52°
Baton Rouge, Louisiana
7 Day Forecast
Follow our weather team on social media

The town Addis debates whether or not to add a rail-road crossing guard

5 years 7 months 1 day ago Sunday, August 26 2018 Aug 26, 2018 August 26, 2018 10:23 PM August 26, 2018 in News
Source: WBRZ

ADDIS - The small town of Addis has A big decision to make, whether or not to add rail-road crossing guards.

Monica Oncale, lives in West Addis, a neighborhood that's behind the railroad tracks. She along with many residents in the neighborhood are not happy with the railroad tracks.

"With the horn, it's so loud, it'll make you jump. If you are in your house, and it's kind of quiet, it'll make you jump, Oncale said,

John O'Connor lives right next to the tracks and he also says he is tired of being up all night because of the sound of the trains and horns.

"The house shakes when they come through," O'Connor said.

O'Connor complains that the trains also block traffic for up to 30-minutes at a time.

"They have three crossings here. They all three blocked at the same time," O'Connor said.

Addis is like a hotbed for railroad activity, with a railroad car transfer station in the middle of town. It will cost 1.3-million dollars for Union Pacific's plans to put safety gates, and flashing lights, on four streets in Addis.

The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development will pay 30 percent of that cost, but it's up to Addis council members to decide if they want the railroad crossing guards or not.

Town officials say, if they reject the gates and lights, Addis could be held liable for any accidents that happen at the railroad crossings.

"I can understand with the reason is for doing that, but I don't really see it being necessary. It's not going to cut down on the noise level or multiple times of day that it passes," Oncale said.

Time is running out, and DOTD money for the railroad crossing guard, won't be available for much longer.

Railroad crossing item will be on Wednesday's council meeting's agenda.

More News

Desktop News

Click to open Continuous News in a sidebar that updates in real-time.
Radar
7 Days