15 Million Dollars Upgrade Will Ease Traffic Bottle-Necks and Improve Safety at the Pitt School-Porter UPRR/Amtrak Intersection in Dixon
15 Million Dollars Upgrade Will Ease Traffic Bottle-Necks and Improve Safety at the Pitt School-Porter UPRR/Amtrak Intersection in Dixon
Exclusive Report By Ben Edokpayi, Staff Writer ©
Word Count 1141!
When Union Pacific Freight and Amtrak Passenger Trains pass through Dixon It is not uncommon for traffic on First Street and the Pitt School and Porter road intersections to be snarled for durations that sometimes last up to 15 minutes.
As it happened last month during lunch hour traffic, just before a UPRR and Amtrak National Strike was averted after President Joe Biden waded into the negotiations.
“The tentative agreement reached tonight is an important win for our economy and the American people, said the White House in a statement that added “ It is a win for tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic to ensure that America’s families and communities got deliveries of what have kept us going during these difficult years. These rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs: all hard-earned.”
“The agreement is also a victory for railway companies who will be able to retain and recruit more workers for an industry that will continue to be part of the backbone of the American economy for decades to come,” said the White House In A Statement About The Historic Pact.
Days before the important railroad pact, and as we sat in traffic held up for about 15 minutes by a UPRR train, the driver of a public transport bus said “ Imagine an emergency at the Library, the most popular spot for convergence in town, how would the Fire Department meet the required response time?”
By our estimation if such an emergency were to occur it may take longer to respond which would of course be disastrous. Fortunately such a disaster has never and hopefully will never happen.
Especially now that construction work has started on the Parkway Boulevard grade separation.
When contacted about decades-long plans for an overhead railway bridge through downtown Dixon, Solano Transportation Authority (STA) Executive Director Daryl Halls and Dixon Community Development Director Raffi Boloyan did not provide a timeline as well as statistics on railroad crossing fatalities in the county for the past decade.
In 2012, at the Porter and Pitt School Railroad intersection an accident occured at the location of current upgrade work. Two people died and three others were injured in that accident.
A year after that in June 2013 a Capitol Corridor train killed a Vacaville Man at West A Street in Dixon. In 2017 a Sacramento Man Boylon Nesby, 35, was killed by an Amtrak train in Vacaville and soon after that Rita Biagas, 56, from Lancaster was killed when a Capitol Corridor Amtrak train 521 collided with her stationery car at the Pitt School and Porter Road intersection.
Since then there have been at least five railroad intersection fatalities in Solano, the most recent one on November 30, 2021; involved a female trespasser who was hit by Amtrak train 524 near the Central Self Storage facility in Fairfield at the Intersection of Sunset Avenue and East Travis Boulevard.
This uptick in rail road accidents in Solano County emphasizes the importance of the Parkway Boulevard Grade Separation Project
The key safety project In Dixon will improve Parkway Boulevard from Valley Glen Drive to Pitt School Road.
The $15.8M project, which has been a priority for the City of Dixon since 1997, will construct a new 4-lane roadway and a new overcrossing of UPRR & Porter Road, as well as widened shoulders and reconstruction of the roadway on Pitt School Road from south of Hillview Drive to Porter Road. Construction activity is currently at a frenetic pace at the project site.
Important Historical Perspective from the DR on the Importance of Freight Rail Service Through Solano. https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/solano-county/solano-looks-at-future-of-freight-rail/
An unidentified and obviously disoriented woman, sources say from the Niger Delta area, is seen on a Rail Track in Northern Nigeria, most likely in Abuja, FCT (Federal Capital Territory) or Kano State. Not sure how or why she got there, posed there or what the intent is. Fortunately she was not hit by a train, sources say. But certainly a risky venture. Safety lead for Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Railway Corporation, NRC, and Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC. https://www.npf.gov.ng/ https://nrc.tps.ng/ https://frsc.gov.ng/ Aerial view and reports of rail crash scenes from Solano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkrTHZ4-lHs https://fox40.com/news/local-news/fatal-pedestrian-vs-amtrak-collision-in-vacaville/
This ballad was written in 2014 (and posted verbatim) for a brother killed in a collision with a train. My brother and friends were headed for tennis practice in Kano. He was in the back seat and two friends were in the front seat. The driver did not heed the horn from the approaching train and their car was hit on the side my brother was seated on. He was the only one that died in the 1985 accident.
Ode to Doctor Edward Okoro Edokpayi
“Your humility, comradeship and heartwarming brotherliness are indelible hallmarks.
Your achievements within your one score and five years in this mortal plane are
quintessential goals for us.
Your ever rosy visage and sparkling camaraderie will continue to be
everlasting bonds for us.
But Death, that inescapable checkmate of Life, chose an ironic June 24th to
untimely pluck you away from our view, touch and make us all bleary-eyed.
Leaving us with sour tastes and heavy hearts.
A barrier-less railway crossing in Kano, that ancient domain of contrasting
fortunes turned out to be the last crossroads of your star-struck life.
Your 365 days of service to the Nation dimmed like the Sun in the West.
Eddy, the family is still reeling from the shock of the incomprehensible news.
And the question is still why should it be now, when you were on the
threshold of fulfilling your Hippocratic Oath to mankind?
Only the Almighty God can provide the answers, and in this we take solace.
This poem was written by me in memory of my senior brother Dr. Edward Edokpayi (born in 1959) and killed in ’85 in a ghastly motor accident with a train in Kano after completing his Nigerian National Youth Service Corps (which is equivalent to the Peace Corps) as a medical doctor, is reposted here, especially for family and friends who never knew this outstanding, kind brother. https://www.nysc.gov.ng/
#TheGreatestHoaxEver #UsingInnocentDeadPeopleforasenselesspropaganda
Biden to press: ‘I’m not supposed to be answering all these questions
https://nypost.com/2021/05/13/biden-to-press-im-not-supposed-to-be-answering-all-these-questions/
Important FootNotE https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/22/politics/emmanuel-macron-democracy-threats/index.html
#FixinDixon.
