Our Voice: Here’s why you should care about a train bridge in Idaho

BNSF Railway Co. is moving ahead with long-discussed plans to build a second bridge over Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho.

While the Sandpoint Junction Connector may seem like a faraway project for us to be commenting on, the project has implications for our community as well.

A bridge already exists over the lake and is a part of the railway’s northern tier route from Chicago to Seattle.

That route passes through the Tri-Cities, and Pasco is home to BNSF’s largest humpyard in the Northwest, where trains are reconfigured when needed to meet their end destination.

Sixty to 70 trains a day use the single track across the lake in Sandpoint, Idaho.

Trains going either direction have to wait as the railway controls the traffic, bringing one train across at a time going either direction. That has a ripple effect in both directions, with trains holding up and down the line.

For now, BNSF says the new bridge would not bring added rail traffic but would help ease the congestion that is already there. The new bridge would be built beside the existing one, and both would be used to move trains from one side of the lake to the other.

BNSF had been talking about the project for years, but just formally submitted the project for proper permits in December.

The first hurdle is approval by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, since the project involves a body of water. The public comment period ends Wednesday.

The Idaho Department of Public Lands and the U.S. Coast Guard also are reviewing the project. Idaho officials have scheduled public hearings in May. Information can be found at bit.ly/TCHpubinfo.

Many folks jump to the conclusion that this project is about coal and fuel trains. Yes, some of those products are transported on that route. But so are many other products important to the Mid-Columbia.

Fifty-four percent of the items moved are consumer goods. If you pay close attention you might even see Amazon Prime train cars moving through town.

Rail may seem antiquated to some, but when it comes to moving products across this country, it is still a major cost-effective player. One train can move the equivalent of 280 semi loads of goods.

BNSF is big business. The company is spending $160 million in our state this year and $3.3 billion system-wide on improvements and upkeep.

A big proponent of the project is Keep Washington Competitive, a collection of business, labor, agriculture and trade organizations promoting trade growth in the state. The group has a ready-made letter supporters can send on its website.

Residents in Sandpoint are understandably concerned. This is a big project that actually includes three bridges (the other two are much less significant than the lake crossing).

Lake Pend Oreille is a beauty. The impact of the project is substantial, and that’s the reason so many agencies are involved. And it’s a public process with multiple opportunities for citizens to weigh in with their thoughts, concerns or support.

We see and hear trains every day. More than 500 BNSF employees live in our community. We sometimes forget just how vital trains are to the success of our commerce system.

While they may seem old-fashioned to some, we expect trains will become even more vital in the future and train traffic is expected to grow in the decades ahead.

We support the idea of the second bridge across the lake in Idaho. It means a lot here in Washington, too.

This story was originally published March 23, 2018 at 3:51 PM with the headline "Our Voice: Here’s why you should care about a train bridge in Idaho."