An Ottawa driver says a situation with a bus at a Barrhaven railway crossing Monday left her shaken.
Kayla Woelfle snapped a photo on Fallowfield in Ottawa’s south end of a railway crossing arm on top of an OC Transpo bus, very near the scene of that fatal crash 3 years ago. Woelfle says she believed for a moment the bus was going to hit the VIA train that passed by just a few feet away. OC Transpo says it is looking into this.
“I was freaking out; you should see what's happening.”
That was Kayla Woelfle's conversation with her father on her Bluetooth Monday afternoon when she watched in horror, she says, as a VIA train rumbled by an OC Transpo bus. She snapped a photo of the railway crossing arm on top of the bus.
“What do I do?” she yelled into her phone, “I’m like, it’s going to happen all over again.”
Woelfle is referring to the collision in 2013 between an OC Transpo bus and a VIA train that killed six people.
“Our family knows someone who passed away in the original accident,” says Woelfle, “so it hits close to home.”
Woelfle contacted OC Transpo that day, sending her photo along as well.
OC Transpo responded to Woelfle saying it does not condone actions that may compromise anyone's safety and that her complaint is being reviewed and investigated.
No one from OC Transpo was available to go on camera but in a statement, Jocelyne Bégin, the chief of Transit Strategic Services with OC Transpo said, “The safety and security of Transit customers and staff is our number one priority. As soon as we were made aware of the situation, Transit Services launched an internal investigation. At present, the investigation into this occurrence is still on-going.”
Another driver who contacted us says he, too, was at that light that same day, that it turned green, then red moments before the railway signal came on.
“The bus just started to get going and immediately stopped once the lights came on and didn't make the dangerous decision to continue driving through,” Dave wrote to CFRA’s Bill Carroll, “The bus had no chance to make it through the intersection so he did the smart thing and stopped well before the rail tracks.”
Still, other drivers in the area question what's going on.
"I’ve lived here for thirty years,” says Barry Morris, “and until the last couple years, there have never been any incidents with the crossing so I don't know what's happening with education and these drivers. This shouldn’t happen,” he says, referring to Woelfle’s photo.
"I think it's a major problem and they're going to have to fix it somehow,” adds driver John Chilvers.
In light of the 2013 crash, the Transportation Safety Board has recommended a grade separation in 3 areas of Barrhaven. The city and VIA are studying the feasibility of that.
