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A deadly New Jersey Transit train crash this week has renewed questions about Republican Governor Chris Christie's hard-nosed approach to a public transit funding crisis, even as he announced a compromise on Friday to pay for long-delayed construction projects. The timing of Friday's announcement seemed telling, despite the fact there is no reason yet to suspect a link between the crash and a lack of funding, said Brigid Callahan Harrison, a political science professor at Montclair State University.
According to the Washington State Department of Transportation, the roughly 1.5-mile segment of I-5 from state Highway 500 down to the state line during peak traffic hours is the most congested segment of road in the entire state. "About 89 percent of crashes on I-5 are due to congestion," said Dennis Mitchell, Region 1 traffic engineer for the Oregon Department of Transportation.
A train derailment along the Oregon and Washington border sparked a raging fire that sent massive black plumes of smoke in the air on Friday afternoon. Eleven rail cars from a 96-car Union Pacific train carrying crude oil derailed, causing at least one train car to catch fire, Union Pacific representative Aaron Hunt said.