Here are crossings in Butler County that are to receive stop signs:
Fairfield – Ivy Lane at the Norfolk Southern tracks.
Hanover Township – Darrtown Road at the CSX tracks; Decamp Road at the CSX tracks; and Hussey Road at the CSX tracks.
Middletown – Grand Avenue at the CSX tracks.
Monroe – Garver Road at the Indiana & Ohio Railway tracks.
Shandon – New Haven Road at the Indiana Eastern Railroad tracks; Peoria Reily Road at the IERR tracks; and Race Lane Road at the IERR tracks.
Morgan Township – Layhigh Road at the IERR tracks.
Oxford Township – Stout Road at the CSX tracks.
Reily Township – Dunwoody Road at the IERR tracks; Hart Road at the IERR tracks; and Stephenson Road at the CSX tracks.
Here are crossings in Warren County that are to receive stop signs:
Blanchester – Gustin Rider Road at the Indiana & Ohio Railway tracks.
Harlan Township – Jackson-Runyan Road at the IORY tracks; and Pleasant-Renner Road at the IORY tracks.
Mason – Buerkle Drive at the IORY tracks.
Pleasant Plain – Long-Spurling Road at the IORY tracks.
Union Township – Bunnell Road at the IORY tracks.
Here are crossings in Montgomery County that are to receive stop signs:
Dayton – Alley between Ringgold and South June streets, at the Norfolk Southern tracks; North Irwin Street at the Norfolk Southern tracks; and Stony Hollow Road at the CSX tracks.
Germantown – Alley between Market and Gunckel streets, at the Germantown Rail Siding tracks; Alley between Kelly Avenue and Mulberry Street at the GTRS tracks; East Warren Street at the GTRS tracks; Gunckel Street at the GTRS tracks; and Jefferson Street at the GTRS tracks.
Vandalia – Old Webster Street at the CSX tracks.
Here are crossings in Clark County that are to receive stop signs:
Harmony Township – Cemetery Road at the Norfolk Southern tracks.
Springfield – Champion Avenue at the Indiana & Ohio Railway tracks (two crossings); Hyer Avenue at the IORY tracks; and North Burnett Road at the IORY tracks.
Springfield Township – Township Road 1104 at the IORY tracks.
Here is the crossing in Miami County that is to receive stop signs:
Troy – Dakota Street at the CSX tracks.
Here are crossings in Preble County that are to receive stop signs:
Eaton – Alley between Main and Wadsworth streets, at the Norfolk Southern tracks; and Wadsworth Street at the Norfolk Southern tracks.
Here are crossings in Greene County that are to receive stop signs:
NONE.
Fourteen Butler County railroad crossings will be getting stop signs — a change from the yield signs at those sites — in hopes that drivers there will pay more heed to the dangers of trains on the tracks.
Originally, 15 crossings were to get the stop signs, but in the meantime, the crossing where the CSX Transportation tracks intersect with Morganthaler Road received an upgrade: Lights and gates recently were installed instead.
The stop-sign additions are part of a $516,000 statewide program that is installing about 1,000 such signs at locations that now have only the traditional railroad markers with “yield” signs.
Warren County will have six crossings upgraded the same way.
Officials hope the change will be particularly important for semi-rural counties with relatively large populations like Butler County, which in the 10 years from 2005 through 2014 had 42 collisions between road vehicles and trains. Five of those collisions were fatal, leaving six dead.
Butler is Ohio’s eighth most populous county but it ranked second, behind only Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), with such wrecks. Cuyahoga had 51 collisions that claimed three lives. In Warren County, meanwhile, there were eight crashes in that time, none fatal.
By comparison, Butler County had more than triple the number of crashes as much larger Hamilton County (13), and double the number as Franklin County, home to Columbus (20). Montgomery County had 15 collisions.
Reily Township Trustee Dennis H. Conrad Jr., whose government is working with railroad and state officials on the sign installation, says he thinks the signs will improve safety.
“We’re such a rural area, people get in a habit of just shootin’ across the tracks,” Conrad said, “so with stop signs, at least they’ve got to stop and look.”
“Without lights or anything, they’d be a lot better off stopping than they would just yielding and then driving on through them,” he added.
Should be Safer
Julianne Kaercher, spokeswoman for the Ohio Rail Development Commission, which administers the program, agrees with Conrad.
“We want you to stop, versus just travel on your merry way, hoping there’s not a train,” Kaercher said.
“With the yield sign, people get accustomed to their usual path, so they get accustomed to going across that track at their normal speed, and they may or may not necessarily be yielding,” she said.
“There could be close calls, there could be collisions with the train that are preventable by forcing people to stop and actually look both ways before proceeding across. It gives that extra three seconds of time to ensure they’re safely crossing the train tracks,” she said.
A state law required stop signs be installed at crossings, except those that were exempted. One exception was when forcing vehicles to stop might cause traffic-backups onto major roadways, causing the potential for other collisions.
New stop signs don’t prevent crossings from getting lights and gates later: If the state could add more now, it would, but funds are limited: Some 75 crossings were upgraded during fiscal year 2013, plus another 64 in 2014. Those two years, a combined $27.6 million in federal funds were spent on upgrades.
With some stop-sign installations, there’s some sentiment that some of the signs are overkill.
Germantown City Manager Anna Sizemore said the crossings getting signs in her city are along a little-used line. The decision raised some eyebrows among the city council.
“The railroad that runs through the city is not used by anyone other than the Dupps Co.,” she said. “And I’m not even sure how often they use it. A couple times a year, is what I understand. And actually, they’re the ones that came to us with that request.”
“I think it’ll be more of a hindrance to people, to have to stop,” Sizemore predicted. “I think it’s going to take some getting used to.”
Ivy Lane in Fairfield serves only two houses beyond the Norfolk Southern tracks, but if drivers are unfamiliar with the trains, they could get a nasty surprise, said Public Works Director Dave Butsch.
Railroads have until June to install the new signs, with some already up. The railways are reimbursd $500 per sign. Local governments are responsible for installing signs that warn drivers they’re approaching a stop sign. Communities with trouble financing those signs can seek state money.
“It’s difficult to determine how much difference it will make,” said Butler County Engineer Greg Wilkens. “But I think anything that we can do that contributes to safety is surely a benefit to the public.”
Wilkens was pleased that the Morganthaler crossing got an upgrade to lights and gates, rather than the stop sign, given that the crossing has about 31 trains travel through daily, and 1,350 highway vehicles use it on an average day.
“That was a good move,” he said. “That’s a heavily traveled rail.”
New Formula for Replacements?
In a related matter, the state is investigating whether there is a more effective way to prioritize dangerous crossings and target them for lights and gates, Kaercher said.
Ohio now uses a federal formula to identify the crossings most likely to be the sites of collisions, and that had been given credit for reducing the number of wrecks and deaths in recent years. But not satisfied with that progress, the state is paying a team at Ohio University $82,000 to study what methods other states they use to determine which crossings get upgrades.
“We’re looking to constantly improve upon the process that we have and make sure we’re benchmarking with the best practices across the nation,” Kaercher said. We’re a Top Ten state for just about every category for rail (including fatalities), so we want to make sure that we are ahead of the curve when it comes to making our crossings safer.”
Across Ohio, crashes at crossings have dropped significantly in recent years, from 122 in 2005 and 113 in 2007, to totals in the 50s, 60s and 70s in recent years. The low was 55 in 2009, but crashes have been rising, to a six-year high of 76 in 2014. This year may set another recent high mark, because through the year’s first three quarters, 54 wrecks were recorded across the state.
Part of the reason for the increased wrecks: With the economy improving, and gas prices lower, more trains are running, and motorists are driving more, Kaercher said.
“Rails are the first indicator that the economy is coming back, because they’re hauling all of the parts to make larger products,” she said. “So once the railroads start ramping up, the economy’s going to start ramping up. So as the economy as down during the recession, rail traffic was down.”
“People are driving more, and trains are running more,” she said, “so just by default, the statistics are going to increase accidents, unfortunately.”
All the more reason to find ways to reduce wrecks between trains and highway vehicles, she said: “That’s one of the reasons we want to take a look and make sure we’re doing all we can to make crossings as safe as possible. Because there’s no indication – hopefully – that the economy is slowing down. We want to make sure those numbers keep going down.”
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