No Level Crossings | The Impact of High Speed Rail in the Prescott Russell Area
- Kristin Muller
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
The high-speed rail line will act as a permanent, fenced barrier across the countryside that also equates to the creation of a continuous wildlife barrier. Only selected crossings will be provided. Many farms and rural routes will no longer be directly connected, and landowners may be required to take longer, indirect routes to access their own land.
No Level Crossings
The ALTO website tells us:
In a high-speed rail context, there are no level crossings for safety reasons; the track must be fenced off along its entire length on both sides to prevent any intrusion by people, animals or vehicles. Grade separations can be built to give access to the other side of the track in some cases.
When grade separations cannot be applied, reasonable access to properties will be maintained, though it may involve indirect routes or detours.
It is, therefore, worth exploring the specific implications of 'no level crossings' in the Prescott–Russell rural landscape.
1. Fragmentation of large, working farms
Prescott–Russell farmland is characterized by:
Large, contiguous fields
Concession and sideroad grids
Farms that rely on direct internal movement between parcels, barns, and woodlots
A fully fenced high-speed rail (HSR) corridor with no level crossings would permanently divide many farms into separate units.
For farms cut by the corridor:
* Fields on opposite sides can no longer be worked as a single operation
* Tractors, combines, manure spreaders, and harvest equipment must detour onto public roads
* Seasonal tasks (planting, spraying, harvest) become slower and more expensive
* Emergency access to livestock, flooding, or equipment failure is delayed
In a region where efficiency and timing are critical, this is not a minor inconvenience — it reshapes how farms function day to day.
2. Limited practicality of grade separations for farm use
While grade separations may be built, in rural Prescott–Russell they are likely to:
Be widely spaced
Prioritize major municipal roads, not private farm accesses
Be poorly suited to modern agricultural equipment
Common rural concerns include:
Underpasses too low or narrow for combines and grain carts
Flooding risks in low-lying areas with high water tables
Overpasses located far from actual farm entrances, requiring long backtracking
As a result, “access” may technically exist but be functionally unusable for normal agricultural operations.
3. Increased travel time across farms and between concessions
Prescott–Russell farms often span multiple concessions or lots.
When a farm is bisected by a fenced HSR line:
A 2–3 minute internal crossing can become:
A 10–30 minute detour via concession roads
Multiple extra kilometres per trip
This detour may be repeated dozens of times per day during peak seasons
Fuel costs, labour hours, and wear on equipment increase permanently
Over time, this undermines the economic viability of severed parcels.
4. Disruption of the concession road network
The concession system is fundamental to rural mobility in Prescott–Russell.
A high-speed rail barrier can:
Turn through-roads into dead ends
Eliminate informal but long-standing local crossings
Force rerouting of:
School buses
Farm traffic
Emergency and service vehicles
Even small changes ripple outward in low-density areas where there are few alternate routes.
Wildlife and ecological implications
5. Creation of a continuous wildlife barrier
Prescott–Russell includes:
Mixed farmland and forest
Wetlands and riparian corridors
Proximity to sensitive areas such as **Alfred Bog** and connected habitats
A fenced HSR corridor would:
Sever wildlife movement corridors
Prevent natural migration and dispersal
Increase habitat fragmentation in an already pressured landscape
Species affected may include:
Deer and moose
Foxes, coyotes, and small mammals
Amphibians and reptiles moving between wetlands
Pollinators and species reliant on hedgerows and field margins
Our wetlands alone contain 3 endangered species, 4 threatened species, 10 species of special concern, 14 regionally rare species and moss (considered ecologically critical).
6. Increased wildlife mortality and ecosystem stress
Where crossings are limited:
Animals may attempt to breach fencing
Wildlife is funnelled toward fewer crossing points, increasing:
Stress
Predation risk
Human–wildlife conflict near roads and farms
Fragmentation also:
Reduces genetic diversity
Alters predator–prey balance
Disrupts seasonal feeding and breeding patterns
These impacts accumulate over decades, not just during construction.
7. Drainage, wetlands, and agricultural ecosystems
Prescott–Russell farmland relies heavily on tile drainage systems (natural and managed water flow across fields)
A raised or fenced rail corridor can:
Interrupt surface and subsurface drainage
Increase flooding risk on one side of the corridor
Degrade soil quality and crop yields
Affect adjacent wetlands and downstream ecosystems
Drainage issues often emerge years later, making them harder to attribute or fix.
What “reasonable access” means in practice
In the Prescott–Russell context, the statement that 'reasonable access will be maintained' likely translates to:
Access that exists on paper, but requires longer, indirect routes that permanently increase costs, reduce efficiency, fragment farms, and disrupt wildlife movement.
What is “reasonable” from an infrastructure perspective may be **unworkable** from an agricultural or ecological one.
Bottom line for Prescott–Russell
A fenced high-speed rail corridor through this region would:
Permanently divide farms that depend on contiguity
Disrupt concession-based rural mobility
Increase operating costs and time pressures on agriculture
Fragment wildlife habitat and movement corridors
Create long-term ecological and economic consequences that cannot be mitigated by a small number of grade separations
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