Louisiana officials hope to change the state’s rank as third in the nation for fatal railroad accidents with a new law Gov. Kathleen Blanco put into effect this past Thursday.
The law gives the state the power to close railroad crossings at local roads instead of city governments controlling those crossings.
The state will still have jurisdiction over state highway crossings, as it had before.
Until this law went into effect, the state could only recommend to local governments that a crossing be closed, but those governments had no obligation to comply.
“This is a matter of public safety,” said Roderick Hawkins, the governor’s deputy press secretary. “It’s about protecting our citizens. The governor feels very strongly about this because she lost a grandfather in a railroad accident.”
The Federal Railroad Administration released in 2004 that 23 people were killed in Louisiana as a result of collisions at highway-rail intersections, placing it behind California, which had 34, and Texas and Illinois, which each had 26 fatalities.
Hawkins said Louisiana’s rank as third is too high because the state’s population is far less than the three states preceding it on the list.
State Sen. Art Lentini, who proposed the law, said the state has about 70 crossings that may need to be shut down because they are too dangerous.
East Baton Rouge Parish alone had 16 accidents in 2004, some of which were fatal, making it the most likely parish in the state for highway-railroad accidents.
The law does allow local governments to appeal a state order to close a crossing if they disagree with the decision.
Lentini said he proposed the law because it would take too long to install active warning devices, such as lights, gates and bells, at all of the nearly 6,000 railroad crossings in the state.
“It costs at least $150,000 to upgrade a railroad crossing, and the state doesn’t have enough money to make all the improvements it would like to make,” Lentini said. “And not only is it expensive, it would take years and years to upgrade all of the state’s crossings.”
Lentini said he thinks closing unnecessary and dangerous crossings would help put an end to railroad accidents.
“It’s a controversial law because people like the convenience of multiple crossings. They don’t want to have to drive for miles to cross train tracks,” Lentini said. “But it just doesn’t make sense to keep open crossings within yards of each other. It is just dangerous.”
Brian Wolshon, civil and environmental engineering professor, said while people appreciate the convenience offered by multiple crossings, even gates and bells can’t always stop accidents from happening.
“If you look at all fatalities that occur at railroad crossings, 47 percent occur where there are gates and lights up,” Wolshon said. “Usually the intersections that have active control features are the ones that have a higher amount of traffic. More cars means more exposure for accidents.”
Wolshon said sometimes the accidents come as a result of a driver’s impatience.
“Many times, people just ignore all the signs and lights and try to beat the trains,” Wolshon said.
Wolshon said closing superfluous crossings may not stop all traffic accidents from happening, but the accidents that do occur will be less severe.
“If you put all of the traffic which would cross at a point onto other roads, you increase the chance for accidents on those roads,” Wolshon said. “But those accidents will be lesser side impact and rear-end collisions and not the horrible accidents that happen when a car is hit by a train.”
Contact Jeff Jeffrey at [email protected]