Sandpoint receives $20M grant to improve RR crossing safety

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

Sandpoint City Hall announced a grant award of more than $20.2 million to address railroad crossings along Great Northern Road.

The funding is from the Federal Railroad Administration’s Railroad Crossing Elimination Program, and will go toward safety and connection improvements at three major crossings at Gooby Road, Woodland Drive and Mountain View Drive.

“The award represents the largest grant in the city’s history and a major milestone in addressing longstanding transportation and infrastructure needs in northwest Sandpoint,” the city stated in a news release.

Specifically, the grant will fund work to realign the road and crossing at Gooby Road to improve its layout and install more robust warning gates, lights and other safety signage; install and upgrade warning systems at Woodland Drive, as well as alter the intersection to further separate the intersection and tracks while lowering their height profile to smooth the crossing; and altogether eliminate the Mountain View Drive crossing.

Once completed, the removal of the Mountain View crossing will redirect traffic to the improved crossings at Gooby Road and Woodland Drive.

“Together, these improvements will create a safer and more reliable transportation network for residents, businesses, emergency responders and the traveling public,” the city stated.

Speaking at the Nov. 4 meeting of the Sandpoint City Council, Mayor Jeremy Grimm called the award “extraordinary,” and noted that the city and Sandpoint Urban Renewal Agency have spent several years and about $1 million to get the project to 60% design. 

He also described the closure of the Mountain View Crossing as a central goal of the project, which will result in traffic moving through Goodman Drive, affecting residents of the Timberline Estate subdivision. However, the city plans to work with neighbors to install speed bumps or other traffic calming measures to reduce the impact of increased travel through the area.

“On the upside, it’s going to eliminate that whistleblowing there,” Grimm said.

“What I’m most excited about … [is] stormwater drainage on that west side of the airport, which has always been a challenge for both the existing railroad tracks and pedestrian and bike facility there,” he added.

The overall GN Road Corridor project is estimated to cost about $30 million, and “has long been identified as a major infrastructure priority for Sandpoint,” the city stated, adding that it is the No. 1 project for the Northern Sandpoint Urban Renewal Area and is identified in the Sandpoint Multimodal Transportation Master Plan.

Beyond its overall scope, the RN Road project has been made more complicated given that railroad crossings are regulated under state statute, which dictates the processes that railroad companies and public entities must follow in order to close crossings.

With the federal award, Sandpoint and SURA have expanded opportunities to leverage past planning into construction, which “would otherwise be difficult to accomplish using local funding alone,” the city stated.

Still the project needs a 20% non-federal funding contribution, which will be supported locally through SURA in addition to dollars from Sandpoint’s water and sewer enterprise funds. 

“Final project costs, funding commitments and grant conditions will be addressed as the city advances toward formal grant acceptance and project implementation,” Sandpoint officials added.

The federal money will specifically support final design, right-of-way acquisition and construction — though all depending on the terms of the final agreement.

Project updates will be posted to the city’s Great Northern Road project webpage at bit.ly/GNRoadProject, including further info, answers to frequently asked questions and more.