AI-assisted research summary: A city may require a railway company to build or maintain an overpass or underpass over city street tracks, but only with required DOT approval and notice, and subject to limits on location, frequency, length, damages, and maintenance costs.
A city may by ordinance require a railway company operating railway tracks on or across a city street to construct or reconstruct, and maintain, an overpass or underpass to permit the street to pass over or under the tracks, and may establish specifications for the construction or reconstruction of such an overpass or underpass, subject to the following: 1. The requirement may not be enforced until the Iowa state department of transportation approves the specifications for a construction or reconstruction, after examination and a determination that the overpass or underpass is necessary for public safety and convenience. 2. The council shall hold a hearing on the matter and shall give not less than twenty days’ notice of the hearing to the railway companies involved, served in the same manner as an original notice. 3. A city may not require overpasses or underpasses of the same railway company to be constructed closer than on every fourth parallel street, nor require a company to construct or contribute to the construction of more than one overpass or underpass each year, nor require the construction of approaches longer than a total of eight hundred feet for a single overpass or underpass. 4. A city which requires construction or reconstruction of an overpass or underpass shall provide for appraisal and assessment of resulting damage to private property, and shall pay the damages assessed, all as provided in chapter 6B. 5. A city shall pay one half of all required maintenance costs, and may allocate costs between railway companies whose tracks are to be crossed by an overpass or underpass. 6. A city may enforce a requirement made as provided in this section by an action in mandamus, to be conducted and enforced as provided in section 327C.16 for actions brought by the state department of transportation. If the city prevails in the mandamus action, in addition to other remedies it may cause the required construction, reconstruction, or maintenance work to be done, and have judgment for the cost of the work against the companies. [C97, §770 – 774; S13, §771, 773, 774; C24, 27, 31, 35, 39, §5910 – 5913, 5916 – 5920, 5923 – 5925; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, 73, §387.1 – 387.4, 387.7 – 387.11, 387.14 – 387.16; C75, 77, 79, 81, §364.8]