Grade-crossing elimination foundered on cost, railroad power, and divided agency responsibility

Evidence

Smith wanted to eliminate grade crossings, the thousands of intersections on the same level of roads and railroad tracks that every year caused not only delays to motorists but deaths running into the hundreds. Other Governors had had the same desire, but the sheer cost of the job—the simplest elimination, in open countryside, cost $60,000—put it beyond the traditional scope of state expenditures. And the subservience of the Republican legislators to the railroads had insured that the railroads would not be forced to pay. Each year, as a gesture, the Legislature would appropriate the funds for a handful of crossing eliminations, but, because of division of responsibility among the many state agencies involved, even these were generally not completed. Smith asked Moses to look into the situation. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 617

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Cost-sharing revenue-bond financing made mass grade-crossing elimination possible — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 618