Activist,
Bureaucracy At Cross-Purposes
Akron Beacon Journal
11-23-98
To Vicky Moore,
the solution seems simple enough. It's basic supply and demand.
Wheeling and Lake
Erie Railroad wants a flashing signal and gate at a railroad
crossing near its central terminal in Brewster.
Eva Signal Corporation,
an Omaha, Nebraska, company that makes signals, has state-of-the-art
signal equipment it wants to donate.
And the Angels on
Track Foundation, which Moore and her husband, Dennis, established
with a $5.4 million court settlement after their son was
killed in a train-car collision in Wayne County in 1995,
is ready to match the supply with the demand.
But after months
of negotiation, there's still no agreement to install the
signal.
"I feel a lot
of frustration and anger," said Vicky Moore, of Lawrence
Township. "It's pain, is what it is. I understand now
why my son died."
She said people
often tell her they care and share her frustration, but she
wishes they'd put that concern into action.
Ohio Rail Development
Commission Executive Director Thomas O'Leary admitted that
he doesn't completely understand the complications himself.
But the two state agencies responsible for railroads in Ohio
-- the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and O'Leary's
ORDC -- have to answer to a half-dozen federal agencies,
including the Federal Highway Administration, which regulate
traffic signs and signals.
The EVA system differs
from conventional railroad crossing signals in Ohio in that
it uses a magnetic sensing mechanism to tell if a train is
coming and high-powered strobe lights to warn oncoming motorists
of the train.
EVA President and
CEO, Joesph Pace said the sytem is safer, more reliable and
cheaper than conventional systems.
Even if they're
not, Vicky Moore argues, an EVA Signal is better than no
signal at all. Plus, she points out, EVA Signals are about
half the cost of conventional signals - $60,000 compared
to an average of $120,000. She figures her group could put
signals at twice as many crossings.
So why aren't they
at every crossing? Pace of EVA blames the major railroads
and government agencies.
"They're satisfied
with technology that was patented 123 years ago," he
said. "According to the Federal Highway Administration,
there are 60,000 signals in the country and they fail about
6,000 a month. That's a failure every 10 months. That's unacceptable."
O'Leary insists
that he's doing everything he can to get the rail crossing
signal installed. He also called the Moore's task daunting.
"For lay people
like the Moores who are thrust by tragedy into government
bureaucracies, this is a very thick briar to cut through.
This is one of the most snarled bureaucratic briars in existence," O'Leary
said. "If you want to look at U.S. history, one of the
first major bureaucracies in the country was in the railroad
industry."
The red tape over
the EVA system isn't the Angels on Track Foundation's first
run-in with bureaucracy. Last year, the Moores questioned
why gates and lights at Tallmadge Circle -- where no trains
have crossed in more than 15 years -- remained in perfect
working order while more than 3,000 crossings throughout
Ohio were without any kind of active warning signal.
Lately, the Moores
have been working with local governments in Stark, Wayne,
Delaware and Carroll counties to establish railroad safety
task forces. The task foces are trying to identify dangerous
crossings.
The Angels on Track
Foundation has pledged to provide matching funds for the
state rail safety programs if the counties agree to do more
to promote safety at crossings.
But the process
is long and complicated, and involves an alphabet soup of
state and federal agencies. Money for the crossings comes
from the FHA, which distributes it to the ORDC. But it's
PUCO that decides which crossings get upgraded, based on
a ranking of crossings that takes into account, among other
factors, the number of fatal accidents at each crossing.
That means that
often, someone must die at a crossing before it's upgraded.
But Pace said that
if railroad bureaucracy is the immovable object, Vicky Moore
is the irresistible force.
"I've never
met a more dedicated, committed lady in the world than Vicky
Moore," he said. "If she wants to get something
done, she doesn't care if she has to go around you, through
you or over you."
The Moores created
the foundation with the $5.4 million judgement they received
from Conrail in March, after the Ohio Supreme Court uphead
a ruling that the railroad was partly responsible for the
death of the Moores' 16-year old son, Ryan.
Ryan and two other
Northwest High School teens -- Alyson Ley, 16, of Clinton,
and Joshua White, 17, of Canal Fulton -- also died in the
1995 crash. Ryan's brother, Jason, was driving.
That crossing, at
Deerfield Avenue on the Stark-Wayne county border, had no
warning lights, stop signs or gates. Since then, the Moores
have made it their goal to put lights and gates at every
train crossing in Stark and Wayne Counties -- and eventually
statewide.
They admit it's
an arduous task, but the Moores said they intend to continue
working county by county, crossing by crossing.
|
