services, both from Interstate 15 and Highway 58, to the industrial park.

City officials had expressed some hope that the project might be eligible for federal stimulus funds, but Rader said Friday that the city was not expecting to receive stimulus money for the project because it does not currently qualify as "shovel ready" and because, based on its population, Barstow is only likely to receive about $200,000 in stimulus funds.

In a letter to Barstow's Congressman Howard "Buck" McKeon, the city requested $250,0000 in federal appropriations for the bridge project. Although the city has already identified a mix of federal, state and local funds that should cover the cost of the project, Rader said some are still tentative and the additional federal funds would plug the hole if any other sources fell through.