4 Railroad Crossings To Be Safer

BRANDON - Four area railroad crossings are being targeted for safety improvements now that Hillsborough County commissioners have approved a series of agreements with the Florida Department of Transportation and CSX Transportation.

Commissioners approved the agreements Jan. 3.

"Every year we go out and look at various crossings and see if we can make them safer," said Don Noble, an FDOT spokesman.

A team of representatives of all three agencies surveyed more than 40 crossings before deciding on this year's list of projects.

Included are the crossings on Valrico Road south of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard; north of State Road 60 at Falkenburg Road; north of S.R. 60 at Miller Road; and north of S.R. 60 at Parsons Avenue. The crossings at Miller and Falkenburg will have traffic control devices installed. The devices at the other two crossings will be relocated.

"Over time, traffic flow and patterns change," said Gary Sease, a CSX spokesman. "This should make the signals more visible and the crossings safer."

Noble said the state will pay for the work. CSX is responsible for design and construction, and the county will maintain the crossings.

About $7 million is being divvied up statewide to upgrade railroad crossings.

"We try to do what we can with the little money we get," Noble said.

A mathematical matrix is used to design crossings and considers such factors as traffic volume, the number of school buses that use the crossing and the frequency of accidents. Sease estimates CSX has 6,000 crossings in Florida.

Julie Johanboek, the project manager for the county's Department of Public Works, said it usually takes a year to finish crossing upgrades once contracts are signed.

She said the work takes about three to five days. Design and construction preparation take the rest of the time.

"It is not something we can do the very next day," Sease said. "But it is something we try to get to quickly."