Union Pacific Railroad bike path fail to a win

As if the flood messing up the Monument Valley Pathway wasn’t enough, now the Union Pacific Railroad is getting in on the path-wrecking action.

Husband and I headed up to Scotts Bluff on our bikes this evening, and where the bike path on Country Club Road crosses the Union Pacific tracks, this is what we found:

It looks like some “repair” crew slapped down some dirt and gravel, globbed on some asphalt in a few random places and called it done.

WTH, UP?

This is not a safe bikeable surface. There are no warning signs. The loose dirt and large gravel, or a biker swerving into the road to avoid said hazards, is an accident waiting to happen.

I know several road crossings of the rails (both UP and BNSF) around the area are really rough. But come ON, man, you really gotta go and muck up our bike path, too???

Transportation parity, I guess.

7/16/11 UPDATE

I’d sent the UP media relations person for this region an email on 7/14 with a link to this post, and got a response 20 minutes later that he would forward the info to the crew responsible for the Gering area and get back to me.

He hasn’t gotten back to me as of this writing, but when husband and I biked the trail again Saturday morning, we found that someone had come out to clean up.

The pile of dirt and rock on the north side of the crossing is gone. It’s about on par with how it was before, with just a few stray rocks here and there.

The pile of gravel was pushed off the to the side of the bike path rail crossing on the south side of the track. It would be much better, except for the fact that the new asphalt in that area looks as though it might have been pressed into place with a giant cogwheel. (It’s really bumpy. Didn’t come out in the photo well, but it sure does when you try to bike over it.)

I’d say the major safety hazard has been taken care of, but the south part of the crossing remains rather unpleasant to cycle over.

9/18/11 UPDATE

Union Pacific has turned their fail into a win.

Last week when I was biking to work, the road was closed at the railroad crossing. A crew was out re-doing the asphalt between the track.

The crossing is now just about as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

Thanks, UP!

Copyright 2011 by Katie Bradshaw