By Dan Gunderson

MPR (90.1) News

MOORHEAD — If you live or work in Moorhead, you build train time into your schedule.

City engineer Bob Zimmerman lives it. His office is located between two train tracks. He spends a lot of time waiting.

“When I drive through downtown, invariably you’re going to end up at a signal somewhere with a train more than half the time,” he said. “It’s very interesting to watch what happens.”

Zimmerman sees drivers cut through traffic and zip across parking lots to beat traffic jams. The result is a disproportionate number of accidents at downtown intersections. “People are taking chances they shouldn’t be or they’re not obeying a signal that they should be,” he said. “I’m not blaming anyone, it’s just frustration.”

The frustration is only worsening as train traffic jumps. The region’s largest carrier, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, reports traffic out of North Dakota is up 144 percent in the past five years. Much

Eighth Street, one of Moorhead’s main streets, gets about 10,000 vehicles each day — and it crosses two sets of BNSF railroad tracks just over a block apart. Trains delay traffic on this street more than 100 times each day, which translates into drivers spending more than 90 hours a day waiting for trains on just this street.

It won’t get better any time soon. The Minnesota Department of Transportation projects rail traffic will grow the most on the rail line from Moorhead to Minneapolis over the next 25 years. Train traffic through Moorhead could nearly double.