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GATES HAVE TRACK RECORD OF SAVING LIVES
Yet 75 percent of state's crossings lack such devices

By Jeff Parrott

Journal and Courier

July 7, 2002

Each summer at about this time, Jim Davis sees the traffic pick up on his quiet rural White County road as drivers, many of them teen-agers with little experience behind the wheel, take a shortcut to the county fair.

Davis, North White High School's head football coach, recalled the time a few years ago when one of his players was riding in the back of a pick-up truck bound for the fairgrounds and a train struck it at the crossing of the road, County Road 100 North. Fortunately, the youths escaped serious injury.

“I've seen a number of car and train accidents over the years, and cars never win," said Davis, who has stressed the issue as a driver's education instructor. "It's something you talk about all the time. Slow down, check both ways. Even if there are lights there, I tell them, 'Don't assume they work.'"

He can only hope young drivers heading to the fair this month heed his advice when coming to the County Road 100 North crossing. That's because despite having been the scene of six accidents since 1977, it's one of dozens in Greater Lafayette that lack gates and flashing lights. Another White County crossing at County Road 375 North, just north of Reynolds, saw eight crashes and two deaths from 1988 to 1997, when lights and gates were installed. There have been no crashes there since.

Steve Hull, engineering services manager in the Indiana Department of Transportation's railroad section, said the agency is making progress in upgrading crossings from "passive" to "active," meaning they have automated signals.

As evidence, Hull noted that the number of highway/rail crashes in Indiana fell to 166 last year, down from 194 in 2000 and 227 in 1997.

Filling in the 'gaps'

At the same time, Hull acknowledged that limited funding has meant crossings with the highest highway and rail traffic volumes have taken priority over those in less-populated rural areas, even though trains move faster in rural areas.

In recent years, however, more of the less-traveled, rural crossings have begun to get attention, he said.

“We're reaching the point where we're starting to fill in the gaps," Hull said. "There are so many crossings in the state it takes a while to do them all."

Indeed, at current funding levels it would take Indiana 48 years to install gates at every existing crossing, and that doesn't account for existing signals that would need replacement by then. Over the past few years, INDOT has upgraded about 100 crossings a year at a cost of about $15 million a year -- $10 million in federal money and $5 million in state funds that the agency started diverting from other highway safety projects in 1999.

Of the 6,400 crossings in the state, about 75 percent, or 4,800, lack gates. A set of gates and flashing lights typically costs about $150,000. INDOT pays 80 to 90 percent of the cost, using a mix of state and federal money, and the railroad pays the rest, Hull said. Once the signals are installed, the railroad must cover their annual maintenance costs. Railroad industry officials and Operation Lifesaver, the nonprofit railroad safety advocacy group that receives partial funding from the railroads and was founded by Union Pacific Railroad, stress driver error as the cause of most crashes at passive crossings. State transportation officials tend to agree.

For instance, the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles Driver's Manual section devoted to railroad crossings states, "Countless people lose their lives or suffer tragic injuries due to train/vehicle collisions. Invariably, the cause for such collisions is the disregard, and often the willful evasion of, railroad crossing warnings by drivers."

Still, Indiana lawmakers have determined that some passive crossings are dangerous in their own right. The Legislature in 1998 created the Passive Grade Crossing Improvement Project, which earmarks state funds to pay for street markings, lighting, vegetation clearing and advance warning signs at passive crossings. Under the program, INDOT has obligated more than $900,000.

Federal research studies have repeatedly found that crossing gates and lights reduce the risk of accidents by up to 90 percent. The railroad industry agrees but refuses to share substantially in the costs of safety upgrades, said Tom White, spokesman for the American Association of Railroads.

The industry trade group testified before Congress June 27 seeking more federal funding for crossing signals in next year's transportation spending reauthorization bill. White said the railroads don't spend their own money to improve crossing safety because they believe, and courts have upheld, that crossing safety equipment is a public responsibility.

Railroad: Not our fault

"The railroads did not create the hazard," White said. "In most cases the railroad was there before the highway was. When a highway is built over railroad tracks, that really is a highway safety device. The primary purpose of the device is to protect the motorist."

That position has drawn the ire of several rail safety advocacy groups, such as Angels on Track, an Ohio-based non-profit organization that was founded by Denny and Vicky Moore in 1997 after their 16-year-old son was killed at a crossing without gates or lights.

Only 20 percent of crossings nationally have gates, said Vicky Moore. She founded Angels on Track with $5.4 million the couple won in a lawsuit against Conrail. The group uses part of the proceeds to award grants to local governments in Ohio that cannot afford to install automated signals.

"There's no excuse why all the crossings in the country are not protected," Moore said. Her director of education, Harvey Levine, agrees.

"I think the railroads should do more," he said. "It's kind of a two-edged sword for them. While they know gates save lives, they have to pay to maintain them. And what happens if the gates fail?"

He also said railroads have an incentive not to spend their own money on signals because of a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that shielded them from liability in accidents at crossings with federally-funded safety devices.

For 35 years, Levine was a railroad executive, spending his final 18 years as vice-president of the AAR. Now he lobbies Ohio's transportation officials on the need for more crossing gates and lights.

Tom White, an AAR spokesman, said the characterization that railroads leave crossings unprotected in order to save money and avoid liability is untrue. He said railroads spend about $200 million a year to maintain crossing equipment, but that does not deter them from wanting signals installed.

"Railroads have not been reluctant at all to work with governments to put up these devices," White said.

http://www.angelsontrack.org/cts/jc070702.html