Don't wait on gates

It's a risky combination there, with long trucks hauling raw logs or finished lumber frequently coming in and out of the SDS mill complex. Wrecks at the Maple Street railroad crossing have been on the front page of The Enterprise before, including a very dramatic one in the 1960s that wrecked a log truck, sent raw logs scattering, and stacked up freight cars on both sides of the tracks.

It's probably only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt or killed. And the potential for a catastrophic incident is clear with the presence of gas pumps and fuel storage tanks just a few yards away from the tracks on both sides of the Maple Street intersection.

One obvious answer is to install railroad crossing gates, and the city of a Bingen has a federal grant of $279,910 in hand that would pay 100 percent of the costs to do just that. Yet Bingen has not put that grant money to use.

That's right. Way back on Jan. 16, 2003, Bingen won a federal grant, channeled through the Washington Department of Transportation, to replace the bells and flashing red light system currently in place with gates that drop down as trains approach, ensuring that motor vehicles don't try to drive across the tracks in an effort to beat the train.

Here's what Mike Rowswell, rail safety manager for the Washington Utilities & Transportation Commission, had to say about Bingen's Maple Street crossing in January 2003: "We're talking about safety," Rowswell said. "We engineer railroad crossings throughout the state for improvements, and our evaluation of that crossing is that it needs a gate, and the train detection circuitry needs upgrading also."

Three and a half years later, the city still has not moved to install the crossing gates.

Why the delay? In January of this year, the city of Bingen announced plans to repave and upgrade Maple Street from SR 14 to Lakeview Blvd. At that time, Bingen Mayor Brian Prigel said he expected the work to take place in September or October of 2006. Now, the word is it will be "next year" before the street is repaved.

Bingen officials have said they don't want to install the crossing gates because the road project may require that they be relocated. But the road is not going to be widened, only paved, with a sidewalk and curbs added. Surely, engineers can come up with a design to make sure the gates would not have to be moved.

As the incident on July 7 demonstrated, this safety project should not be kept on hold. There is no justification for this "three years and counting" delay in putting this safety grant to use.

JB