“To amend title 49, United States Code, to limit railroad carriers from blocking railway-highway crossings, and for other purposes.”
No CRS summary available for this bill.
This section establishes a 10-minute time limit on blocked public highway-rail grade crossings by railroad carriers, prohibiting incidents longer than 10 minutes unless caused by specified exceptions (1) a casualty or serious injury; (2) an accident; (3) a track obstruction; (4) compliance with federal rail safety laws; (5) adherence to passenger train preference requirements; (6) a train fully within yard limits or a siding; (7) an act of God; or (8) a derailment or safety appliance failure. For any such crossing with three or more reported incidents exceeding 10 minutes on at least three days within a 30-day period via the Federal Railroad Administration's blocked crossing portal, the Secretary of Transportation must notify the railroad, investigate causes and mitigation measures, and require the railroad to maintain records of subsequent incidents (including causes, train length, and duration) for consultation up to 60 days, with recordkeeping ending after 365 incident-free days. The Secretary may assess civil penalties under existing law for violations occurring 60 days after notice, with exemptions if no alternate road route exists within one-half mile or a grade separation project is funded and locally approved; penalties may increase for repeated delays to emergency services. The requirements do not apply to Amtrak or commuter rail operations, including those dispatched by Class I railroads.
This section modifies the blocked crossing portal program under section 22404 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (P.L. 117-58, a note to 49 U.S.C. 22907)—initiated by the Federal Railroad Administration in 2019 to enable public reporting of blocked highway-rail grade crossings—by (1) striking the "3-year" limitation in subsection (a), (2) striking subsection (h), redesignating subsection (i) as (h), and striking subsections (j) and (k) while inserting a new subsection (i) providing that nothing in the section invalidates the Secretary's authority over blocked crossings, and (3) requiring each Class I railroad carrier to publish an active link to the portal on the home page of its publicly available website not later than 60 days after enactment. (Thus, the program continues indefinitely.)
This section amends railroad grade crossing safety hotline requirements (49 U.S.C. 20152) to include reports of blocked crossing incidents (as defined in section 20172) as a new category under subsection (a)(1)(D), redesignating the prior "other safety information" category as (a)(1)(E) and expanding the timely investigation requirement in (a)(4) to cover reports under (a)(1)(C), (D), or (E). It further requires railroads, within 14 days of receiving a blocked crossing report under (a)(1)(D), to (1) verify whether the public highway-rail grade crossing was blocked for at least 10 minutes and (2) if verified, enter the report into the Federal Railroad Administration's blocked crossing portal (initiated in 2019 and required by section 22404 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, 49 U.S.C. 22907 note); requires railroads to promptly inform the Secretary of Transportation of any updates to toll-free numbers maintained under (a)(1); and directs the Secretary to publish such telephone numbers on the Department of Transportation website.