Frankly, I CANNOT believe I am having to tell this story…Again! Fortunately, this time we avoided damage to our vehicle.
I was foolish to believe that any serious corrective action would be taken after the close call we had with the total lack of coordination of the railroad signals and traffic lights on Lakeville & D Streets in December 2012. For details of that event, go to Railroad crossing arms close on Petaluma couple’s car at green light.
Today, I observed that the Same Dangerous Lack of Coordination is still manifest–this time at Lakeville and East Washington.
- We were headed downtown this morning and stopped at the red light on Lakeville and East Washington. As in December 2012, I was the passenger in the vehicle.
- Our light turned green for East Washington traffic and within a few seconds the railroad lights started flashing and the arms came down.
- At least two cars continued through the intersection driving past the arms as they were lowering.
- The traffic light stayed green throughout the event.
Fortunately, I caught a few photos through the windshield to document this lack of coordination between the two signal systems.
Photo Notes
About 5 seconds passed before I took the first photo of the scene…
9:37:22am
Here is another…eleven seconds later…
9:37:33am
A minute later these railroad cars appeared…stopped at this location…then reversed and left the scene without crossing East Washington.
The arms went up and the traffic light finally went from green to red!
9:38:09am
Fortunately there were no vehicles in the intersection at the time the arms finished closing–how the two that did pass through made it was pure foolish luck on their part.
Given the overall incompetence displayed here in failing to coordinate the lights, it will only be a matter of time before there are serious injuries or worse.
I dare anyone in authority to explain this kind of screwup…much less defend it!
