Well, I must admit that I’m pleasantly surprised. The reporter was as objective as any I’ve ever read or heard. What a relief that there was no, “The RAILROAD has to do SOMETHING!!!” cry.
Well, the problem was neatly summed up. Now, how about solutions? Preferably, solutions that will be easy to implement, not excessively costly and not of a type that would actually require drivers and pedestrians to think, rather than react…
(So THAT’s the ‘Sound of silence.’)
Chuck
This article appears to be slightly more factual and less hysterical that Mr. Hilkevitch’s last article on grade-crossing protection for high-speed trains (which was practically booed off the stage here).
Of special interest is the map that accompanies this article http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/commute/ct-met-0712-getting-around.eps-20100711,0,6209457.graphic. Except for the three crossings specifically cited in the article, all of the dots had two or three incidents in the past five years. There could be many more crossings that have had an incident in the same amount of time, but overall the record is not bad (and a lot of this is a “quiet” zone, for the record).
It looks like “my” line, UP West, has four highlighted crossings in Cook County. Three of them are in Maywood/Melrose Park, and CREATE has plans for every one of those, involving grade separation. The other one appears to be Kilbourn Avenue in Chicago. I know of no improvement plans here, but this is a crossing for which the horn must be sounded.
On the BNSF “Racetrack” (sorry, Charlie!), there are two crossings highlighted. One appears to be in Downers Grove–that suburb has six grade crossings, one of which is (Belmont) in the process of being separated as we speak. There’s another one–Maple Street–that has a truly lousy design for both cars and trains, and ought to just be eliminated, but probably won’t be. From the map, it’d be hard to tell which of these crossings had more than one incident in the past five years.
The other crossing highlighted on the BNSF is undoubtedly LaGrange Road, right in downtown LaGrange. It’s a busy crossing, and I’ve seen aftermaths of accidents there. But it’s not included in the planning for CREATE, and it would be a challenge to do anything to the crossing that wouldn’t significantly alter the entire downtown. The only possibility I can see would be to build a complete bypass road for through traffic, going around the downtown and under
Cass Avenue in Westmont has had two incidents in the last few years, but I think it barely didn’t make the list because I think the first incident was in 2004. First, a pedestrian got hit and killed by a Metra, then two years ago a car going around the gates got struck and killed by a BNSF train. The car was drug all the way through the Westmont station and took down the middle track fence. LaGrange is just a disaster zone all the way through. LaGrange Road itself is pretty bad, but all the crossings at LaGrange seem to qualify for dangerous in my opinion. It seems someone gets nailed by a train there at least once a year. Heck, someone was just hit and killed at the Stone Avenue station just a few weeks ago. Berwyn had a pretty bad car/Amtrak incident just a few years ago too, which again resulted in a death, a car being drug through the Berwyn station and another middle track fence being taken out. In my opinion, there have been far too many accidents in the area, especially on the BNSF racetrack. One of the crossings in Will Country is probably the Woodruff Road crossing on the J, there have been 2/3 incidents at that crossing.
I wonder if Lincoln Avenue in Dolton made the list, so many cars drive around the gates there it isn’t even funny, and I’ve seen some pretty close calls there too.
I agree, that Maple Avenue crossing in Downers Grove needs to be closed, it’s just dangerous and asking for a accident, not just between a car and a train, but between cars as well. Washington Street is a pretty goofy crossing also, but I think some traffic lights at Washington would make it quite a bit safer. The bad thing is the problem on the racetrack seems to be more of impatient pedestrians than cars going around the gates, so no matter how much you upgrade the street crossings, the pedestrians are still going to pose a problem. The only way to limit the pedestrian problem would be t
Robby, perhaps the crossing I thought was in Downers Grove was Cass Avenue instead, based on what you said about that. It’s hard to pinpoint it from the map.
It could’ve been, because there have been at least two incidents there that I am aware of. Both of the incidents were pretty major ones too. Like you said though, the second dot on the BNSF has to be one of the crossings in LaGrange because like I said, I think every crossing in LaGrange on the BNSF should be considered dangerous, I’m surprized nobody has tried lifting the quiet zone through there with the incredibly high amount of accidents there.
Not having read the “Getting Around” column since the Gary Washborne days, this was refreshing. Of course crossings like Nagle are engineering challenges, anyway you look at it, the driving public will be the one’s inconvenienced in any solution. No, they are not simple either.
As a victim of a crossing accident in Blue Island, it is incomplete to just look at train v. car, but car v. car where the crossing was involved. Again, all the engineering in the world will not solve these kind of issues. Perhaps programing humans like robots will. And in an area the population of Chicago, with more than 8 million souls, an OL type of program will only have so much impact.
As a locomotive engineer in the Chicago area, I’ve come to the sad conclusion that we are the chlorine in the gene pool.
And almost like it was scripted, a Nagle Ave. incident that is probably a crossing design failure, not human error.
Maybe I am missing something, but why wouldn’t that be driver error?
I think it is one of those traffic signal - crossing gate intersections over a three track, busy line, not far from the I 94 exit. Easy to get caught on, or in his case, at the edge of the near track. This sort of thing happens too often. Luckily no injuries but there ought to be a more effective design.
I think the insurance company I work for for would classify that as an “At Fault” accident on the part of the truck driver. We’d certainly pay the claim. Actually, the other, more careful, policy holders will pay the claim. We basically just manage a risk pool. Everybody throws in some money and the unlucky/unfortunate (or stupid) people draw the money out. (We actually don’t write policies on trucks like that.)
What can you do with the crossing? You can spend mega dollars to relocate the road or the railroad, but you can’t fix stupid. The truck driver is suposidly a professional driver licensed to move a 40 ton vehicle over public roads. The fact that he didn’t do that well doesn’t mean the public has to be taxed to try to fix stupid.
I’m glad no one was hurt, but to the truck driver: “Here’s your sign.”
Being caught on a crossing unable to go forward or to backup because of being blocked by other traffic is a common cause of grade crossing crashes.
I believe that the intent of the law is that a driver cannot cross the white stop line unless there is room for his or her vehicle to clear the white stop line on the other side.
Bottom line: just like they teach in OL classes, “If you don’t fit, don’t commit!” A friend of mine was the engineer involved and we’ve all got war stories to tell.
I don’t get into Chicago much, but if the car ahead of me stops on the tracks, I stop at least a car-length away so he can back up. I’ve done that my whole life. I did save a guys a$$ one time.
Regarding Operation Lifesaver’s slogan, “If you don’t fit, don’t commit,” OL needs to think a little deeper about this.
What if you do fit, and do commit, and then traffic ahead changes lanes so you don’t fit?
That scenario is quite possible in the case of two lanes crowded with traffic, moving over a grade crossing, and pushing up against a traffic light on the opposite side. And it is particularly prone to creating a no-win situation for a long truck.
If you ask OL this question, I bet you won’t get a response, let alone an answer. <
I can only say that assigning liability for accidents and accident prevention are two different concepts.
I understand what you mean. Liability and fault is according to the laws that apply, and accident prevention is related to items that can be improved to reduce human error, and make it more likely that the law is complied with. Prevention can be things such as improved sight lines, crossing alignments and relationships with other traffic control points and bottlenecks.
But prevention also includes compliance with the law, and that depends on three factors:
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Driver willingness to comply with the law.
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Driver ability to comply with the law.
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A law that addresses all contingencies.
I wouldn’t be surprized if the Grand Avenue crossing in Elmwood Park made that list, that crossing is terribly designed. For those who are unfamiliar with this crossing, it’s the very long one where 26 cars were damaged in a accident in 2006.