Editorial: Make rail crossings smarter, safer

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Updated: February 19, 2012 8:14AM

Metra employs plenty of engineers, the kind who drive trains.

But we’ve got a new Metra job for another kind of engineer, the kind who knows how to design ever-more safe and efficient railroad crossings.

Last fall, state Sen. Matt Murphy, a Republican from Palatine, introduced a bill that would allow commuters to ignore flashing lights and cross one track to get to a train waiting on another. He was responding to complaints from people who think they should be able to make up their own minds about when it’s safe to do so.

Bad idea. Even after years of educating the public to obey flashing lights and crossing gates, some people don’t get the message and are regularly killed by trains. Introduce the concept of flashing lights as nothing more than a general recommendation, and even more people will die.

But Murphy is on to something when he says it is absurd — a complaint he hears all the time — that commuters are not allowed to walk a mere eight feet to board a train on another track when clearly there is no second train in sight.

“There is a price to be paid when more people think more laws are absurd,” he said.

Metra already has begun redesigning warning systems at some stations to alert commuters when there is more than one train in the area. That solves the problem of people thinking the gates are down for one train and not noticing a second until it’s too late. There might be a similar solution to the problem Murphy is addressing.

Murphy’s bill may well go nowhere, but it will have served a purpose if it pushes Metra to look for a way to make crossings safer and more commuter-friendly.