Opinion ID: 212365
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Condition 14

Text: Attacking the Board's decision to require grade separations at Ogden Avenue and Lincoln Highway, Canadian National criticizes the Board for failing to conduct a cost-benefit analysis and for deviating from the Board's established standards for determining where grade separations are necessary. According to Canadian National, the Board has previously focused only on crossing LOS and not on total traffic delay, queue length, or vehicle exposure. Finding nothing arbitrary and capricious about the Board's decision to use these criteria or in how the Board applied them, we reject Canadian National's challenge. With respect to Canadian National's demand that the Board use cost-benefit analysis, the railroad points to no statutory or regulatory requirement that the Board do so. Nor does Canadian National cite to any authorityand we are aware of nonefor the proposition that the APA's arbitrary and capricious standard alone requires an agency to engage in cost-benefit analysis. Moreover, the Board relied, reasonably in our view, on expert advice contained in the Federal Highway Administration Handbook, which recommends imposing grade separation irrespective of cost considerations whenever thresholds for total vehicle delay or for vehicle exposure are exceeded, as they were, or nearly were, at both the Ogden Avenue and Lincoln Highway crossings. Handbook at 151. In any event, the Board took due account of cost not only when it winnowed down the list of 112 at-grade intersections to the 13 most substantially affected ones, but also when it rejected grade separations at crossings in Barrington in favor of more economical traffic advisory signals and closed circuit cameras. As for Canadian National's argument that the Board's criteria deviated from established standards, the Board points out that it has used some of these same criteria to assess the need for grade separation in previous cases. See, e.g., San Jacinto Rail Ltd.Construction Exemption Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry.Operation ExemptionBuild-Out to the Bayport Loop, STB Finance Docket No. 34079, Draft Environmental Impact Statement, at app. F. 2 (Dec. 6, 2002) (relying on the Federal Highway Administration Handbook). Moreover, the Board offered a reasoned explanation for why crossing LOS alone was inadequate in this casenamely, its concern that crossing LOS would fail to capture how increased railroad operations in a population-dense region would impact regional mobility and traffic safetyand then selected additional criteria with well-established pedigrees. Challenging the Board's cost-allocations for the Ogden Avenue and Lincoln Highway grade separations, Canadian National argues that they far exceed well-established federal and state policies that cap railroad contributions to grade separation projects at 5%. Those policies, however, apply only where a governmental entity has proposed a grade separation paid for with federal funds. See 23 U.S.C. § 130; 23 C.F.R. § 646.210(b). By contrast, the higher proportion of costs the Board imposed on Canadian National is not unusual where, as here, the railroad, as opposed to the government, proposes the action that creates the need for grade separation and where no federal funds are involved. Cf. Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R.R. v. Pub. Utils. Comm'n, 346 U.S. 346, 352-53, 74 S.Ct. 92, 98 L.Ed. 51 (1953) (upholding against a Due Process Clause challenge a state's requirement that a railroad pay 50% of the cost allocation of a grade-separation); Iowa, Chi. & E. R.R. v. Wash. Cnty., 384 F.3d 557, 562 (8th Cir.2004) (explaining that a state may require a railroad to pay more than 5% of the cost of non-federally funded grade separations so long as the allocation is fair and reasonable). The Board's decision is also entirely consistent with its policy of requiring [railroads] to mitigate transaction-related impacts, but not pre-existing conditions. Resp't's Br. 52. We reject as well Community Petitioners' challenge to the Board's decision to release Canadian National from its financial obligation if work fails to begin on the grade separations by 2015. As the Board explained, this challenge is premature because if reasonable progress has been made, yet it becomes clear that construction is not likely to be initiated by 2015 due to circumstances beyond [the Illinois Department of Transportation's] control, such as a long appeals process, the Board will entertain requests to extend the time deadlines under 49 U.S.C. § 722(c), which gives the Board authority to reopen a proceeding because of material error, new evidence, or substantially changed circumstances. Canadian Nat'l Ry. Co.  Control  EJ & E W. Co., STB Finance Docket No. 35087, Decision No. 21, at 5-6 (Oct. 23, 2009). If the Illinois Department of Transportation or one of the Community Petitioners asks the Board to exercise that authority in or around 2015 and the Board refuses, we can consider at that time whether the Board acted arbitrarily or capriciously.