2058 Unsafe at Any Crossing

2058 Unsafe at Any Crossing

New York Times

HICKSVILLE, NY (Wessays ® Wire) -- You can’t cure stupid.  Especially when it’s mixed with the aftermath of a few hours in a bar.

In Westbury on New York’s Long Island the other day, three men left a bar, then drove to the ground level Long Island Railroad crossing, drove around the lowered gates where big red lights were blinking and bells were ringing. These warnings are “impossible” to miss. While on the tracks, two trains, one heading east and the other heading west hit the car and killed the people in it.

In Westbury, you say?  But the dateline says “Hicksville.”

Well, yes. In 1965 a similar accident took place there.  There were many more ground level crossings then.  A still-green radio reporter dispatched to that scene all those years ago arrived to find the remains of five teenagers on the ground, their convertible mashed on the track.  Some of the bodies were… incomplete.

It convinced the reporter to remain indoors.

The point here is that these things happen a lot.  Even now, with much of the railroad “scheduled” for elevation by the dysfunctional, cash strapped money downspout called the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, the MTA.

To a layman, the fault here was obviously with the driver and his passengers.  But there’s a bigger issue:  If Long Island were one municipality, it would be the second largest city in the country. Seven-point-five million people in the four existing geographic counties, about half that if you don’t count the parts technically within New York City limits.  A lot of people.

And you can’t run trains at 80 mph at ground level and not have a lot of accidents.  The LIRR is 185 years old.  When the various smaller railroads that comprise it were built, much of the area was vacant. Putting the whole thing above ground seemed ridiculous.  But as the population boomed after World War II, it began to dawn on the then-owners, the Pennsylvania Railroad that crossings had to be elevated.

That’s a forever process as they courted the dozens of municipalities whose lives would be disrupted by construction and who’s widely varying building codes had to be met. And it’s expensive. New rolling stock, new switches, signals, platforms and power lines.  The state took it over in 1965.

No passenger railroad makes money.  No subway. No municipal bus line. No monorail. None, zero. And no owner wants to spend a penny more than the minimum to keep the wheels (and mag-lifts) going.

Long Island is a 110-mile-long sand bar, a glacial dump from the end of the most recent ice age.  That’s a lot of railroad crossings. That’s the bad news. The good news is the railroad is in such poor condition that they can’t push many of those trains at speeds that would kill a slow moving dog or cat let alone destroy an automobile.  But “not many” doesn’t mean “every.”

The best way to fund the rest of the elevation is to cut the jobs held by the cousins, uncles, aunts, wives, husbands, friends and other hangers-on who populate the political system and use that money to save the lives of the morons who drive past the closed gates and ignore the warning lights and bells that work most of the time at most of the crossings.

Note to those who live in territory served by the LIRR’s sister railroad, Metro-North.  Yeah, you have the same troubles.  But this latest execution took place just this past week.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Correspondence to wesrichards@gmail.com

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