LEVINE
IS SELECTED TO HEAD CROSSING TO SAFETY
The Towpath
Saturday, October 20, 2001
By: Brigette Barnes -- Towpath Writer
The Angels on Track
Foundation -- a non-profit entity with the mission to provide
funding and knowledge in support of improved protection devices
at railroad crossings in Ohio -- has created an education
subsidiary known as Crossing to Safety (CTS).
Directing CTS will
be Dr. Harvey A. Levine, a transportation consultant with
more than 34 years of experience in railroad matters, including
railroad crossing policies, economics, and administration.
Under
the mantra "bad
crossings can kill good drivers," the goals of CTS are
to:
* Change the current
education practices, which among other inadequacies, blame
victims for almost all railroad-crossing accidents.
* Develop a railroad-crossing,
accident-causal data base which provides accurate data to
support both education and safety-improvement programs.
* Heighten the sense
of need and urgency among Ohio officials, to install automated
gates at the more than 4,000 non-gated, public railroad crossings
in the State.
*
Revamp the "Railroad
Grade Crossings" section of the Digest of Ohio Motor
Vehicle Laws so that it is more appealing, effective and
memorable.
"The need for
CTS is an outgrowth of our experience in helping to fund
the installation of crossing gates and working with individual
counties throughout Ohio developing railroad safety task
forces," said Canal Fulton resident Vicky Moore, who
with her husband, Dennis, founded Angels on Track.
"We
have found a public apathy that feeds ignorance and misinformation,"
she said.
"At the same
time, we recognize that Ohio has in place a fairly comprehensive
organizational structure which addresses railroad-crossing
safety," Moore said. "In this regard, CTS has been
initiated to supplement, rather than supplant, current education
efforts. We are excited about attracting someone with the
background, knowledge and national reputation of Dr. Levine
to head CTS."
Vicky
Moore also said that Dr. Levine has practical experience
as a railroad employee, a transportation consultant, a
public official with the Interstate Commerce Commission
and U.S. Department of Transportation and also for 18 years
he served as a vice president of the Association of American
Railroads ö the
railroad industry's major trade association.
He also has taught
at the university level and has testified before numerous
regulatory, judicial and legislative bodies, including the
United States Congress.
Levine
says he is joining The Angels on Track Foundation because, "it
provides a forum to institute needed changes in railroad-crossing
education which are patently obvious to those few people
who have studied the system."
"In that Ohio
seems to already have a head start over many other states
in terms of its public involvement in railroad-crossing safety," he
said, "I believe that with the changes CTS is advocating,
Ohio can become a model for the rest of the nation."
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