Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Train-Car Accident Leaves Driver Injured

A woman who had just dropped her child off at an elementary school was broadsided by a train as she drove her mini-van in Spokane Valley today. According to the Spokesman-Review (whom I stole the picture above from), Maria L. Walsh, 44, is in critical condition after being airlifted from the crash scene at Arden Road south of Wellesley Avenue.

The intersection is closed while emergency personnel investigate. A detective said visibility around the crossing, which is marked only by stop signs, was good, and drugs and alcohol don’t appear to be a factor.

So how many train-versus-car or train-versus-pedestrian accidents has there been this year? Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three or four, and I'm sure there's more.

The construction of proposed 'Bridging the Valley' (BTV) projects would help to prevent these kinds of accidents, by seperating cars and people from trains at crossings. BTV is a series of projects in the 42 mile corridor between Spokane and Athol, Idaho. Here's more info on Bridging the Valley. Now the main hangup in getting these projects built is the usual one- lack of funding. We're working on that though and will keep you updated.

By the way, the Havana Street Bridge project that is already underway is the first BTV project to be constructed.

2 comments:

vanillajane said...

Athol? WHAT is that?

SRTC Staff said...

Yeah, that's most people's reaction to Athol.


About SRTC

SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.

SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.