La Crosse city leaders object to DOT plans for closing two north-side railroad crossings

Two La Crosse city committees voted Monday to oppose a Wisconsin state transportation plan aimed at closing two railroad crossings on the north side.

The suggested shutdowns of crossings at the Avon-Hagar street intersection, as well as the St. Cloud-Liberty crossing. The plan gets another hearing Tuesday night, from the city’s Judiciary and Administrative Committee.

At Monday’s City Plan Commission meeting, council member Jennifer Trost called the DOT plan “anti-social.”

“I’m actually deeply offended” by the state plan, Trost told fellow commissioners. “We live here. I go back and forth across those railroad tracks all the time. This is a scorched-earth approach, and we’ve seen it before in their initial plans with the South Avenue reconstruction.”

North side city council member Erin Goggin spoke out against the plan at a meeting of the Board of Public Works earlier Monday.

“Closing down these two intersections or modifying them will hurt the north side,” Goggin said.

The City Plan Commission and the Board of Public Works both approved a resolution to challenge the DOT closure project.

It was also argued that closing those two crossings would lead to a shift in traffic to one remaining street-level crossing, and to existing north-side bridges.

Both panels voted to contest the idea of installing cul-de-sacs on both sides of the track at the two intersections. Transportation studies have identified Avon Street as an important north-south street through La Crosse.

The plan could hurt neighborhoods located close to the Amtrak depot, as well.

City engineer Matt Gallager called the traffic proposal “extremely short-sighted.”