One of U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer’s most recent concerns is the conditions of the railroads in New York State, and has recently launched an initiative to increase the number of bridge inspectors in the state by increasing funding to the rail bridge safety specialist program.
The major issue is that there are too few railroad inspectors that serve New York. In fact, there is only one, who is also responsible for auditing bridges in 13 other states.
According to WAMC, Northeast Public Radio, the funding for the Bridge Safety Inspector program is only $1 million per year. Schumer has proposed to at least double the federal allocation of funds to the program, which could allow the Federal Railroad Administration to add about seven more inspectors.
“In upstate New York, there are 2,158 rail bridges that could be at risk if they’re not inspected or audited,” explained Schumer in an interview with reporters.
Schumer also says that there are 487 bridges in Western New York and 232 in the Rochester Finger Lakes area. Many of these bridges could be in disrepair — but it’s hard to know since many of them go uninspected. Less than 1% of the nation’s bridges are inspected each year.
Transportation is one of the world’s largest industries and covers such industries as trucking, air, railroad, and shipping by water. Though it’s an integral part of the way the world works, it actually only accounts for about 6% of economic activity.
Though roads and bridges are both essential to the shipping industry (and the way we travel), the nation’s infrastructure is falling into disrepair which could pose dangerous risks for the Rochester community, especially because of the increased amount of crude oil transported through the area every day.
Each day, dozens of trains carrying crude oil pass through the Rochester area, many of them over the same bridges that could be compromised, which causes concern for some local residents.
“There’s no place in Monroe County where we could have a derailment of an oil train where it wouldn’t be devastating,” Wendy Low told NBC affiliate WHEC. She lives about two-tenths of a mile from the main CSX railroad that runs through Rochester.