ST. CLAIR TOWNSHIP, Ohio — After numerous meetings, petitions and rejected grant applications, a small Butler County neighborhood blocked in by railroad crossings will get the solution it's been waiting years for.
There are only three ways in and out of the Cedar Grove subdivision and all of them cross the same set of Norfolk Southern railroad tracks. With freight trains getting bigger over the years, including some spanning more than a mile long, neighbors and other commuters have found themselves waiting at the tracks anywhere from around 10 minutes to hours at a time.
"Jan. 16, 2021, I was trying to get out of my subdivision to go to a little clinic appointment and there was a broken down train," Pam Stroup said. "Taylor School in Seven Mile was blocked, West Elkton/Spring Road, Fear Not Mills and 127 in New Miami. Five blocked for two and a half hours."
Stroup spearheaded the effort for change. She started collecting signatures from her neighbors before taking the issue up with the St. Clair Board of Trustees.
"In 2021, we were blocked 33 times for a total of 15 and a half hours," she said. "In 2022, we were blocked 29 times for a total of 20 hours and 13 minutes, and in 2023, we were blocked seven times. (That was) from January to May."
Butler County leaders on Monday announced a state grant to fund the construction of a new 2,900-foot access road to run parallel to the tracks connecting West Elkton Road to Taylor School Road. The Ohio Rail Development Commission is awarding the county nearly $2.8 million towards the $3 million project.
The plan also intends to close at least one, if not two at-grade crossings in the area.
"This will provide the access to the residents. It gives them a way out even when all three other crossings are blocked, and then gives the emergency services a way in and a way out," Butler County Engineer Greg Wilkins said. "We weren't seeing our way to make this project a reality early on because it didn't meet any of the federal guidelines. The rail commission recognized that this was a necessity for safety of residents in this area."
St. Clair Township Trustee Dustin Gadd calls the grant a major win for the community. He noted a meeting last year that pulled in the largest attendance in the township's history.
"The whole community center was standing room only, and the concerned citizens, they were pretty vocal," Gadd said. "It was from people not being able to get home in time to breastfeed their baby or kids not getting to school on time, missing work, somebody needed to go to the hospital."
He also noted the piece of mind a new access road will bring to many of his residents who have expressed concerns over emergency response times if first responders were stuck waiting for trains to pass.
"This is a great day for the residents," Gadd said. "It's a sigh of relief. Nobody has to feel like they're blocked in, whether they need safety services, going to work, taking their kids to youth sporting events or even to school — sometimes the school buses, they're late to school."
Wilkins estimates it'll take another year to finalize the plan, and that it won't be until 2025 or 2026 for residents to start using the access road.
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