Destination frustration...Kenworth dump truck struck a 2011 Nissan Rogue stopped at the Inter-state...

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SUNDAY, AUGUST 27, 2017 $2.00fredericknewspost.com Vol. 134 No. 317 6 sections

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Destination frustrationHow scarcity of public transportation hurts county’s rural residents

By JEREMY [email protected]

The at-fault driver in a fatal fiery crash on Interstate 70 in January will not be charged, according to state documents obtained this week by The Frederick News-Post.

Shawn Darin Gill, 46, of Gaith-ersburg, was driving west on I-70 at about 9 a.m. Jan. 25 when his 2012 Kenworth dump truck struck a 2011 Nissan Rogue stopped at the Inter-

state 270 interchange, according to police. While a Maryland State Police crash reconstruction report indicated Gill’s distracted driving was a leading cause of the crash, prosecutors de-clined to pursue charges in a letter sent to the lead investigator July 24.

“We are unable to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Gill was grossly negligent in the operation of his motor vehicle,” Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Moore wrote in the letter. “Therefore, it is my opinion that

no criminal or traffic charges are war-ranted.”

The driver of the Nissan, 46-year-old Jacob “Jake” Jackson, was killed when the Nissan was pushed for-ward into the rear of a second dump truck stopped in front of him, caus-ing the Nissan to “instantly burst into flames,” according to a report ob-tained Thursday through a Maryland Public Information Act Request.

No charges after fatal crash in January

(See TRANSPORTATION A3)

By FRANK BAJAKAssociated Press

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Harvey spun deeper into Tex-as and unloaded extraordinary amounts of rain Saturday after the once-fearsome hurricane crashed

into vulnerable homes and busi-nesses along the coastline in a blow that killed at least one person and injured up to 14.

Throughout the region between Corpus Christi and Houston, many people feared that toll was only the beginning. Authorities did not

know the full scope of damage be-cause weather conditions prevent-ed emergency crews from get-ting into the hardest-hit places. And they dreaded the destruction that was yet to come from a storm that could linger for days and un-load more than 40 inches of rain

on cities, including dangerously flood-prone Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest.

In the island community of Port Aransas, population 3,800, officials were unable to fully survey the town because of “massive” dam-age. Police and heavy equipment

had only made it into the northern-most street.

“I can tell you I have a very bad feeling and that’s about it,” said Mayor Charles Bujan, who had called for a mandatory evacuation

In Harvey’s wake: Smashed homes, businesses in Texas

(See HARVEY A4)

One person died Jan.25 after a crash on westbound Interstate 70 near Interstate 270 in Frederick.

Staff file photo by Bill Green(See CRASH A4)

By NANCY [email protected]

Kemp Frazier held out a stuffed animal to the wail-ing 4-year-old beside him.

Frazier and his son, Caleb, stood outside the Frederick County TransIT center in downtown Freder-ick, red-faced and shirts darkened with circles of sweat

from the 90-degree August afternoon. As he attempted to soothe his son, Frazier gazed toward the street, searching for the Emmitsburg-bound shuttle that was supposed to arrive 15 minutes earlier.

Finally, the white bus emblazoned with the green TransIT logo rounds the corner and pulls up on South East Street.

The father and son boarded, along with a handful of others. Once inside the air-conditioned bus, Caleb stopped crying and silently clutched the stuffed animal to his face.

By the time the shuttle dropped them off on DePaul Street in Emmitsburg, it was 5:15 p.m., nearly 10 hours after Frazier left home that morning.

Without a car, that shuttle is the only way Frazier can get from Emmitsburg to his son’s day care in Spring Ridge. Which means what could be a one-hour round

trip by car instead takes the entire day.

He is not the only one for whom this is the case.

The Emmitsburg-Thur-mont shuttle runs twice dai-ly from Monday through Friday. There’s one trip that departs from downtown at 6:30 a.m. and a second at 4:15 p.m.

It’s the lowest level of service of TransIT Services of Frederick County’s shuttles and buses, according to Nancy Norris, the county’s transit division director.



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By comparison, riders who want to travel in and around the city of Frederick have nine different buses to choose from, some with multiple trips per hour.

The reason for the rela-tive lack of rural transpor-tation options has to do, in part, with funding, Norris said.

There are separate feder-al funds that pay for trans-portation service in the ur-ban and rural areas of the county.

Funding for rural trans-portation, from the Feder-al Transit Administration’s Formula Grants for Rural Areas, has remained flat for at least the last 15 years, Norris said. The $306,792 annual grant — a cost shared among federal, state and county governments at a 50-25-25 split — is just enough to pay for the three rural shuttles, Norris said.

In addition to the Em-mitsburg-Thurmont route, there is a shuttle that runs four times per day to Jeffer-son and Brunswick. A third shuttle, part of the Meet the MARC program, runs from Frederick to the Point of Rocks MARC station.

“We would love to pro-vide more service,” Norris said. “It’s a funding issue.”

Even if there were more funding, Norris wasn’t con-vinced there would be enough riders to justify more shuttles to and from northern Frederick County. The twice-daily option now averages about 17 people per trip, based on the 4,236 riders in fiscal 2017.

When TransIT added a fifth, Friday-only trip on its Brunswick-Jefferson shut-tle earlier this year, intend-ed to serve residents who needed to go to Frederick to buy groceries in the ab-sence of a nearby store, rid-ership was low, she said. The route was canceled af-ter six months.

“It wasn’t fiscally re-sponsible,” Norris said.

Still, the relationship be-tween rural poverty and lack of public transporta-tion has gained increasing attention among residents, government groups and service agencies.

Losing outNorthern Frederick

County residents like Frazier who rely on public transportation often end up making a daylong trip for one thing: a doctor’s visit, a social services appointment, a hearing in court. Others who take the shuttle to and from work must align their schedules precisely with the shuttle times.

At the same time, those who opt to own a vehi-cle rather than deal with limited public transporta-tion can end up pouring so much money into vehicle costs that they sacrifice oth-er necessities such as food or health care.

Maryland families saw a 27 percent increase in transportation costs in an eight-year period, accord-ing to the Consumer Ex-penditure Survey. As of 2014, a Maryland fami-ly of four — two adults and two children — spent $722 per month on fuel, mainte-nance and repair costs for private vehicles.

In contrast, public trans-portation cost that same family $371 monthly, the survey showed. But the lack of public transportation op-tions in most of Maryland, including Frederick Coun-ty, renders that savings op-portunity unrealistic.

And for people already struggling to make ends meet, high transportation costs can exacerbate those struggles. This was the case for about 28,500 Frederick County households in 2014, according to a report pub-lished earlier this year by the United Ways of Mary-land.

The report was intend-ed to highlight the plight of residents who earn above the federal poverty level but not enough to afford ba-sic costs of living, based on an independent, by-coun-ty cost-of-living calculation determined using various federal databases.

Thirty-two percent of the 89,084 Frederick Coun-ty families in 2014 earned less than the $61,224 need-

ed to afford basic necessi-ties, according to the report. Transportation costs swal-lowed about 14 percent of this survival budget, based on the estimated $889 cost for private vehicle gas and maintenance.

The report painted an even bleaker picture for res-idents who live in the ru-ral outskirts of the county. Emmitsburg topped the list with 55 percent of the 1,097 households in 2014 earning less than this $61,224 sur-vival estimate, the report stated. In Thurmont, 43 percent of the 2,543 house-holds in 2014 fell below this threshold.

Both towns also face higher unemployment rates and lower median incomes than the countywide aver-ages, according to the U.S. Census Bureau 2015 esti-mates.

A census tract in Em-mitsburg and a second in Brunswick were recent-ly identified as “equity em-phasis areas” by the Met-ropolitan Washington Council of Governments Transportation Planning Board.

The board has identified census tracts throughout D.C., Maryland and Virgin-ia with a disproportionately high percentage of low-in-come or minority residents as part of federal mandates related to equity and en-vironmental justice. The board is currently reviewing how, if at all, its long-range transportation plans might hurt residents who live in the identified equity em-phasis areas, according to Sergio Ritacco, a transpor-tation planner for the orga-nization.

The time and inconve-nience of the trip can, in turn, exacerbate the socio-economic challenges that might be why these riders rely on public transporta-tion in the first place.

It’s unclear whether lack of public transportation can cause rural poverty, or sim-ply exacerbates an already dire situation. But wherev-er the culprit lies, the end result is the same: Low-in-come residents of rural ar-eas are losing out.

Getting byFrazier wasn’t too both-

ered by the length of his trip. He does it only every two weeks — he shares cus-tody of his son with his ex-wife, he said.

But for others, the lack of transportation options posed more severe conse-quences.

Joshua Fisher, who sat behind Frazier on the bus, recalled when he missed a scheduled appearance at the Frederick Coun-ty Courthouse a year ago. He took the shuttle from his home in Thurmont to

downtown, which meant he was 20 minutes late.

“They were really mad,” he said. “They were about ready to lock me up or something.”

Luckily, he explained what happened and re-solved the situation, he said.

Still without a car — he hasn’t been able to afford a new one since his last ve-hicle was totaled in a crash, he said — he has continued to use the shuttle to go to job interviews and doctor’s appointments.

The northern reaches of the county also suffer from a lack of facilities such as doctors and social services. Seton Center in Emmits-burg is one of the few plac-es that offer some of these services — heating assis-tance, food, a dental clin-ic and a thrift store among them.

But that still leaves a wide swath of services un-available locally — food stamps, homeless shelters and specialty medical test-ing, to name a few.

“It’s a real concern,” said Sister Martha Beau-doin, administrator of Se-ton Center. “It can put them in a bad light with different agencies because they can’t get there, or have to cancel.”

Missy Shank, who has been without a car on and off for many years, used to walk the 8 miles to her doctor’s office. But when it was raining or snowing, she would cancel, she said. Shank lives just outside of Emmitsburg in Pennsylva-nia, but does most of her errands and uses services in Emmitsburg, including

Seton Center.“It got to the point where

I canceled so many doc-tor’s appointments my doc-tor won’t see me anymore,” she said.

She last saw a doctor in 2012.

TransIT riders who rely on public transportation to get to and from work — about 40 percent of riders on all county TransIT bus-es and shuttles, according to the most recent ridership survey from fiscal 2016 — also face challenges.

Fisher found that get-ting to interviews on time was problematic with limit-ed route options. He even-tually found a job just a five-minute walk from his home, at Burger King.

But scheduling medical appointments that require taking an entire day off from work to get to down-town Frederick can make things “a little hectic,” he said.

Frazier, who had recent-ly started a job as a dish-washer at Mount St. Mary’s University, said his boss was fine with him taking the day off to pick his son up from day care.

Jarde Lindsey also didn’t mind taking the shuttle to get from her Frederick home to her job at RR Don-nelley in Thurmont, where she works a night shift as an equipment operator.

But on weekends, when the Thurmont-Emmitsburg shuttle doesn’t run, she has to take a taxi to get to and from work. The $80 round-trip cost is significant, she admitted. She gives plas-ma twice per week to try to earn a little extra money.

Asked if the distance and lack of transportation op-tions would make her want to find a new job, she said no.

“I needed this job,” she said. “And I like it. You got to do what you got to do.”

Filling the voidSeveral of the riders on

the Thurmont-Emmitsburg shuttle said adding another, midday trip could make it easier for them to get places they need to go.

Shank started a petition

advocating for just that as part of a class she took at Seton Center.

The class, Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin’-By World, challenges participants to help come up with solu-tions to their own prob-lems. When Shank took the class two years ago, she was struck by the number of fel-low Seton Center clients who faced problems with lack of public transporta-tion.

“It seems crazy,” she said of the lack of buses from downtown Frederick to Thurmont and Emmitsburg. “It’s just a lot of missed op-portunities.”

Shank originally submitted her petition to TransIT, but was told to redirect her efforts to the government officials who control funding. She has continued to gather signatures — she was up to about 300 as of Tuesday, she said — and endorsement letters from area service agencies.

She planned to submit the request to county gov-ernment within the next month.

But a third, or even a fourth trip for the Em-mitsburg-Thurmont shut-tle doesn’t solve the entire problem.

Others are considering alternatives.

One such offering is a gas voucher program run by a consortium of northern Frederick Coun-ty churches, known as the Thurmont Ministerium. The program helps residents travel to faraway medical appointments by giving out gas “vouchers” — essential-ly gift cards to a gas station — to cover the cost of fuel needed to make the trip, according to the Rev. Lau-ra Robeson, who supervis-es the program. Robeson is pastor of Apples United Church of Christ in Thur-mont, which is part of the Ministerium.

Robeson explained how lack of area doctors, particularly specialists, and appointments that require medical testing, require residents to travel

Transportation(Continued from A1)

Who are Frederick’s TransIT riders?

Of the 641 riders who filled out TransIT Services of Frederick County’s most recent customer satisfaction survey:

EMPLOYMENT 41.2 percent work full

time.

28.4 percent work part time.

10.5 percent are students.

5.9 percent are retired.

10 percent are unemployed.

4.1 percent did not answer.

ANNUAL INCOME 38.1 percent earned less

than $12,000.

24.5 percent earned $12,000 to $24,000.

14.2 percent earned $24,000 to $36,000.

7.2 percent earned more than $36,000.


NUMBER OF VEHICLES IN HOUSEHOLD

52.3 percent had none.

26.5 percent had one.

12.5 percent had two.

5 percent had three or more.


PRIMARY MODE OF TRANSPORTATION *

73.8 percent used TransIT.

14.5 percent got rides with friends or relatives.

20.1 percent walked.

2.4 percent drove.

3.8 percent answered “other.”

PURPOSE FOR USING TRANSIT

40.2 percent used for work.

11.3 percent used for school.

15.4 percent used for medical purposes.

14.5 percent used for pleasure.

18.1 percent used for “personal business.”

* Percentages do not add up to 100 because survey-takers could choose more than one option.

Source: TransIT fiscal 2016 customer satisfaction survey

(See TRANSPORTATION A4)



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long distances. Th e cost to get there in itself can be a burden.

“People have told me, ‘I either eat, or I go to the doctor,’” Robeson said. “It makes choices diffi cult.”

Participants must have a car of their own or access to a friend’s or relative’s car to be eligible. Th ey must also show proof of an appoint-ment — an email reminder or phone message confi rm-ing the appointment will suffi ce.

Robeson estimated the group spends $300 per month, which helps 25 to 30 people depending on the distance of their trips.

Robeson was confi -dent the need was great-er than what the funds al-lowed them to provide. She wasn’t sure how much pub-lic transportation could fi ll in the gap.

“Some of these folks are not as likely as city dwell-ers to take a bus,” she said. “Th ey might be kind of re-luctant to do that.”

Several city-based ser-vice agencies plan to expand some of their programs into the outer reaches of the county. A free tax prepara-tion program run through the United Way of Frederick County’s Prosperity Center will include an offi ce in Em-mitsburg in the next tax sea-son, according to Malcolm Furgol, United Way’s com-munity impact director.

Th e service was off ered at two locations during the 2017 tax season, both in the city of Frederick.

Another Prosperity Cen-

ter program that provides credit counseling and work-shops to low-income resi-dents will also add a satellite location in northern Freder-ick County, Furgol said. Th e Credit Cafe program, run by the Interfaith Housing Alli-ance, currently operates at the Bernard W. Brown Com-munity Center in downtown Frederick.

“We’re trying to bring more things to people in-stead of always making them come to us,” Furgol said.

Furgol also named op-tions for remote services as a way to eliminate trans-portation issues altogeth-er. For example, the Fred-erick County Department of Social Services, as part of its move out of down-town, plans to off er more by-phone appointments and those through its on-line portal to serve clients for whom the new location is not accessible.

Some of these services come at a cost, Furgol ac-knowledged. But there’s a price to pay for doing noth-ing, too.

It costs in hospital vis-its and homeless shelters, in food stamps and unem-ployment benefi ts, all the taxpayer-funded services that rural residents are even more likely to need when vehicle costs eat up their in-come and public transpor-tation options are scarce.

Th ere’s an emotional cost, too.

“Th ese people ... they kind of feel like they’ve got-ten left out of the rest of so-ciety,” Robeson said. “Th ey feel like they’ve been forgot-ten about.”

Follow Nancy Lavin on Twitter: @NancyKLavin.

Transportation(Continued from A3)

Staff photo by Graham Cullen

A passenger boards a TransIT shuttle bound for Thurmont and Emmitsburg on Thursday aft ernoon.

but did not know how many heeded the order.

Some of the worst dam-age appeared to be in Rock-port, a coastal city of about 10,000 that was directly in the storm’s path. Th e mayor said his community took a blow “right on the nose” that left “widespread devastation,” including homes, businesses

and schools that were heavi-ly damaged. Some structures were destroyed.

Rockport’s roads were a mess of toppled power poles. A trailer blocked much of one major intersection. Wood framing from ripped-apart houses was strewn along Route 35 on the town’s southern end.

Harvey’s relentless wind tore the metal sides off the high school gym and twisted the steel door frame of its au-ditorium.

“We’re still in the very in-fancy stage of getting this re-covery started,” said Aran-sas County spokesman Larry Sinclair.

Rockport Mayor Charles “C.J.” Wax told Th e Weather Channel that the city’s emergency response system had been hampered by the loss of cellphone service and other forms of communication.

Harvey(Continued from A1)

Gill waived his rights and was dictating a statement to Trooper Robert Hook at the Frederick Memorial Hospital after the crash when a nurse walked in to give Gill some medication for his pain, the report states.

“I heard [Gill] tell the nurse that he was on the phone with his wife when the accident occurred and he was sure [his wife] heard the entire acci-dent over the phone,” Hook’s report reads in part.

An examination of Gill’s cellphone history later de-termined that Gill placed a call that lasted just under two minutes at about 9:04 a.m., the report states. Recordings of 911 calls obtained in a pre-vious request by Th e Frederick News-Post in January indicate the fi rst calls reporting the crash were made at 9:07 a.m.

Police also examined a video of the crash taken from a tractor-trailer behind Gill’s truck to determine that Gill’s truck hit the brakes less than a second before striking the Nissan.

Based on the video, inves-tigators estimated Gill had 10 seconds and 880 feet of road-way in order to react to the stopped vehicles ahead of him, but failed to do so, ac-cording to the conclusion of the report.

“[Gill’s] driving history (captured on video) indicates that he [was] driving distract-ed,” the report reads in part. “Vehicle one is solely respon-sible for the collision with the causation being [Gill] not giv-ing his full time and attention to the roadway.”

In explaining the decision not to pursue charges against Gill, Frederick County State’s Attorney Charlie Smith drew a distinction between proving gross negligence versus ordi-nary negligence.

“We need to prove a gross-ly negligent situation in or-der to charge someone with a crime, which we did not be-lieve we would be able to do in this case,” Smith said. “Th ere were some other factors that day, for example, there was apparently a pre-collision de-fect in the brakes on [Gill’s] truck … that was probably the biggest factor.”

Gill said he tried to down-shift and “stood up on brakes” when he noticed the traf-fi c stopped in front of him, according to the statement Trooper Hook took down on Gill’s behalf at the hospital following the crash. In spite of this, Gill said the brakes “went to [the] fl oor,” according to the rest of his statement.

Gill also told at least one other witness at the scene that his brakes failed during the crash, according to the re-port. Erin L. Campbell-Weav-er, a registered nurse, told po-lice she spoke with Gill briefl y after witnessing the crash and exiting her vehicle to provide medical assistance to any vic-tims.

“I asked him what hap-pened, and he said, ‘I don’t know ... I tried to stop and the truck wouldn’t stop,’” Camp-bell-Weaver wrote of her con-versation with Gill imme-diately after witnesses and police pulled him from his truck. “He then said, ‘I kept slamming on the brakes, and the truck wouldn’t stop,’ he kept repeating to me.”

An examination of Gill’s truck revealed that one of the vehicle’s brakes was out of alignment at the time of the crash, according to state po-lice’s conclusion.

In addition to the brakes, Gill also told police he was using a hands-free device connected to his phone to talk with his wife, Smith said. While using a cellphone while driving is a primary off ense, no off ense can be charged if a hands-free device is used, Smith said.

Gill’s cellphone was de-stroyed by the fi re that en-gulfed both his truck and sev-eral other vehicles involved in the crash, according to

Hook’s report.Gill did not return

multiple calls to either his cellphone or a home number seeking comment for this story.

While no criminal charges were fi led, “that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t some degree of negligence by one or more people in this situa-tion,” Smith said.

“But that’s for the civil courts to decide,” Smith add-ed.

Peter Jackson, Jacob Jack-son’s brother, declined to comment when reached by Th e Frederick News-Post by telephone Friday afternoon.

Another factor of the crash was the presence of state troopers and U.S. Capitol Po-lice escorting a motorcade of U.S. Senate Democrats to a retreat in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Jackson and the trucks in front of him were stopped at the time of the crash to allow the motorcade to safely merge from north-bound I-270.

When Gill’s truck struck Jackson’s Nissan, the smaller vehicle slammed into the rear of a 2002 Mack dump truck driven by Mark James Tew, which was in turn pushed into the rear of 2006 Peterbilt dump truck driven by Rich-ard Edward Alder, according to the analysis of the crash.

Both the Nissan and Gill’s truck continued across sever-al lanes of traffi c to end up on the opposite shoulder facing the I-270 interchange. Mean-while, the gas tank of Tew’s truck ruptured, catching fi re and eventually burning part of Alder’s truck, the report states.

While Tew and Alder were able to free themselves from their trucks and Gill was

pulled from his truck by wit-nesses, several attempts by witnesses and capitol police to free Jackson failed, the re-port states.

While witnesses described hearing Jackson moan after approaching his vehicle fol-lowing the crash, he appeared to be unconscious and all at-tempts to free him from the heavily damaged and rapidly burning Nissan were unsuc-cessful, the report states.

Both Tew and Alder blamed the crash in large part on the motorcade. Tew in particular was described as “extremely upset” when Trooper Hook took his state-ment at the hospital after the crash.

“Th e police that shut the road down caused this ac-cident,” Tew reportedly told Hook, adding in a writ-ten statement later that the crash would not have hap-pened “if traffi c would have been stopped properly by the cops.”

Other witnesses agreed. Dale Th omas Moran, who saw the crash in his rearview mirror and tried unsuccess-fully to rescue Jackson from the wreck, also placed some blame on the motorcade.

“Th e way they shut down [the] roadway with rolling stops seemed inappropri-ate,” Moran wrote in his wit-ness statement under a sec-tion asking if he believed the crash could have been avoid-ed. “[It] caused a lot of people to slam brakes.”

In their conclusion, Mary-land State Police investigators determined that, while the motorcade was “a contribut-ing factor, it was not the cause of the collision as at least three other vehicles were able to control their speed and come to a complete stop,” after the motorcade blocked I-70.

State police also not-ed that Alder radioed back a warning over a CB channel to the trucks behind him warn-ing them about the roadblock in the fi nal moments before the crash.

None of the capital police who provided statements to state police fi lled out the sec-tion asking if the crash could have been avoided, and a U.S. Capitol Police supervisor — identifi ed only as Sgt. Mc-Cullough in the report — who was interviewed by a state police investigator after the crash, argued that the road-block was “normal operating procedure,” used by police to secure such motorcades.

Summing up the report, Smith said prosecutors ulti-mately sided with the state police’s conclusions regard-ing what led to the crash. Th at said, he stood by his of-fi ce’s stance that insuffi cient evidence exists to pursue charges of any kind following what he called “a terribly trag-ic fatality.”

“To some degree, it was a perfect storm as to what hap-pened that day,” Smith said.

Follow Jeremy Arias on Twitter: @Jarias_Prime.

Crash(Continued from A1)

Image courtesy of Maryland State Police

Destination frustration...Kenworth dump truck struck a 2011 Nissan Rogue stopped at the Inter-state...

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