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Rail crossing safety signals failed to activate earlier this month at the intersection of 56th Street and Flushing Avenue.
By Forum Staff
Two borough congresswomen recently sent a letter to the Federal Railroad Administration urging an inspection of the highway-rail crossings in Maspeth after signals failed to activate earlier this month at the intersection of 56th Street and Flushing Avenue.
“We write to express our grave concern about the safety of highway-rail crossings in the Maspeth neighborhood of Queens,” said U.S. Reps. Grace Meng (D-Flushing) and Nydia Velzquez (D-Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan) in their missive to FRA Acting Deputy Administrator Juan Reyes III.
According to Meng and Velazquez, on Sunday, Feb. 11, around 3:45 p.m., Christina Wilkinson, president of Citizens for a Better Maspeth, was walking down Flushing Avenue when a train barreled through the intersection of 56th Street and Flushing Avenue without the crossing signals activating or any rail personnel stopping traffic. Wilkinson reported this incident to City Councilman Bob Holden (D-Glendale).
As Meng and Velazquez noted, the intersection does not contain crossing gates, making operational signals essential for the safety of pedestrians and drivers in the area.
The Federal Railroad Administration must immediately send an inspector to investigate the highway-rail crossings in Maspeth after this dangerous incident,” Meng said. “There is a history of crossing gate and signal malfunctions in the Maspeth community, and the FRA must investigate these issues with all due haste.”
This most-recent incident follows a July 2015 accident in which a freight train blasted a tractor-trailer at the Maspeth Avenue and Rust Street crossing due to gate and signal malfunctions.
