JACKSONVILLE -- Stopped trains block access to a Jacksonville beauty shop practically every day, sometimes two or three times, the Florida Times-Union reports.

Avondale resident Paul Ellis said trains delay his commute to work a couple of times a week. He frequently goes around trains that stop for 15 minutes at West Beaver Street and North Edgewood Avenue.

Susie Slappey, a busy, working mother, said she's got better things to do than wait behind a halted train. But that's what the Southside resident finds herself doing every other week at a crossing near New Kings Road and 45th Street.

A city ordinance that prohibits trains from stopping at crossings for longer than five minutes is intended to eliminate these problems, but CSX Transportation Co. and other railroad companies break that law at crossings throughout Jacksonville.

Officials with the railroad companies say lengthy stops aren't intentional but are simply unavoidable at times. Police have cited CSX's freight trains 30 times from July through April for violating the ordinance. At times, they blocked traffic for 20 to 30 minutes and once for more than an hour.

During the same period, Norfolk Southern Corp. had two citations while Florida East Coast Railway Co. had none.

Norfolk and Florida East Coast, which had a couple of citations before July, are fighting the $100 fines based on a federal court case in Michigan that concluded a local ordinance couldn't regulate moving trains.

But Jacksonville's ordinance doesn't apply to moving trains, said Tatiana Salvador, the assistant state attorney who handles the local citations. A judge still may have to decide if Jacksonville's ordinance is valid.

In the meantime, motorists, business people and city officials are losing patience and say the citations dramatically understate the scope of the problem -- from general inconveniences to workplace tardiness, delayed emergency response and stalled commerce.

CSX spokeswoman Kathy Burns acknowledged the problems that lengthy train stops cause but said the stops often are unavoidable.

"It's not something we take lightly," Burns said. "It's something we try to avoid whenever possible. If it happens, we regret it. ... We recognize that it's an inconvenience to the motoring public."

Burns and officials with Norfolk Southern and Florida East Coast all cited mechanical problems as the main reason trains would stop for longer than five minutes.

"We don't block crossings because we want to," said Burns, noting that another train blocking a train's path also could delay movement. "Safety is our No. 1 priority, and we don't want to move a train if it's not safe."

Norfolk spokeswoman Susan Terpay said federal laws require that a train be inspected thoroughly by walking along both sides of it if there's any indication of a mechanical problem. This can take up to 30 minutes, she said.

"That's not just for the safety of the train and crew but also the public," Terpay said.

Florida East Coast spokeswoman Jane Covington said trains also have to activate an emergency stop if cars or pedestrians are detected on the tracks.

Once a train is halted for an emergency, Covington said, it takes longer to restart it than it would a car.

CSX's Burns emphasized that the violations account for a small percentage of the company's thousands of rail movements.

An average of 1,600 CSX trains travel through Duval County each month on the company's approximately 250 public and private at-grade railroad crossings in the county, Burns said.

A routine problem

But motorists and officials say stopped trains actually block crossings a lot more than the citations show.

Police have to see the train stopped for more than five minutes themselves -- not just take the word of a delayed driver -- to write a citation, Salvador said.

Liz Crews, co-owner of Hair Creations at 6010 N. Pearl St., said her customers are delayed from getting cuts or perms because trains stop on nearby tracks virtually every day for 20 to 35 minutes. Sometimes her customers also get stuck at the beauty shop because they can't get to their cars on the other side of the tracks. But Burns said she didn't think trains that block traffic create an economic loss and noted the financial benefits CSX brings to the area.

The company, which is headquartered in Jacksonville, employs 4,000-plus people in the city and donates nearly $1 million a year to non-profit and community organizations, Burns said. Avondale resident Ellis isn't appeased. He said it should take him about 10 minutes to get to work by 7 a.m. at a Westside printing company. But he leaves at 6:30 to give him extra time to get around the stopped trains he faces several times a week.

Slappey said she's often been late for meetings or had to call people to pick up her daughters at school or from dancing classes when she's been stuck by trains.

"I've had a long day and I'm trying to get home to spend time with my family," she said. "I live such a busy life. This is just very frustrating."

But stopped trains could result in bigger problems than frustrated motorists.

The stakes are higher when a house is burning, a car has crashed or someone is in cardiac arrest -- and help is stuck on the other side of the tracks.

Lorin Mock, division chief of operations for the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department, said firefighters and ambulance crews are routinely impeded at crossings by both stopped and moving trains.

"It's something we've gotten used to dealing with," said Mock, who relies on alternative routing in those situations but says it's not a major threat to public safety.

But City Councilman Reggie Fullwood said this mentality illustrates a point: "People have gotten used to it, and they shouldn't have to."

Taking action

Fullwood said railroad crossing ordinances are hard to enforce because no one can justify having police spend a lot of time citing trains for breaking the five-minute rule.

But he said something needs to be done.

"At some point we're going to have to sit down in City Hall, in the mayor's office or with CSX to better enforce this," he said.

Councilwoman Elaine Brown said she supports Fullwood's efforts and probably would recommend "an intensive and a very complete study" be done to see how long trains are stopping at crossings, which ones are being affected the most and whether CSX expects the problem to get worse.

She said addressing the issue is a balancing act between the commerce CSX provides and the problems individuals face when stuck at crossings.

"We have to be supportive of commerce, but we also have to make sure citizens and businesses are not negatively impacted to where it really hurts their businesses or lifestyles," she said.

Fullwood said he'd like to see what could be done to stiffen penalties for stopping too long or to increase enforcement.

In the meantime, federal legislation has been proposed that would give state and local governments regulatory authority over blocked railroad crossings in August 2002 if the transportation secretary hasn't issued such regulations.

"I think there's significant support for this, not from railroads, of course, but from everyone else," said Michael Hacker, press secretary for U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who is sponsoring the bill.

The Coast Guard also has recently stepped forward with efforts to limit lengthy and unnecessary bridge closings. Jacksonville boaters and commercial mariners have been annoyed for years by the Florida East Coast bridge across the St. Johns River closing for long periods of time, sometimes up to an hour, when no trains are crossing.

Coast Guard officials have proposed increasing fines for violations of bridge operation rules, such as unnecessary bridge closings, from $1,100 to $25,000.