Fatal Metro-North Crash Seen Unlikely to Change Agencies’ Rail Safety System Work

A fatal Metro-North Railroad crash in New York City this month renewed public awareness about implementation of the positive train control safety system, but PTC stakeholders told us they don’t believe the crash will ultimately change the dynamics of the technology’s implementation at the FCC and other agencies. The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which required railroads to implement PTC communications systems, gives nearly all responsibility for implementing PTC to the Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration, said an FCC official. But the FCC has been facilitating the deployment of some PTC technologies because they involve spectrum, said an official there.

Metro-North hasn’t deployed the PTC system, which the National Transportation Safety Board said would have prevented the train from derailing when it sped at 82 miles per hour through a curved area of track where the speed limit is 30 mph. The crash killed four people and injured more than 70 others, said the NTSB. The PTC system is in part designed to automatically stop or slow trains that pass the speed limit. It would also prevent collisions, prevent trains from being routed over rail switches in the wrong position and protect rail workers from being hit by moving trains.

No one train crash is going to change the dynamics of the PTC implementation process, said Hogan Lovells wireless lawyer Michele Farquhar, counsel to the Association of American Railroads and the PTC-220 group of freight railroads. “The issues are quite complicated,” she said, but the Metro-North crash does “show the need to get this done and to move quickly and to ensure all federal agencies are able to work together in an expedited fashion.”

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., is discussing PTC implementation challenges with the FCC and other agencies in the wake of the Metro-North crash, a Maloney aide told us. Two of the four people who died in the crash lived in Maloney’s Hudson Valley district. Maloney urged FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler in a letter to “work in concert with [DOT] to provide guidance to all commuter railroads seeking sufficient spectrum and address any other outstanding concerns” (http://1.usa.gov/1kiXMWF). Maloney introduced the Commuter Rail Passenger Safety Act (HR-3634) soon after the Metro-North crash and has asked the House Railroads Subcommittee to hold a hearing focused on rail safety. HR-3634 would allow railroads to apply for loans to invest in PTC implementation.

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA), Association of American Railroads (AAR) and others have repeatedly raised concerns about the amount of spectrum available to accommodate PTC services. Parties have previously asked the FCC to reallocate spectrum in the 217-222 MHz range and are now asking Congress to address the issue, said Joni Carlton, APTA senior legislative representative. “Many of our folks have tried using the secondary market,” she said. “Some have gone to market as many as three times but have hit snags in the process. So it’s not for lack of trying on the commuter railroads’ part. We just need a little more time and a little more help.” Many passenger railroads have said they're concerned they will not be able to meet the Dec. 31, 2015, deadline to implement PTC and are seeking a deadline extension. APTA has asked for a three-year blanket extension, Carlton said.

The FCC’s lack of a specific congressional mandate on PTC has meant the commission has “taken the view that they don’t have to do anything proactively” on deployment, said Joint Council on Transit Wireless Communications Vice Chairman Karl Witbeck. “What they've chosen to do is be in a reactive mode, so when railroads come to them with spectrum problems they're trying to solve, they'll try to help. But that’s not proactive.” The ideal solution would be for the FCC to reallocate spectrum for PTC use, but Congress isn’t likely to extend the commission’s authority on the issue, said Witbeck. “We're in a Catch-22 situation."

PTC tower and infrastructure deployment has also been hampered by the lack of a specific FCC mandate, Farquhar said. The FCC has said it’s working on a proposal to seek a more streamlined review of PTC infrastructure from the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. The FCC advised most railroads earlier this year not to proceed with additional National Environmental Policy Act and National Historic Preservation Act reviews until the commission could find an expedited method because it could not accommodate all of the review requests on the current PTC timeline. The delay raised alarm bells on Capitol Hill, with several senior House Republicans telling then-acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn the commission needed to speed up its review processes (CD Aug 9 p9). AAR, PCIA and others have told the FCC in filings that they want the new infrastructure exempted from NHPA review or to be reviewed in a comprehensive way rather than on a site-by-site basis.

Congress should allow a review exception that would expedite the review of PTC infrastructure, because “at the moment there’s not an expedited process for tower review,” Farquhar said. “There are 20,000 or more towers and wayside poles that need to go through this review before they're built, and that presents a dilemma for getting PTC deployed.” The review holdup is not the FCC’s fault, as the commission is using the same review process it has used for years, she said. “This project is different and requires many towers to go up quickly,” Farquhar said. “The scope of this project is the likes of which hasn’t been seen ever before, to have this many towers that need to go up in a defined period of time.”