Phil Pitchford
Metrolink safety improvements coming -- to LA County
Metrolink kicked off its new "sealed corridor" program today. It's an effort to increase safety at railroad crossings by improving 63 crossings across 65 miles of track. The move comes about two years after a train/SUV collision caused an accident that killed 11 people.
Options include quandrant gates, which basically double the number of gates at a crossing to discourage people from cutting across the tracks, longer gate arms, locked gates, fences and other improvements. All the measures are designed to further discourage people who flaunt the law and try to cross the tracks even when they are not supposed to.
The program, however, is starting on the Ventura County and Antelope Valley lines of Metrolink, neither of which comes within 50 miles of the Inland area. Part of the problem is money -- it is a $100 million program for which Metrolink has secured about $20 million. Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell said such improvements eventually will be made in the Inland area, most probably in San Bernardino County first, since Metrolink does not own the tracks its trains use in Riverside County.
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