Houston mayor says he'll ask Union Pacific to pay for pedestrian bridge over railroad tracks
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Houston Mayor John Whitmire said the city will build a pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks where a Milby High School student was killed.
The mayor said he asked the planning and public works departments to estimate the cost and would ask Union Pacific to foot the bill.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," Whitmire said. "The easy way is: grant us the right-of-way, assist us in the cost, and let's fix one of your safety issues."
Whitmire said he'd also consider bridges over railroad tracks near other schools.
This comes after 15-year-old Sergio Rodriguez died Monday morning while trying to cross the tracks in front of a slow-moving Union Pacific train.
Officials said the student was hit about .5 miles down from where the caution arms went down.
"The student in the incident yesterday did not cross where the road crosses the tracks. He crossed farther down in a grassy area that would not be an area HISD would monitor. HISD obviously cannot monitor the full length of the train track," said HISD spokesperson Alexandra Elizondo.
RELATED: Milby High School student hit and killed by train, HISD confirms
"We cried (Monday) because that's our best friend. Sergio was funny, kind, and had a good heart. He was one of the only people who would help me if I got injured on the field," Joe Marin, one of Rodriguez's friends and teammates, said. "The coaches loved him. Everybody really deeply loved him."
This incident highlights ongoing concerns that the community has reported for years about trains stopping and slowing down in front of the school, something Union Pacific and local, state, and federal officials have failed to fix. Students often jump on, under, or through these trains to make it to class on time.
"They could have built a bridge a long time ago. Why did it have to take a kid's death for them to realize that they need to build a bridge before something else happens?" Marin asked.
Shortly after the crash, a photo began circulating on social media that raised questions about whether Milby High administrators and staff were helping students cross the stopped train after the fatal crash. Elizondo addressed the concerns during a Zoom press conference Tuesday afternoon.
"Union Pacific Railroad told HISD police that the train was not going to move. It wouldn't move all day because there was an investigation, and that train would not move until the law enforcement agencies did what they needed to do and the scene was cleared. So the train was immobilized and it was completely safe for kids to cross at that point," Elizondo said.
Elizondo also addressed Milby High School's tardy policy, which parents claim creates extra pressure for students to make it to class on time. She said the principal pays overtime to police officers to come early and monitor the area.
"They should not do anything that jeopardizes their personal safety to get there. The principal knows this train track is a problem for kids getting to school on time. So if a train is running during school time, all tardies are waived and do not count against students or teachers," Elizondo said.
State Sen. Carol Alvarado said she had asked Union Pacific for years to stop blocking railroad crossings for hours at a time. But as a state-level official, Alvarado said she has very little say other than peer pressure.
The railroads are mostly managed and overseen by federal authorities. However, Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia admits there are often no consequences if the railroad companies do nothing.
"The train lobby is big, well-funded, and very present. So it's very hard sometimes to get things done," Garcia said.
Garcia is filing bills to force Union Pacific to shorten their trains and wait times. But like anything else around the tracks, there's no promise it will actually ever happen. Officials have already spent 20 years trying to get funding to build an overpass.
"The grade separation at Broadway Street has been on the list since 2005. It's a question of funding," Garcia said.
Two months ago, Harris County applied for another grant to get federal money to build a safe passageway for the kids. However, these projects often take longer than a decade to complete, even when all goes well.
Last year, the city got almost $37 million in federal funding to replace four East End railroad crossings with underpasses. But the project only just entered its design phase Tuesday, 18 months after the funds were awarded, with no estimated completion date.
"I'm not happy about a lot of things that go so slow in government, so we're reviewing that," Whitmire said.
Meanwhile, the response from Union Pacific has been minimal. All a spokesperson would tell ABC13 is that it is cooperating with the investigation.
