A Hometown rail crossing where Metra trains have at least twice struck vehicles since 2015 is being replaced and reconfigured starting this week, officials said.
The $2.3 million project, which is expected to close the intersection of 87th Street and Pulaski Road to all traffic for 10 days, involves repositioning the railroad crossing gates closer to the tracks, adding pedestrian gates and removing and replacing rails, ties, ballast, rubber panels and asphalt as part of Metra’s regular maintenance process, the commuter rail service said in a statement.
The changes at the intersection are past due, said Vincent Petrosino, an attorney who represents the estate of a teenager killed earlier this year when a train and vehicle collided at the crossing and the vehicle spun into the teen as he waited at a nearby bus stop.
“I think it’s about time that they rectify a problem which has been ongoing for decades, really,” said Petrosino, who filed a wrongful-death suit against Metra and Norfolk Southern Railway, the rail line’s owner, in late February. “It’s something they should have done a long time ago, and it would have saved lives. It would have saved people from being injured.”
Three people have been killed and seven injured in two separate train collisions at the intersection since 2015.
Both collisions, which an attorney for the 2015 crash victims described as “virtually identical,” occurred after a safety gate came down behind or on top of vehicles as they waited at a stoplight, effectively trapping them on the wrong side of the gate.
In the recent collision, which happened Feb. 12 and was captured on surveillance video, the driver of a 2015 Hyundai, hemmed in by the gate, drove forward and into the path of an oncoming train.
The driver and her two passengers, all sisters in their 20s, suffered “severe and permanent injuries,” in the collision, according to a suit two of them filed shortly after the crash.
Christopher T. Davis, a 19-year-old who had just finished his shift at a nearby Jewel-Osco and was waiting for a bus at the intersection’s southwest corner, was killed when the ricocheting vehicle struck him.
The crossing’s design, which Petrosino called “dangerous,” has confused motorists for years and often results in cars stopping at or beyond the point where safety gates descend when a train is approaching.
“If you stop at the line, the bar is right over you,” he said. “It’ll literally touch your hood or come inches from your hood. It’s ridiculous.”
A 2017 Illinois Commerce Commission analysis, which was undertaken 14 months after a pair of cousins were killed and four others injured in a 2015 crash at the crossing, recommended several changes, including moving the gates at 87th Street closer to the tracks to prevent them from coming down behind motorists.
According to observations made as part of the ICC study, both eastbound and westbound motorists stopped for the red light past the stop-bars and railroad gates, resulting in railroad warning devices and gates coming down behind stopped motorists.
“The traffic signals do not provide a track clear indication because the tracks run through the middle of the intersection and, otherwise, would display a conflicting message to motorists that are supposed to stop for the activated warning devices,” the review found.
The Illinois Department of Transportation awarded Metra funding last August to make ICC’s suggested changes and the commuter rail agency included the project in its 2020 work plan, agency spokeswoman Meg Reile said in February.
Design work had been underway at the time of February’s fatal collision and construction at the crossing is expected to begin Wednesday and continue until Sept. 4, she said.
Both Petrosino and Ben Crane, an attorney who represents the 2015 crash victims, questioned why it had taken Metra this long to reconfigure the intersection.
“They were well aware of the dangerous conditions that existed at this crossing,” since at least 2017, Petrosino said. “Yet they chose not to implement safety recommendations…One has to ask why.”
Crane, whose lawsuit against Metra and Norfolk Southern dates back to 2017, called the commuter rail agency’s delay in making modifications to the crossing “an astonishing breach of public trust” and said Metra hadn’t disclosed the existence of the ICC study until this year’s fatal collision.
“Metra and Norfolk Southern have, throughout our litigation, denied there is a problem with this crossing, all the while withholding the existence of these safety recommendations,” he said in a statement in February.
Both Metra and Norfolk Southern declined to respond to the lawyers’ charges, citing pending litigation.
Reile, the Metra spokeswoman, said in February that the intersection, as currently configured, met state and federal standards for safety.
In addition to the crossing replacement work, Metra is also upgrading the signal system at the intersection as part of technology upgrades on the SouthWest Service line from Wrightwood, 79th Street and West Columbus Avenue, to Chicago Ridge, 103rd Street and Ridgeland Avenue.
The signal system upgrade and the installation of a fiber optic network on the SouthWest and Rock Island lines are being done to lay the groundwork for future technological upgrades to the system that should enhance safety and save Metra communication costs, Reile said.
zkoeske@tribpub.com
Twitter @ZakKoeske
