[Durham INC] Study about Rail Road Crossings in Durham

[TheOcean1 at aol.com]

To reach  as close to the perfect conclusion as possible, the city and its 
citizens  will need to hit a balance between what the railroad wants, and wha
t the people  want.
 
I'm just  guessing, but that will probably mean concessions that seem 
insane to us  regarding certain intersections like Ellis Rd, in exchange for 
things far more  important to the majority of us, such as creating trails 
downtown from  unused tracks. 

Bill  Anderson



 
In a message dated 4/26/2013 10:40:29 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
pats1717 at hotmail.com writes:

There was a sequence of public forums this month about the study  to make 
the places where roads cross railroads in Durham safer.  I went  looking for 
more information on the web.  What I found:  


Minutes from presentation to INC in February 2012:



Kevin  Hall talked about the Traffic Separation Study, where the “traffic” 
to  be separated is what is on the railroad track through town, which could 
be  high-speed rail or more frequent commuter rail in the future.  The  
options for the 18 crossing being studied are doing nothing, closing the  
crossing, improving it with better marking or barriers, or actually separating  
the grades of the street and the railroad.  The changes could be anywhere  
from short-term (0-3 years) to long-term (7-10 years).  It is an 18-month  
study, kicked off with visioning workshops in November.  Nothing is  decided 
yet as they are still collecting data.  The study will consider  safety (e.g., 
accident history), mobility and accessibility (how much traffic  there is 
there, for example), and social and economic resources (funding,  land-use 
and so on).  The one crossing people had major comments on was  the Broad 
Street / Swift Avenue one. John will send out the maps and comment  information 
to the list-serve so folks can ask their neighborhoods for their  ideas and 
input.




There are similar studies going on in other NC cities, with more detail  on 
what is being proposed there.


The best information I could find on the Durham study is at 
http://www.durhamnc.gov/agendas_new/2012/cws20121217/8915_PRESENTATION_DURHAM_TRAFFIC_SEPARA
TION_319363_483869.ppt.PDF


It looks like they are looking at making BIG, BIG HILLS so the road can  go 
over the railroad at Neal, LaSalle, Anderson, Swift/Broad, Duke, and the  
list goes on.  The report on the Swift/Broad crossing that we heard at  the 
recent INC meeting was pretty scary.


Regards, pat




=

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