Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010

Crossing consequences

Amid all the public meetings and barrels of ink accompanying the dialogue over the high-speed rail corridor, am I the only one who is left grasping for an answer to the mystery of what happened to the Sealed Corridor concept?

From the Federal Railroad Administration's High-Rail Grade Crossing Guidelines for High-Speed Passenger Rail, Section 3. Sealed Corridors:

"The State of North Carolina has pioneered many of the subsequent advances on the North Carolina Railroad under the concept of a Sealed Corridor. ... The end result is that redundant and/or unsafe crossings are consolidated through closure and/or grade separation and all remaining public crossings are equipped as appropriate with four quadrant gates, median separators and longer gate arms."

During the design/planning phase, NCDOT must strive to assure, by limiting connectivity in the communities through which it passes, that an enhanced rail system doesn't have the opposite effect of its promise of improved transportation. Let us make a concerted effort to employ a concept pioneered in Raleigh toward that end. The state would be shortsighted to allow road closure to scuttle North Carolina's addition to a national high-speed rail system.

Peter Eichenberger

Raleigh