[Federal Register Volume 60, Number 228 (Tuesday, November 28, 1995)]
[Notices]
[Pages 58718-58720]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 95-29132]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Office of the Secretary
[Docket No. OST-95-859]
Grade Crossing Safety Task Force
AGENCY: Office of the Secretary, DOT.
ACTION: Request for comments.
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SUMMARY: The Department of Transportation (USDOT) seeks to broaden the
knowledge of the safety implications of the decisionmaking and
coordination processes associated with the planning, design,
construction, maintenance, operation, and inspection of highway-rail
grade crossings. To do this, the Department has formed a USDOT Grade
Crossing Safety Task Force. In addition, the Department intends to:
--Form a ``Blue Ribbon'' Working Group to support the task Force,
--Hold public meetings to provide input to the Task Force, and
--Prepare and publish a report documenting the findings of the Task
Force.
DATES: Comments must be received on or before January 15, 1996, to be
fully considered by the Department's Grade Crossing Safety Task Force.
ADDRESSES: Three copies of comments for the public docket on the Grade
Crossing Safety task Force should be sent to: Office of the Secretary,
Documentary Services Division, C-55, Attn: Grade Crossing Safety Task
Force Public Docket No. OST-95-859, Room PL 401, 400 Seventh Street,
S.W., Washington, D.C. 20590.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Transportation Secretary Federico Pena
recently announced that he has directed the formation of a Grade
Crossing Safety task Force within the DOT to conduct a comprehensive
national review of safety measures relating to highway-rail grade
crossing planning, design, construction, maintenance, operation, and
inspection.
Secretary Pena took this action in the aftermath of the tragic
accident in Illinois involving a commuter train and school bus at a
railroad crossing last October 25. The Secretary ordered the Department
of Transportation to build upon its June 1994 Rail-Highway Crossing
Safety Action Plan by forming a Task Force to conduct a comprehensive
national review of the design, construction, and operation of highway-
rail grade crossings.
The Secretary has directed the Task Force to report back to him by
March 1, 1996, with its evaluation of the decisionmaking process
related to the Nation's grade crossings, as well as recommendations for
improvement. The Task Force will work with State, local, and private
sector transportation officials to review existing standards and will
develop a summary of national needs focusing on coordinated
decisionmaking, inspection, and approval processes for highway-rail
grade crossings.
The Task Force includes representatives from four agencies within
the U.S. Department of Transportation: The Federal Railroad
Administration, the Federal Highway Administration, the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Transit
Administration. The Task Force is headed by Michael P. Huerta,
Associate Deputy Transportation Secretary and Director of the Office of
Intermodalism.
In addition to the Task Force activities, both the Federal Railroad
Administration and the Federal Highway Administration will work with
the States as they respond to the National Transportation Safety
Board's recommendation that States conduct an assessment of physical
characteristics and traffic associated with crossings having
interconnected highway and rail signals, and their systems design.
To support the Task Force, the Department will also form a ``Blue
Ribbon'' Working Group of approximately 20 people who can provide
specialized information that will assist the Task Force in its work.
This Working Group will reflect the diverse public and private sector
entities involved in the processes which create or alter infrastructure
at or near highway-rail grade crossings in order to create an expanded
knowledge base for the Task Force. The participants for the Working
Group will be selected on December 4 and the first meeting of the
Working Group is currently scheduled for December 14.
To provide additional input to the Task Force during its work, the
Department intends to hold three public meetings in the coming weeks.
The prospective sites of these public meetings are Raleigh, NC,
Chicago, IL, and Los Angeles, CA. The dates, times, and specific
locations of these public meetings have not been determined, but will
be announced in future press releases and/or Federal Register notices.
Persons desiring more details on these meetings also can receive direct
notification by addressing their requests to the individual identified
at the end of this Federal Register notice under the section below
entitled For Further Information Contact.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Questions on the Grade Crossing Safety
Task Force and its public meetings can also be directed to the
Secretary of Transportation's Office of Intermodalism which has been
designated as the lead for the Grade Crossing Safety Task Force.
Questions can be mailed, faxed, or transmitted on the Internet to:
Ms. Susan Ducan, Office of Intermodalism, Room 10126, 400 Seventh
Street, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20590, Ph: (202) 366-8015, Fax: (202)
366-8999, Internet: http://www.dot.gov/dotinfo/gen/xingtf.
[[Page 58719]]
Comments by all parties on these highway-rail crossing issues are
welcome.
To give the public a better sense of the scope of this USDOT
initiative, the Grade Crossing Safety Task Force Charter is presented
in the paragraphs below.
Charter of the Grade Crossing Safety Task Force
Mission and Purpose: The Department recognizes its role to ensure
safe transportation and to develop a ``seamless'' national intermodal
transportation system. In June 1994, Secretary of Transportation
Federico Pena released a DOT Rail-Highway Crossing Safety Action Plan
that presented a multi-faceted, multi-modal approach for improving
safety at our Nation's highway-rail crossings. The 55 individual
proposals taken together represent a comprehensive Departmental effort
that has elevated highway-rail crossing safety across the Modal
Administrations to deal with this important issue.
The Department's Grade Crossing Safety Task Force, designed to
complement the ongoing work of the Action Plan and to further the
Department's goals, will address issues beyond the scope of the Action
Plan. Through the Grade Crossing Safety Task Force, the Department will
investigate and assess the decisionmaking and coordination processes,
and safety aspects pertaining to the planning, design, construction,
maintenance, operation, and inspection of highway-rail grade crossings.
Following this assessment, the Task Force will develop recommendations
and submit them to the Secretary.
Participants: From the Department of Transportation, the Federal
Railroad Administration (FRA), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA),
Federal Transit Administration (FTA), and the National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration (NHTSA) will be members of the Task Force. The
Associate Deputy Secretary of Transportation will serve as its
Chairman. Each member agency will select one representative and one
alternate to serve as delegates to the Task Force on grade crossing
issues. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), an independent
Federal agency, also will participate as a Task Force member.
Representative will attend regular meetings and participate in
necessary assignments. A ``Blue Ribbon'' Working Group consisting of
people with expertise in the use or design of railroad grade crossings
will be established to assist the Task Force by providing additional
information.
Key Issues: The accidents and deaths at highway-rail grade
crossings continue to be a problem nationwide. The Rail-Highway
Crossing Safety Action Plan addresses some aspects of these issues,
however, questions remain concerning the level of planning coordination
and review of safety considerations associated with grade crossings.
The Task Force will examine these questions as they relate to five
potential problem areas:
1. Interconnected (Pre-empted) signals. Highway traffic signals
along roadways in close proximity to rail crossings which are triggered
by oncoming trains.
2. Storage. The roadway space allotted for vehicles stopped between
a road intersection and nearby railroad tracks.
3. High-profile crossings. Junctions at which railroad tracks are
elevated above the crossing roadway surface, thus requiring vehicular
traffic to pass over a ``hump'' and exposing the vehicles to the risk
of getting ``hung-up'' on the tracks.
4. Light rail transit crossings. This most prevalent type of newly
constructed highway-rail grade crossing also lacks standards for
crossing design, warning devices, and traffic control measures.
5. Inclusion of grade crossing information in the permit process
for slow, low, and other special vehicles including oversized and
overweight vehicles whose route crosses a railroad right-of-way.
The NTSB recently issued a Class I Urgent Recommendation requesting
the States to identify all highway/railroad grade crossings where
control of a highway traffic signal is preempted by train movements and
to take corrective action where sufficient time is not provided to
clear vehicles stopped on the tracks before the train arrives at the
crossing. As a result, an inventory of highway-rail crossings which
have interconnected signals will be compiled by the FRA using input
from the NTSB, the States and the railroads.
Technology shows promise for enhancing safety in these areas.
However, technology alone will not solve the problem. Therefore, the
focus of the Task Force will not be on the various technologies which
could serve as solutions to prevent accidents at the highway-rail
crossings. Rather, the Task Force will concentrate on the
decisionmaking processes which result in the construction and
maintenance of the grade crossing infrastructure. In order to
accomplish this, the Task Force will specifically address the
following:
1. Federal, State, local, and industry standards, criteria and
guidelines governing the planning, design, construction,
maintenance, operation and use of highway-rail grade crossings and
the effectiveness of these regulations and standards.
2. Planning, design, construction, maintenance, operation, and
inspection decisionmaking processes for grade crossings.
3. The construction and reconstruction/alteration approval and
periodic review processes, including coordination among the various
levels of government and with the private sector.
4. The decisionmaking and procedural processes for defining
acceptable crossing design and warning device design.
Task Force Activities: The Task Force will hold regularly scheduled
meetings. In order to keep a timely work flow and to meet any schedules
and deadlines, ad hoc meetings may be called to address issued and
problems that need immediate discussion and resolution.
To determine where decisionmaking and coordination can be improved,
the Task Force will review technical reports on planning, engineering,
operations, maintenance, and inspection practices associated with
highway-rail crossings. The objective of this Task Force effort is not
to summarize the considerable body of literature that already exists on
highway-rail crossing safety, but to identify gaps that might exist in
standard-setting, system engineering and multidisciplinary reviews. The
Task Force may create subgroups of Federal employees which would be
asked to draft issue-specific working papers that can serve as the
basis for the final report to the Secretary on March 1, 1996.
The Task Force will be involved in outreach to the transportation
community through:
1. Publication of this Federal Register notice which outlines
the Task Force activities and seeks written public comments and
suggestions.
2. Creation of a dedicated FAX number and Internet address to
allow the general public to submit comments to the task force.
3. Holding public meetings with State transportation officials,
local community representatives, and others (such as the general
public, industry groups, and safety organizations) to gain stake-
holder input on grade crossing issues. Three public outreach
meetings will be scheduled nationwide at locations representative of
the potential problem areas listed above.
4. Create a ``Blue Ribbon'' Working Group comprised of diverse
public and private sector entities that has relevant experience and
expertise to provide specialized information that will assist the
Task Force in its efforts to investigate and improve the safety of
highway-rail grade crossings.
Final Product and Timeframe: The Task Force will submit a report to
the Secretary that gives an overview of the
[[Page 58720]]
highway-rail grade crossing issues and problems along with any
recommendations on how to solve any construction decision-making and
safety problems that may be identified. The report must be submitted by
March 1, 1996.
Issued this 22nd day of November, 1995, in Washington, D.C.
Michael P. Huerta,
Associate Deputy Secretary and Director, Office of Intermodalism.
[FR Doc. 95-29132 Filed 11-27-95; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-62-P-M
