On Duff Avenue when the crossing gates block traffic, the red lights start to flash and the sound of a train comes roaring through downtown Ames, the cars start to line up.

For six minutes, drivers wait impatiently as the train rolls through the intersection at 40 miles an hour. Drivers on the south side of the tracks turn their cars around at the nearby Kum and Go hoping to avoid a delay while drivers on the north side unhappily either wait out the train or make a mad dash on to Fifth Street.

Eventually, the arms return to a vertical standpoint and, much to the relief of the drivers, traffic is free to move at last.

This is a typical scene on Duff Avenue, just north of Lincoln Way and south of Fifth Street. Residents are used to the wait, and they should be — it happens 66 times a day.

The intersection is not only a hassle, it’s also dangerous.

According to a study by the Iowa Department of Transportation in December 2002, the Duff Avenue rail crossing ranks second in the state in predicted accidents along the Union Pacific Corridor.

There are a total of 320 crossings along the corridor. The Duff Avenue crossing received a score of 0.1184, falling second to an intersection in Woodbine with a score of 0.1245.

The predicted accident ratings are based on a formula that takes into account the number of cars and trains, accident history, the type of road surface and the incline of the road.

The Duff intersection also ranks No. 1 in the state in terms of exposure and delay time.

Craig O’Riley, transportation planner for the DOT, said exposure is calculated using the traffic volume and train volume and speed. Duff Avenue’s exposure rating was 809,100. Sixty-six trains go through the intersection at 40 miles per hour and 14,500 cars cross the tracks each day, he said.

According to the DOT study, delay time at Duff Avenue is estimated to be six minutes per train. This figure is similar to the two other Ames crossings that made the DOT’s 10 highest delay times.

The Dayton Avenue crossing delays vehicles by 5.7 minutes and Clark Avenue by 5.1 minutes. Delay time is measured in the amount of time cars have to wait for a train to pass through the intersection — from the time the crossing arms go down until they go back up again.

The DOT study found that Ames has 15 rail intersections, six of which are at-grade crossings and nine separations. The other crossings are located on North Dakota Avenue, Hazel Avenue, Clark Avenue, Kellogg Avenue and on ISU property.

Exposure ratings for these intersections range from 4,200 to 290,160, well under half of the Duff Avenue exposure rating.

Predicted accident calculations for these five at-grade intersections range from 0.0138 to 0.0522. Compared to Duff Avenue, with a rating of 0.1184, these intersections are not nearly as dangerous.

Paul Wiegand, public works director for the City of Ames, said his office felt a need to look at what could be done at the intersection and the cost of different alternatives.

“We’ve had 18 accidents in the past 20 years, and the number of vehicles going on Duff and the number of trains have given the crossing the number one ranking in accident prediction,” he said.

Of those 18 accidents, eight have been fatal, Wiegand said.

According to a City of Ames study, of the seven fatalities listed in the report (the eighth fatality occurred in December 2002 when a hearing-impaired bicyclist was struck by a train), four of the incidents involved pedestrians crossing the tracks. Drivers who drove around the crossing gate caused the three other fatalities.

Mike Clayton, district one planner for the DOT and a member of the city project committee, said the city decided to go ahead with the study because in the past several years they had surveyed the public and determined the Duff Avenue rail crossing is the biggest concern with the public.

Clayton said the objective of the study was to determine “what we can do to make this better.”

Judie Hoffman, Ames City Council member at-large, said the public works department and HWS Consulting Group from Omaha, Neb., looked at ways to alleviate the problem at the rail crossing.

The city report gave the City Council four options to consider.

An inner-city loop connecting Lincoln Way and 13th Street with a separate rail crossing one-half mile east of Duff Avenue was suggested to divert 2,000 to 3,000 vehicles per day.

According to the staff report, “This level is not significant in addressing the crossing problem since the current traffic on Duff Avenue exceeds 15,000 vehicles per day, especially when the cost of $18 million is taken into account.”

A minimal build option calls for the construction of a northbound turn lane on Duff Avenue at Main Street.

“[The turn lane] would help clear out the area,” Clayton said.

The report states this option was not recommended because it “does not address the safety and delay concerns because the at-grade railroad crossing remains. It only helps the northbound traffic queue move through the Main Street intersection quicker after the train clears the crossing.”

Wiegand said the city staff felt the appropriate thing to do was to build an underpass and separate the rail crossing from the tracks.

“To have a safe crossing, we felt there should be a separate crossing and the underpass was the best option,” he said.

The final option was to do nothing, which leaves the crossing as is.

According to the City Council minutes from Feb. 25, Mike Gorman, consultant at HWS Consulting Group, presented the report to the City Council and recommended the underpass option because “it was the only way to address the public safety and delay problems.”

Gorman also said at the meeting the city could apply for federal “earmark” funds, which would cover 80 percent of the project’s cost.

Hoffman said the city would still need to pay more than $3 million with the help of federal funding.

The City Council unanimously voted for the “do nothing” option.

The city had a lot of public meetings and initially there was a big push to improve the crossing, but once the city received preliminary estimates general feedback from the public was against construction, Hoffman said.

“[The council] felt spending millions of dollars wasn’t worth it if it’s not a priority of the people,” she said.

Hoffman said another reason the council voted to do nothing was because construction would be very disruptive to businesses in downtown Ames.

“Small businesses are fragile and if people don’t have easy access [to the businesses] then their profit margin goes down and some businesses might have to close,” she said.

Wiegand said business people were concerned about access to downtown Ames during and after construction.

“They prevailed,” he said.

Hoffman said the only way she would change her vote was if there were a big increase in the traffic load on Duff Avenue.

Until that happens, the city is looking at other options to alleviate the traffic strain around Duff Avenue and Lincoln Way, including extending Grand Avenue south of Lincoln Way to see how much traffic is diverted away from Duff Avenue.

“It’s in the capital improvements plan for the next five years,” Hoffman said.

She said the council is also waiting to see what the effects of the overpass on Dayton Avenue has on Duff’s traffic volume.

Although Wiegand said he feels the crossing is a dangerous intersection, any construction will be eliminated from consideration until the council decides it wants to look into the issue further.

“At this point nothing will be done,” he said.