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USDOT awards $2.8 million for rail crossing safety

WASHINGTON – As part of President Clinton’s commitment to developing high-speed passenger rail service and improving safety at highway-rail grade crossings, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater announced that North Carolina has been given $2.8 million in grants to improve grade crossing safety along its designated high-speed rail corridor.

"This grant will improve safety on the Raleigh to Charlotte corridor by reducing the risk of collisions at grade crossings," said Slater.

Highway-rail crossing consolidation and elimination is a key component of the USDOT’s Highway-Rail Safety Action Plan. As part of the plan, USDOT is working with railroads and communities to reduced the number of crossings nationwide by 25 percent.

USDOT has already awarded more than $5 million to conduct a demonstration of median barriers and four-quadrant gates, and has installed equipment to prevent highway-rail crossing collisions by closing redundant crossings and upgrading warning devices between Charlotte and Raleigh.

The DOT grant will be supplemented with state funding and in-kind support from Norfolk Southern.

Three SEPTA divisions now without contracts

PHILADELPHIA – In the wake of the ratification of a new contract by members of United Transportation Union Local 1594, which represents 280 bus and trolley operators on the Red Arrow/Victory district in suburban Philadelphia, three other SEPTA divisions remain working without contracts.

SEPTA’s contract impasse with the Transport Workers Union (TWU), which represents 5,300 workers, could make a strike more likely. Sources close to the negotiations told Philadelphia newspapers that a strike threat would become more real once all TWU contracts had expired, because a walkout would effect all SEPTA operations except its rail lines.