(The following article by Phil Pitchford was posted on the Press-Enterprise website on March 13.)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Metrolink has started a massive program to make railroad crossings safer, but any improvement in the Inland area is months away at the earliest.
The commuter railroad aims to turn rail lines into “sealed corridors,” where motorists and pedestrians are physically prohibited from reaching the tracks at nearly all points. The fewer people and cars on the tracks, the fewer accidents, the reasoning goes.
Unfortunately for Inland commuters and motorists, the rail agency is starting the program about as far away from here as possible. The first improvements are planned on the Ventura County Line between Moorpark and Los Angeles, and on the Antelope Valley Line from Sylmar/San Fernando to Los Angeles.
“It’s going to be a while before it gets down there,” Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said. ‘But that is not to say we are not going to bring advancements in rail safety. Eventually, we expect to attack our entire system.”
The first two rail lines to get the safety treatment involve 65 miles of track with 57 crossings, nearly all of them in urban settings with significant traffic moving across the tracks every day, Tyrrell said.
Potential improvements include more extensive gates, with four arms instead of just two, to better block any travel across the tracks when they are down; raised concrete islands in the median to discourage drivers from crossing to the other side of the street to weave around the gates; new signs and markings on the pavement; and locked gates to keep vehicles off the rail bed.
A similar approach is credited with increasing safety along 174 miles of rail in North Carolina between Charlotte and Raleigh. That project is credited with reductions in grade crossing violations ranging from 77 percent to 86 percent.
Metrolink’s project, however, would be the first in a heavily urbanized area. It is funded in part by a $250,000 study grant from the Federal Railroad Administration and $3 million in federal transportation funds. The commuter railroad estimates that it has spent $70 million on grade-crossing improvements since 1992.
The sealed corridors would be a big change from the current state of many railways through the Inland area. Along Dewey Street in Riverside, for example, only a single guardrail separates the street from the railway, leaving it easily accessible to pedestrians.
“They walk right down the middle of the tracks,” said Fredanna Schroeder, who lives on Dewey with her husband, Greg. “It’s mostly young people and drifters.”
The Schroeders said they would prefer that the railroads build sound walls between the tracks and nearby homes, something that has not been proposed.
“My dishes and windows both rattle” when a train passes, Fredanna Schroeder said. “It will wake you up, the whole house is shaking so much.”
The improvements are being made on lines that operate in cities where two high-profile Metrolink accidents have occurred in recent years. A Jan. 26, 2005 derailment in Glendale killed 11 people and injured about 200. A Jan. 6, 2003 derailment in Burbank killed a motorist and injured 32 people on board.
The Antelope Valley Line stops in Glendale. The Ventura County Line stops in Glendale and in Burbank.
Of Metrolink’s other five lines, four have a significant number of stops in either Riverside or San Bernardino counties. The only one that does not – the Orange County Line – operates between Oceanside and Los Angeles.
Tyrrell said it is too early to know which of the remaining lines will receive the “sealed corridor” treatment next.
“We know where the worst ones are,” she said. “But we don’t know who’s third.”