I support those camera’s at all of those railroad crossings.

I don’t care if you call it revenue generating and someone else calls it safety measures.

I have seen two incidents in the past year, where cars crossed the tracks when the gates were down, and narrowly missed getting hit. Those jerks should be fined.

You call it ‘Big Brother’; but unless your not using credit cards, Ipasses, internet, mobile smart phones, library cards, blogging, etc., you are already being tracked in some fashion or another.

You can’t get off the grid without having to significantly work at it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Pretty big talk from somebody who makes his/her comments anonymously.

All the “safety” cameras in the world won’t stop a full-speed train from smashing into a car whose driver assumed he could beat the gates…

EDITOR’S NOTE: And for 15 years or more, that hasn’t happened.

Thank you!!!

William Eich

EDITOR’S NOTE: You’re welcome.

The first anonymous commenter also isn’t that good at grammar.

If safety is the priority, why doesn’t Metra or Union Pacific just install them at their own expense? The issue is rail safety, not public safety.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Now FWT, let’s not be picky: grammar is the least of his/her problems.

First of all, even though no accidents have occurred at the aforementioned railroad crossing, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t install cameras. You don’t need to have an incident or accident where someone is hurt or killed before you increase the safety of the crossing.

Second, if you don’t believe cameras actually make it safer, and the data backs you up, fine. I don’t know what the data would indicate; however, if a person has to pay a hefty fine for driving over the tracks when the gates are down, they might think twice about doing it again. I know money out of my pocket affects my decisions; maybe it does for others too.

Third, I like this idea of the City generating revenue for catching drivers in the act of doing something illegal. I have no problem with the police stopping folks for running stop signs. I have no problem with a camera taking pictures of cars that drive around crossing gates that are down when a train is coming.

Finally, just because I don’t agree with the blogger on this issue, doesn’t mean that debate or comments should be stifled.
The blogger may feel it is a ‘Big Brother’ situation. I disagree. We can agree that we disagree without insulting each other or casting disparaging comments.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If there have been NO accidents, how can you make it any safer?

If you “like this idea of the City generating revenue for catching drivers in the act of doing something illegal,” why not put cameras at EVERY intersection that has a signal or stop sign? And while you’re at it, why not video jaywalkers, too?

We reserve our right to insult and disparage abject stupidity and/or ignorance, especially when it hides itself behind anonymity. If that stifles you, too bad – our blog, our rules.

There was an accident and the Greenwood crossing some years back and with all the inncidents that we hear of people going around RR crossing gates, why wait for another tragity?

Though I agree that the UP souldn’t expect the town to install cameras.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Mike, “an incident…some years back” doesn’t quite cut it. And it that’s the standard by which we measure the need for camera surveillance, then are you in favor of cameras at intersections that have had several “incidents” within the past 1, 2 or 5 years? If not, why not – is “safety” only important when it involves trains?

In response to Anon 4.12 5:54 pm:

If I understand your logic, cameras would not be a response to past accidents because there have been few or none. Instead, cameras would be a preventative measure against the possibility of future accidents.

I can accept that. What I don’t understand is why Metra just does not do it themselves. The City of Park Ridge does not need another thing to manage. That’s my point of view.

And I respect yours. Look, this blog may not be the most refined discussion forum, but the publisher can do what he or she wants. I find it interesting and informative. Please stick around and add to the variety.

Why do you have to write something negative about the officer who made a presentation? She is just doing her job. She doesn’t have anything to gain from this personally or professionally if the cameras do pass.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We don’t know what you were reading, but we wrote nothing negative about the officer. We did call her presentation a “dog-and-pony show” – which we believe it was.

Officer Kappler seems like a fine person, which is why we get a little annoyed when it looks to us like she (and other people like her) get sent in to shill for somebody else – in this case either the UP or the Chief’s Advisory Task Force?

In response to the 5th Ward Taxpayer, ‘thank you’; I respect your opinion, and the writer of this particular blog too.

In response to the blogger, I have never met you, and I don’t know much about you except for what I read on your blog. We may be neighbors, and I truly don’t know who you are.

Your blog, your rules, I understand that. You allow comments to be posted without identifying who we are, and I am grateful.

Finally, I am actually appreciative for the writing and the work that the blogger posts regarding Park Ridge’s various governmental institutions. It is wonderful that someone pays attention to all of these details. I enjoy reading this blog, so ‘excellent work’.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The identity of the editor/proprietor of this blog has never been a secret; and it has become even more well known in the past year or so, thanks to former mayor Howard Frimark, Alds. Jim Smith and Tom Bernick and, most recently, Pioneer Press writer Natasha Wasinski. But we believe the facts, opinions and ideas of the posts and the comments are more important than the identity of the editor or the commentators, which is why we operate the way we do.

TJ would have used the cameras to keep track of us his slaves.

He would have liked cameras all over the place as far as you know.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If one considers freedom from camera surveillance a form of “liberty,” we’re pretty certain TJ (and Franklin, and Madison, et al.) wouldn’t be a fan of Crossing Cam.

I wish I had the bubble wrap concession for Park Ridge so that all these Nervous Nellies could wrap themselves up and never even stub their toes.

“Freedom from camera surveillance a form of liberty…”, slaves didn’t have liberty nor freedom. He would have supported camera surveillance.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Even by your standard (unless we’re missing some underground slave trade here in our sleepy burg), TJ wouldn’t support Crossing Cam for all these white folk.

I don’t know of any successful businesses that don’t do some sort of prototyping or testing before investing their dollars in a new venture… but here we have a huge venture (Park Ridge and its finances) without any testing going into whether or not real and important revenue is going to be generated by such devices as traffic cameras.
If the camera companies are so certain that their installations are going to be either safety or revenue positive, why not have them prove it with pre-testing. That is, let them install a camera, let it run for a specific interval, and determine whether or not the income to the city meets a reasonable standard of performance. Frankly, considering the speed trap that Niles regularly runs at the Tam on Sibley/Howard (they get you going both ways there… a nicely proven city revenue source) and the many other trap areas one could name in surrounding burgs, I would bet that speed cameras would be a better revenue producer by far than crossing cameras or red light cameras.
As I say, let’s test for the best result.
Let’s get a camera vendor to set up a trial speed camera on Touhy. In fact, let’s set up several trial cameras on Touhy and other places where we know speeds are regularly over the limit, and see what kind of revenue we can get. Then, if the profit levels seem high enough, we can contract for a long term run of the things.
We could even make it Park-Ridge-resident-friendly by publishing the camera locations locally, and just nailing the out-of-towners.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Before the City installs any more cameras, we’d like to hear a City Council policy debate on both safety and revenue concerns. We have seen a number of studies that don’t correlate red-light and speed cameras with safety, but there is no dispute that they do raise revenue.

if going around he gates is the problem, why not fix the problem??? install a gating system that closes off both sides of the roadway, on both sides of the tracks.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We have to hand it to you, anonymous – that would appear to solve the problem of the occasional motorist viewing the current system of railroad crossing gates as a slalom event. So the question that raises is: Why haven’t the RRs or the City thought of it?

PD and 7:27:

Unless I am mistaken what follows is the answer to your question……Ya see, there are times that a vehicle is either on the tracks or about to hit the tracks when the gates begin to fall. This has happened to me and I cannot believe I am the only one. If what you suggest were put in place either the gate would hit a persons car and/or the person would be forced to break through the gate to get off the tracks to avoid being hit by the train.

EDITOR’S NOTE: So are you saying that the current slalom-inducing crossing-gate configuration actually increases crossing safety? Do you think you should have been ticketed for crossing-gate slalom?

I am saying that if you had four gates that closed you would pinch some folks between the gates who were not in any way trying to run the gates or break the law. I suppose they could put some sort of a time delay on the second gate. I would also seem to me that they would not want to close off all areas in the event someone was stuck and trying to escape, althought I would leave that to you – you are the lawyer.

As to whether I should have been ticketed, I would say no. I did not slalom. I was starting to cross the tracks when the when the bells went off and the two gates, my lane behind my car and the oncoming lane to my left, began to go down as I continued across the tracks. If there was a gate in front of me what the poster suggests) going down it would have struck my car.

The only way the existing gates are slalom-inducing is if a person decides they are purposly going to drive around a gate into the other lane while the gate is already down. In other words they decided they were going to break the law and if they are cought they should be ticketed.

EDITOR’S NOTE: As far as legal liability goes, we would leave things just the way they are now: gates as is, no Crossing Cam.

If the police want to ticket, they can go out there and ticket. If somebody runs the gates when nobody’s there to ticket them, then either they’ll get away with it or the train will hit them. Since no train has hit a car at that crossing for at least 15 years, the crossing already seems safer than many of Park Ridge’s intersections, including 6-corners, Dee & Oakton, etc.