This is really serious. Please reconsider their contract. The company is not vetting employees. Every driver knows you stop for a train.

Aren’t they supposed to stop at the tracks even when a train isn’t necessarily coming?!!

Is there a visual obstruction like foliage requiring the driver to inch forward to see down the tracks? Also, the FTA must be contacted to investigate this incident.

Ya they’re supposed to slow well before the tracks, stop and look both ways.

What happened here? Inattentive driver? Brake failure? Poorly trained driver? Bad crossing layout?

I don't think you can blame a "poorly trained driver." This is Driver's Ed 101 that you learn in high school. You always stop at train crossings. That's why I said they are not vetting their employees, not that they are not training them.

I agree that the most likely scenario is driver error owing to a porous vetting process. Last I heard in these it’s hard to get drivers on austere municipal budgets.

Thank you for reporting your concern to City of Cambridge via SeeClickFix. We have reviewed the information you provided our staff and will be investigating this issue further.

https://www.cambridgema.gov/shermanstreethighwayrailgradecrossingupgrades

There is zero sightline for a stopped school bus to look down the tracks for an oncoming train here without moving forward to look. You need to drive past the gates to peer down the track and by chance a train was approaching. You can’t say without an investigation and interviews if the driver failed to stop. Clearly the driver did stop and wasn't hit by the train.

A quiet zone is not appropriate at this crossing.

https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/Traffic/shermanstreetrailcrossingdocuments/usdotasmapprovalletterof112619forshermanstrailroadcrossing.pdf

@freddy: quiet zone or not, and sight lines or not, the flashing red lights are supposed to be on early enough to warn drivers, not just of cars but of large vehicles like school buses, to stay out of the path, not only of oncoming trains, but of the dropping gate/ barrier. The reason for such lights and and gates, at least as I understood it in what Anonymous described as Driver's Ed 101, is precisely so that drivers don't have to drive past the gates to look down the tracks to see if something is coming and whether they can beat it across the tracks before it arrives. If there were no lights and no gate, then the responsibility would rest with the driver to stop and stop in a place were they could look. But, with the intersection/crossing pictured the school bus ended up past the flashing lights and with the gate arm resting on it, either the lights and gate are improperly timed to keep vehicles away from the tracks when a train is approaching, or there was some problem with the bus driver's decisions and behavior.

The most obvious possible problem involved deciding to try to get past the crossing before the train arrived, looking, seeing the train, and, fortunately, changing their minds and stopped just short of the tracks. There are other possibilities and, as you point out, only a serious investigation can determine what happened (possibly including whether a train passing through that part of Cambridge blowing its horn and/or whistle might have made any difference.

But I have trouble figuring out what the quiet zone has to do with this if, for whatever reason, the driver ended up past the signs and flashing red lights with the gate on top of the bus.

Did person who reported this see the bus go through the flashing lights and bells before the gate fell, or did they come upon the scene and presume that’s what happened?

Sorry, last thing. The reporter said the bus failed to stop for the train, but did they witness the train fail to stop for the signal?

This issue was recategorized from Other to Traffic Enforcement - Police (Internal).

City of Cambridge assigned this issue to Police - FC

I hope Traffic Enforcement isn’t misled by circumstantial evidence and that they do refer this to MBTA Keolis and the DOT / FRA