City of Danville personnel, before and after Tuesday (Jan 13th) evening’s City Council Public Works Committee meeting, spoke of the current railroad crossing study being conducted; with a $400,000 State Planning Research Grant, with Danville paying 20%, at $80,000.
Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr says those criticizing the city and saying “use $400,000 for something else,” need to understand that that’s not how it works.
AUDIO: It cannot be used for other funds. It can’t be used for the homeless. It can’t be used for the roads. But I do get lots of people that complain about being stopped by trains. Essentially; this will tell us how often are people actually getting stopped, and is there anything we can do to help divert people and save them some time.
Community Development Administrator Logan Cronk says this may not lead to something major like the Fairchild Street overpass, but it could lead to some other fine tuning.
AUDIO: Other, much more affordable options, that are going to be discussed and studied throughout this. There could be digital boards, where pedestrians can choose to go left instead or right, to avoid a train that they can’t see down the road. Options like that will be looked into.
Mayor Williams had some other examples.
AUDIO: Let’s say that we find on Bowman and Voorhees that we’re getting a lot of people stuck there. This study might be able to recommend to us, “hey, if we put signs there, we have an app that tells people ‘you’re gonna be stuck on this spot for five, ten, fifteen minutes;’ it’ll give them an opportunity to divert.” That’ll also not only save, our citizens, but it could also save our businesses time and money as well.
The study is scheduled to run through this coming fall.
