Selectmen met with officials from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to discuss safety concerns that the Board had over the railroad crossing on County Road.
The crossing will be used by the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority’s newly announced commuter rail, which will run between Middleboro and Hyannis.
At last week’s Selectmen’s meeting, officials voiced concerns over the lack of warning markers and the ineffectiveness of the gates that are currently in place there. The train would travel through Rochester at 59 miles per hour, and the Board said that there are two dangerous S-curves on both sides of the crossing that will be very dangerous unless better safety measures are taken.
Ron Nickle, the Chief Safety Officer of MBTA, was present Monday, and he said that a team would be going to the site tomorrow to assess it and decide exactly what safety measures will be taken.
“We assess each grade crossing and see what the risk factors are,” said Nickles. “We determine the acceptability and unacceptability of the risk factor. We have teams going out tomorrow to do that.”
Nickle said that any changes to the site would be completed by June or July at the latest, and if there were changes that were not made in time for the opening of the rail, then they would reduce the speed of the train to 30 miles per hour until they are complete. The Hyannis to Middleboro train is scheduled to start operation on May 24.
“It’s a major thruway coming off that highway to these communities,” Town Administrator Richard LaCamera said. “It’s a concern. It really doesn’t conform with today’s safety standards as far as the commuter rail is concerned.”
By Nick Walecka
