Cuomo signs bill requiring study of New York's grade crossings

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo late last week signed the Rail Safety Act of 2016, which will require the New York State Department of Transportation to study all of the state's 5,300 grade crossings.

The study will be aimed at determining safety improvements that must be made to prevent future collisions at the crossings.

Passed by the state's Senate in May and Assembly in March, the bill was drafted in part to address crossing safety following a serious February 2015 collision between a MTA Metro-North Railroad train and vehicle in Valhalla, N.Y., that caused six fatalities and injured 15.

"With the passage of this bill, the [state] Department of Transportation now has the tools to undertake a comprehensive study of rail grade crossings throughout the state to ensure problem crossings are improved or, if necessary, removed," New York Sen. David Carlucci (D-Clarkstown) — one of the bill's sponsors — said in a press release issued earlier this year.