Caution urged over West Street crossing plan

An e-mail from roads campaigner Mike Borrill reminds us that the recent tragedy on a railway level crossing near Spalding shows how dangerous these types of crossings can be.
"There is very little time between when the train activates the barriers and when it reaches the crossing," he writes.
"The train driver has only seconds to apply the brakes if the unforeseen happens - and even then a collision would be inevitable.
"Planning does not allow new crossings to be constructed when designing new roads and in these cases a bridge must be constructed.
"Over recent years many road/rail crossings which had been controlled by a crossing keeper have been replaced by automatic operations and only recently, the major crossing at High Street in Lincoln has been automated and is now controlled from the Lincoln Signalling Centre near to the university.
"In Boston we have the dreaded West Street crossing, which is signalman controlled ... but for how long?
"Possibly from Lincoln? The new Lincoln Centre has a capacity to take most of Lincolnshire.
"So now we have the possibility of an extra lane of traffic being routed over this crossing if Lincolnshire County Council - backed, of course by Boston Borough Council, who seem to "rubber stamp" everything that comes out of County Hall - approve.
"I know the response will be that trains using West Street go very slowly and the possibility of an accident are slim. But we should not even be considering this ... especially when it has been stated that the extra lane will not have any beneficial effect on the congestion in Boston.
"First we had the the case of buses being run through a pedestrian precinct (which, incidentally on a public consultation had over 90% against) but backed by Boston Borough Council even though a costly report on behalf of the council had emphasised that less pedestrian/vehicular conflict was required.
"Now this road scheme which will cause chaos appears to be gaining momentum, even though Boston Borough Council appears not to have sufficient funds to inject their part of the funding."

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