Signals
Get Crossed
Mother
whose son died at a railroad crossing wonders why gates
and lights warn motorists at abandoned sites, but not
at busy ones
Akron
Beacon Journal
December 3, 1997
by: Bob Dyer
Vicky Moore spends
a lot of time thinking about railroad crossings. You would,
too, if your son was killed at one.
The Canal Fulton
resident has noticed that some busy railroad crossings don't
offer much in the way of gates and lights.
She also has noticed
that some crossings with lovely gates and lights don't have
any trains.
She believes something
is seriously amiss with that picture.
She's right.
The average cost
for gates and lights at a single crossing is $120,000.
About half of that
involves engineering and labor. Even so, does it make any
sense to allow $60,000 of equipment to rust away at an abandoned
crossing?
Check out the situation
on Southeast Avenue just south of Tallmadge Circle.
As your approach,
you see a yellow-and-black railroad-warning sign by the side
of the road...then two big, white, freshly painted X's with "RR" on
the highway surface...then two huge, electrified warning
signals, each with four red lights.
School buses routinely
stop at the crossing. State law says they have to.
But not a single
train has crossed that street for 15 years.
In fact, during
a highway resurfacing project last summer, the tracks were
completely paved over.
On nearby Southwest
Avenue, the situation is more absurd. Despite fancy warning
signals, the tracks no longer exist. They were yanked out
during a waterline project.
By contrast, the
crossing where 16-year-old Ryan Moore and two other Northwest
High School students died in March 1995 did not have any
gates or lights.
Moore's brother,
Jason, then 18, was driving down a steep, wooded hill on
Deerfield Avenue, three miles south of state Route 172 in
Baughman Township. Although by all accounts he slowed down
and looked both ways, he didn't see the train roaring along
at 60 mph.
His mistake was
not unique. Five other people had lost their lives at the
same crossing.
The state has since
erected lights and gates at that crossing--but it took nearly
a year for it to happen. The Moore tragedy pushed that particular
crossing high on the state's computerized priority list.
"When my son
was killed, they must have decided their quota was filled," Vicky
Moore says bitterly.
She's not far off.
The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio uses a formula to
determine which crossings should be deemed the most dangerous--and,
therefore, the most deserving of additional warning signals.
The waiting list
is long. Ohio has 6,500 crossings--and about half have only "crossbucks",
those crossed white signs that sit by the side of the road.
Given current levels
of funding, only about 80 crossings can be upgraded each
year.
According to PUCO
records, Summit County alone has 32 active crossings without
gates or lights.
All of which begs
the obvious question: Why not remove the costly equipment
from long-abandoned crossings and put it where it might do
some good?
Rob Marvin, chief
of the PUCO's Railroad Division, says his commission encourages
that practice--unofficially.
"We don't have
a formal program, but we're trying to develop one," he
says. "We do this sort of thing when we can."
One of the drawbacks,
he says, is that in some cases, the equipment on abandoned
lines "is 30 to 50 years old and really not capable
of being relocated to another track."
Another problem,
Marvin says, centers on transportation law.
"Used to be
we could put (a line) 'out-of-service'. You didn't have to
go through the formal process of 'abandoning' a line."
But today the law
says a line is either "active" or "abandoned," nothing
in between. For myriad reasons, railroads are loath to formally
abandon their lines, even if there is no immediate use for
them.
"Technically," Marvin
says, "we're supposed to have (the railroad companies)
maintain and upkeep all the lights and gates, which doesn't
make a whole lot of sense. So we've allowed railroads to
relocate stuff...to virtually eliminate the grade crossing...
"But there's
no specific provision for doing that."
This fuzziness has
led not only to wasted equipment, but to a serious secondary
problem: the reaction of bus and truck drivers to the leftover
signs.
The people who drive
school buses, city buses and hazardous materials trucks--such
as gasoline tankers--are required to stop completely at every
marked railroad crossing. Even if a crossing hasn't been
used in decades.
In some situations,
the requirement is more than a nuisance; it can actually
contribute to accidents.
Such was the case
at an unused crossing on U.S. Route 30 south of Wooster.
While everybody else was flying along at 55 mph, buses and
gasoline trucks were forced to come to a dead stop to honor
the virtually nonexistent crossing.
The solution? A
little known provision within state law.
"We've only
done it once--and we've only had one request," Marvin
says. "I don't think a whole lot of people know we have
that authority."
The city petitioned
the PUCO for erection of "exempt" signs, which
indicate to professional drivers that a crossing is exempt
from normal rules.
The same thing could
be done in Tallmadge or any other place, Marvin says.
"The local
highway authority would have to petition for that,"he
says.
But, as retired
Akron railroad official Tom Jones points out, the treatment
of unused crossings needs to be formalized--and the PUCO
needs to pick up the pace.
Jones, who retired
as assistant general manager of the former Akron-Barberton
Belt, objects to the fact that many of the two dozen crossings
between Firestone Plant No. 1 and Seiberling Street near
the old General Tire complex have been allowed to slide into
various stages of disrepair without any formal action.
"They're dragging
their feet on this," he says, referring to the PUCO.
Jones says the commission "either
needs to get their act together legally or put forth the
effort to make the area safe" by erecting exempt signs.
Vicky Moore doesn't
much care how this all comes about. She just knows that it
needs to happen.
"The signals
are already paid for. Why not use them?"
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