WE’VE BEEN HEARD Y’ALL, WE’VE BEEN HEARD! (Yes, I’m yelling.) It’s because of YOU, because of US TOGETHER (along with many others in the state and country) who submitted comments back in the fall about blocked train crossings and ridiculous train lengths to the Federal Railroad Administration, that on December 20, 2019 (of course, right before the holidays while many of us had a million other things on our minds) the FRA announced its new web portal for collecting info on blocked train crossings—the very ones that stymie our first responders and screw up our days here Downriver.
I’ve included screenshots of the FRA announcement as well as direct links to the media release and to the FRA’s Blocked Crossings Portal.
This is even better than the sheets that those of us representing Downriver communities have been handing out from the Michigan Railroads Association with ways to report, because the info collected at the FRA’s site will go directly to them immediately rather than via the train lines and will help them know exactly what’s going on where and when and work towards solutions to blocked crossings.
Thank you to everyone who submitted their comments back in the fall & I for one, am grateful for this small step towards progress on addressing this issue that plagues our community & look forward to continuing work on resolving it.
Link to FRA media release:
https://railroads.dot.gov/…/FRA%2015-19%20Blocked%20Crossin…
Link to FRA Blocked Crossings Incident Report Web Portal:
https://www.fra.dot.gov/blockedcrossings/
Note: they have a disclaimer at the start; don’t let it keep you from submitting a report. The report portal includes an interactive map (so having location enabled on your phone is a good idea as well as clicking “allow” if you’re prompted to “use location information.”) Report completion can take up to 3 minutes (far shorter than the amount of time we tend to have to wait at blocked crossings).
TL; DR: You’ve been heard. New FRA Blocked Crossings site now live to report blocked crossings. Moving forward in resolving the issue.