State, Railroad Officials: Trenton Crash Site Does Not Need Upgrades

The railroad crossing where a Tuesday was recently reviewed by experts and deemed safe, according to railroad officials.

The crossing at Van Horn and Fort Street was the subject of a diagnostic review in 2009. The railroad officials examined  the volume of car and train traffic at the crossing, the effectiveness of the warning devices, and the recent crash history.

Many area residents , but Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) officials, railroad officials and local police said the crossing does not require upgrades to safety or traffic flow.

Some residents said the big issue is wait times more than safety at the intersection. One area resident said she has waited 45 minutes for a single train.

“Something definitely needs to be done,” Julie Kennedy Carpenter said on the Trenton Patch Facebook page. “This has gone on way too long. The railroad seems to think they can tie people up for as long as they want.”

However, experts from MDOT, Canadian National Railway officials and local police all agreed in the 2009 assessment that the crossing did not need improvements.

Janet Foran, spokeswoman for MDOT, said the crossing was found to have very good sight distance, low train speeds, adequate signals, and no crash history prior to Tuesday's incident.

Trains are limited to 25 mph in the area and there is a cantilever covered with several 12-inch lights to warn motorists of an oncoming train.

Foran said there would be a “really, really slim chance” officials from the railroad or the state would consider an overpass or underpass at the crossing.

Adding such a feature "would have to be a joint effort with the railroad authority and MDOT,” Foran said.

Residents began weighing in on the crossing on Facebook and on Patch after the boy accidently hit the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal, surged across the tracks and was hit by an oncoming train. There were no injuries in the accident.

The accident is still under investigation.

Trenton Mayor Kyle Stack said she was looking into building an overpass or underpass at the crossing, but said funding could be an issue.

State and local officials have kicked around the idea for a change at the crossing since 1999, according to former Trenton Mayor Gerald Brown.

Funding provided by a transportation bill created by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) paid for a study then. Conyers raised about $1.6 million of federal funding for the bill, and the study cost around $500,000, according to Brown.

Brown said an overpass would cost about $23 million, and that high cost has made it difficult to achieve.

“I wish they would do it,” Brown said. “It’s a great idea if they could it. It lacks funds, but it’s worth spinning our wheels on it.”

However, Foran said, building an overpass is unlikely.

“We rarely have the funding,” Foran said in reference to building an expensive overpass or underpass. “When a crash occurs it’s very common that travelers on that road think the most obvious answer is an over/underpass and that would be the Cadillac version of a solution, but most of the time (the cause of the crash) is human error.”

Foran said obeying traffic signals is the easiest way to stay safe at railroad crossings. She that added half of the train, car crashes in Michigan happen at crossings equipped with gates and flashing lights.

As for traffic, Foran said there are a significant number of trains that pass the crossing daily, but not enough to consider making changes.

Seventeen trains and about 30,000 motorists pass over the crossing each day, according to Foran. The number is “not low,” Foran said, but it doesn’t merit additional funding.

Until about 10 years ago, a state law prohibited trains from blocking an intersection for longer than seven minutes for a moving train and more than five minutes for a stopped train, according to Foran.

The law was lifted when it was found to interfere with federal law. Railroads are subject to federal law due to interstate travel.

“We consider every crash that occurs significant,” Foran said. “We learn from them, and it’s good that we recently evaluated that crossing and all parties agreed it did not need any upgrades.”