The Oregon Transportation Commission is poised to approve a project to make Albany’s Queen Avenue railroad crossing safer and, for cars, smoother. But it won’t deal with traffic delays when the gates are down.
Albany’s busiest railroad crossing on Queen Avenue will be improved for safety one of these days. But it won’t be soon, and when it’s done it will still be a bumpy ride for cars.
Because it calls for losing a lane on Queen Avenue westbound, Albany City Council members Rich Kellum and Bill Coburn are pushing back against a proposal by ODOT-Rail to add more gates at the Queen Avenue railroad crossing.
ODOT-Rail has an idea for trying to prevent people from going around the closed crossing gates on Albany’s Queen Avenue and getting run over by trains. It involves, among other things, eliminating one of the two westbound traffic lanes and might cost around $1 million in federal funds. At least three members of the city […]
Once again waiting at the Queen Avenue railroad crossing in Albany last week, I was wondering — and who wouldn’t be? — about when the Portland & Western would finally begin to use its new track nearby. On Tuesday I got news from Kevin Haugh, the railroad’s general manager in Salem. And it sounded good.
So I’m sitting in a queue at the Queen Avenue crossing, one car back. Just when the switch engine looks like it’s about to clear the road so we can go, a Union Pacific freight barrels through on the track we can’t see, on its way south.
How to reduce crossing waits
One little change in operations would reduce the number of traffic delays at Albany’s Queen Avenue railroad crossing, and thus cut down on complaints about long waits as well.
Tags: Portland & Western Railroad, Queen Avenue crossing