Los Angeles Times
Times Staff Writer
February 25, 2000
Design work has begun on a pedestrian bridge over the Blue Line light rail tracks at the site where a 13-year-old boy was struck by a train and killed last summer.
The bridge, to be built at the intersection of 55th Street and Long Beach Avenue, will be funded by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the rail line.
The MTA proposed the project in 1996, but plans for a bridge gained new urgency when Gilberto Reynaga was struck by a train last July 17 as he and a friend darted across the tracks while heading home from playing basketball.
After the accident, City Councilwoman Rita Walters, who has been pressing for the bridge for years, got the city to station a crossing guard at the intersection.
Construction of the bridge is scheduled to begin in November and completion is expected in June 2001.
Showing posts with label Blue Line safety articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blue Line safety articles. Show all posts
Friday, February 25, 2000
Tuesday, February 22, 2000
MTA Can Do Little to Boost Crossing Safety, Study Finds - LA Times
Los Angeles Times
By Douglas P. Shuit
February 22, 2000
If anyone should know the dangers of the Metro Blue Line inside and out, it would be Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.
As head of the powerful Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Burke plays a leading role in setting policy for operating the Blue Line, whose trains operate along city streets and have killed 53 people since it opened in 1990. That is by far the most deaths for any light rail line in the state and is believed to be the most in the nation.
And, as someone who lives and works in the area served by the Blue Line, Burke regularly experiences the anxiety motorists face when crossing the tracks. Getting caught inside the gates when a train comes is a constant fear.
"I have not actually been stuck [inside the gates], but I have been concerned about getting stuck," she said. "If there is any traffic ahead of you as you start going across, there is a tremendous potential of getting caught. So, I tell you . . . I fly across the tracks."
Burke's comments are informative because the MTA, after a two- month in-house safety analysis, is essentially moving forward with its current Blue Line policy, which she indicates will not make her feel much safer.
Burke and others on the MTA's board of directors are finding that there are few dramatic moves they can make to improve safety on the heavily used rail line, which provides riders with as many as 57,000 trips a day on the 22-mile run between downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The analysis, prompted by the deaths of six people Nov. 27 and Times stories exploring safety issues on the Blue Line, included an estimate that creating a grade separation--in effect, moving the tracks off the street--would cost as much as $1.6 billion. That is far more than the district can afford, and represents roughly twice the Blue Line's original construction cost.
That leaves MTA managers with a game plan that involves continuing the same policies that they have been following for years, with some tweaking here and there.
In an effort to reduce the number of so-called "S" turns, in which motorists use open traffic lanes to drive around closed traffic gates, the MTA plans to install four gates, rather than the conventional two, at as many as two crossings a year. Traffic signals also will be upgraded. And a stepped-up program of televised, public safety announcements, movie trailers, radio messages, billboards and school safety programs will be implemented.
At Imperial Highway, where there have been a number of accidents involving Blue Line trains, the city of Los Angeles, county, MTA and Caltrans are jointly financing construction of a $20-million bridge for motor vehicle traffic over the railroad tracks.
The MTA's safety program also would apply to the first phase of the 13.7-mile Pasadena light rail line. The Pasadena line is being built at street level, so will face similar traffic problems during its run through Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Pasadena. The line is being built by the Pasadena Blue Line Construction Authority, but is being financed and will be operated by the MTA.
During a hearing on Blue Line issues before the MTA's operations committee last week, Burke made a point of saying that the best chance of paying for grade separations comes during construction, because once a system is built the costs become prohibitive. Still, although she made it clear that she thinks grade separations would save lives, she said the MTA doesn't have money for grade separations on that system.
Residents along the proposed Pasadena route are becoming increasingly restive. Jim Leong, a retired businessman representing the Mount Washington Assn., pleaded for a grade separation during the operations committee hearing, although the Pasadena Blue Line Construction Authority has rejected the possibility of major changes to the project.
The Mount Washington Assn. is reconsidering its conditional support for the Pasadena rail line, in large part because of the Los Angeles line's safety record, Leong said. "When the Pasadena line was planned, we didn't have the experience of the Los Angeles Blue Line. Now we have 53 deaths. That is scaring some people," Leong said.
Richard Thorpe, chief executive officer of the Pasadena Blue Line Construction Authority, said he believes conditions on the Eastside are different from those on the Los Angeles-to-Long Beach line.
For one thing, the Pasadena line will not have freight trains running alongside its own trains, as does the Los Angeles line, Thorpe said. Nor will there be streets running parallel to the trains. Some of those who have studied the Los Angeles line believe the slowness of the Union Pacific freight trains frustrates motorists and causes them to take risks they might not ordinarily take. Left turns in front of trains are a leading contributor to Los Angeles Blue Line accidents.
MTA authorities have consistently argued that they believe the large number of deaths and injuries on the Los Angeles Blue Line is caused by risky behavior by pedestrians and motorists, who flout traffic laws and warning signals as they cross in front of trains.
An analysis of Blue Line accident records by The Times indicated that speed may be a contributor. It found that 85% of the deaths have occurred in the high-speed corridor, where trains go through intersections at 55 mph. An analysis comparing the Blue Line with light rail systems across the country found that the MTA trains operate at one of the highest average rates of speed. The Times also found that the last 18 deaths have all involved trains traveling south, whose speed tends to be higher through intersections.
MTA safety chief Paul Lennon, who put together the in-house analysis, said after the operations committee hearing that he is not recommending any changes in the speed of trains. He made it clear he still believes the main problem is that people go around closed crossing gates or ignore warning signals and horns. MTA investigations have held victims to have been at fault in all cases.
"The 55-mph speed I think is a very reasonable safe transit speed," he said. Influencing his belief is a fear that if the trains are slowed appreciably, the riders will return to cars. "My concern is that people might get off that train, find a $200 car and become a statistic someplace else. We are in the lifesaving business, as far as I am concerned."
Lennon said the MTA will continue to look into factors contributing to the string of accidents on the southbound tracks.
Burke said she is not satisfied with the steps Lennon is recommending. She said further steps must be taken "to prevent some of these accidents," but had no concrete proposals. Although the costs are prohibitive, she said, "I believe we have to look at some alternative for grade separation."
By Douglas P. Shuit
February 22, 2000
If anyone should know the dangers of the Metro Blue Line inside and out, it would be Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.
As head of the powerful Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Burke plays a leading role in setting policy for operating the Blue Line, whose trains operate along city streets and have killed 53 people since it opened in 1990. That is by far the most deaths for any light rail line in the state and is believed to be the most in the nation.
And, as someone who lives and works in the area served by the Blue Line, Burke regularly experiences the anxiety motorists face when crossing the tracks. Getting caught inside the gates when a train comes is a constant fear.
"I have not actually been stuck [inside the gates], but I have been concerned about getting stuck," she said. "If there is any traffic ahead of you as you start going across, there is a tremendous potential of getting caught. So, I tell you . . . I fly across the tracks."
Burke's comments are informative because the MTA, after a two- month in-house safety analysis, is essentially moving forward with its current Blue Line policy, which she indicates will not make her feel much safer.
Burke and others on the MTA's board of directors are finding that there are few dramatic moves they can make to improve safety on the heavily used rail line, which provides riders with as many as 57,000 trips a day on the 22-mile run between downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The analysis, prompted by the deaths of six people Nov. 27 and Times stories exploring safety issues on the Blue Line, included an estimate that creating a grade separation--in effect, moving the tracks off the street--would cost as much as $1.6 billion. That is far more than the district can afford, and represents roughly twice the Blue Line's original construction cost.
That leaves MTA managers with a game plan that involves continuing the same policies that they have been following for years, with some tweaking here and there.
In an effort to reduce the number of so-called "S" turns, in which motorists use open traffic lanes to drive around closed traffic gates, the MTA plans to install four gates, rather than the conventional two, at as many as two crossings a year. Traffic signals also will be upgraded. And a stepped-up program of televised, public safety announcements, movie trailers, radio messages, billboards and school safety programs will be implemented.
At Imperial Highway, where there have been a number of accidents involving Blue Line trains, the city of Los Angeles, county, MTA and Caltrans are jointly financing construction of a $20-million bridge for motor vehicle traffic over the railroad tracks.
The MTA's safety program also would apply to the first phase of the 13.7-mile Pasadena light rail line. The Pasadena line is being built at street level, so will face similar traffic problems during its run through Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Pasadena. The line is being built by the Pasadena Blue Line Construction Authority, but is being financed and will be operated by the MTA.
During a hearing on Blue Line issues before the MTA's operations committee last week, Burke made a point of saying that the best chance of paying for grade separations comes during construction, because once a system is built the costs become prohibitive. Still, although she made it clear that she thinks grade separations would save lives, she said the MTA doesn't have money for grade separations on that system.
Residents along the proposed Pasadena route are becoming increasingly restive. Jim Leong, a retired businessman representing the Mount Washington Assn., pleaded for a grade separation during the operations committee hearing, although the Pasadena Blue Line Construction Authority has rejected the possibility of major changes to the project.
The Mount Washington Assn. is reconsidering its conditional support for the Pasadena rail line, in large part because of the Los Angeles line's safety record, Leong said. "When the Pasadena line was planned, we didn't have the experience of the Los Angeles Blue Line. Now we have 53 deaths. That is scaring some people," Leong said.
Richard Thorpe, chief executive officer of the Pasadena Blue Line Construction Authority, said he believes conditions on the Eastside are different from those on the Los Angeles-to-Long Beach line.
For one thing, the Pasadena line will not have freight trains running alongside its own trains, as does the Los Angeles line, Thorpe said. Nor will there be streets running parallel to the trains. Some of those who have studied the Los Angeles line believe the slowness of the Union Pacific freight trains frustrates motorists and causes them to take risks they might not ordinarily take. Left turns in front of trains are a leading contributor to Los Angeles Blue Line accidents.
MTA authorities have consistently argued that they believe the large number of deaths and injuries on the Los Angeles Blue Line is caused by risky behavior by pedestrians and motorists, who flout traffic laws and warning signals as they cross in front of trains.
An analysis of Blue Line accident records by The Times indicated that speed may be a contributor. It found that 85% of the deaths have occurred in the high-speed corridor, where trains go through intersections at 55 mph. An analysis comparing the Blue Line with light rail systems across the country found that the MTA trains operate at one of the highest average rates of speed. The Times also found that the last 18 deaths have all involved trains traveling south, whose speed tends to be higher through intersections.
MTA safety chief Paul Lennon, who put together the in-house analysis, said after the operations committee hearing that he is not recommending any changes in the speed of trains. He made it clear he still believes the main problem is that people go around closed crossing gates or ignore warning signals and horns. MTA investigations have held victims to have been at fault in all cases.
"The 55-mph speed I think is a very reasonable safe transit speed," he said. Influencing his belief is a fear that if the trains are slowed appreciably, the riders will return to cars. "My concern is that people might get off that train, find a $200 car and become a statistic someplace else. We are in the lifesaving business, as far as I am concerned."
Lennon said the MTA will continue to look into factors contributing to the string of accidents on the southbound tracks.
Burke said she is not satisfied with the steps Lennon is recommending. She said further steps must be taken "to prevent some of these accidents," but had no concrete proposals. Although the costs are prohibitive, she said, "I believe we have to look at some alternative for grade separation."
Monday, November 15, 1999
Where Rapid Transit Means Constant Risk - LA Times
Los Angeles Times
By Douglas P. Shuit
November 15, 1999
It’s Michael Walden’s first week as the operator of a Los Angeles Metro Blue Line train. He’s a former bus driver, but the differences between bus and rail are like night and day.
Accidents are commonplace, and deaths to motorists and pedestrians along the Blue Line are the highest among California’s light-rail systems.
Trains can reach speeds of up to 55 mph while buses are stalled in traffic. After the trains reach top speed, it takes them more than the length of a football field to stop. And, in the 54-minute, 22-mile run from downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach, Walden will cross 101 streets, breezing past senior citizen centers, shopping malls, low-income housing projects, parks, swap meets and industrial strips.
Virtually all of the deaths are the result of miscalculations or carelessness by pedestrians or motorists, transit police investigators say. Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials are providing system operators with training on how to be aware of such hazards, but point out that these dangers inherent in an urban system at ground level are often beyond their control.
Critics call the setup a formula for disaster, and the line’s track record bears them out.
47 Deaths in 10 Years
Since the Blue Line began operating in 1990, 47 pedestrians or motorists have lost their lives after being hit by the light-rail train, the result of more than 400 accidents, according to state and local records kept for light-rail systems.
On this day, Robert Johnson, who supervises the training of train operators, is hovering over Walden’s shoulder.
Peering down the track with Walden, it is easy to see the problem: Cars and trucks on both sides of the train head for the same intersection. Kids straddle bicycles, waiting impatiently for the train to pass. People push shopping carts toward the tracks. Commuters stand dangerously close to the tracks as they wait for Walden to stop.
“You see that car coming alongside? What do you think he is doing?” Johnson asks, reciting his training mantra. “Is he accelerating? What do you think he might be doing, trying to turn left?” The car stops. “If the vehicle starts to move an inch, you are on the horn, you are on the brake.”
Johnson, a hard-nosed, veteran train operator who looks out at the world from under an MTA baseball cap, pounds into his students’ heads what is obvious the first time they step into a Blue Line cab: The trains have no steering wheel.
Fixed as they are to rails, trains can’t turn away from an accident. That creates a helpless feeling for operators because if they see someone or something on the tracks ahead of them, all they can do is brake and wait for the impact, Johnson says.
Listen, in the spare language of a police report, to the Blue Line’s William McClendon, who in June was operating a train that struck and killed Troy Well Young, a pedestrian, at 103rd Street and Grandee Avenue in Watts.
“I was traveling 35 to 40 mph when I observed the man walking east along the south sidewalk area,” the 55-year-old train operator said. McClendon said he had been sounding his horn, but Young didn’t turn away. “I began emergency braking. He kept walking. He was looking south. There was nothing else I could do. I turned my head and heard the impact.”
Johnson hopes Walden will finish his career without an accident, but he is less than optimistic. Among other lessons, Walden will learn the phrase “pray for the dead,” a grim mnemonic reminder of the cadence that trainmen use for their warning sequence: two long horn blasts, followed by a short one, then another long one.
“It isn’t a matter of if you have an accident, it is when,” he says matter-of-factly.
So many accidents happen that the Blue Line has claimed more lives over the last five years than the state’s other four light-rail systems combined, according to Public Utilities Commission records. These statistics do not include heavy rail, such as MetroLink or Amtrak trains.
Nationally, the casualties are so high that Los Angeles accounts for a disproportionate share of America’s light-rail accidents, according to the Federal Transit Administration.
Officials seeking to improve the Blue Line’s safety record acknowledge that some problems are not fixable, such as the Blue Line’s location in Los Angeles County’s densely populated urban and industrial core. They say that taking the trains off the streets and creating a grade separation would dramatically help, but assert that there is no money available to elevate the tracks or put them below street level.
Working to Eliminate Casualties
Locked into what now is a mature, 10-year-old system that defies a massive overhaul, the MTA struggles to bring down Blue Line casualties with rigorous training of operators like Walden, aggressive law enforcement, and constant tinkering with fences, horn sounds, signal lights, traffic gates and other safety hardware.
Swing gates, which pedestrians have to pull back, rather than push forward, have been installed at some stations. The sound of the horn has been changed. So-called “T-signals,” which signal train operators, are being replaced because some motorists were confused and thought the T meant turn.
Trials are underway with street barrier gates that block all four lanes of traffic at intersections, rather than the conventional practice of two. More and more video systems are being added to intersections so that scofflaws can be photographed running red lights, tracked down and prosecuted.
MTA executives are also working with Union Pacific, which runs long freight trains parallel to the Blue Line tracks. Accidents are often caused by people trying to get around the freight trains, only to walk or drive into an oncoming Blue Line train.
The MTA has “gone well beyond” the safety requirements of regulatory agencies, said Lou Hubaud, a career MTA executive with responsibility for Blue Line safety. “This agency has gone way out there in reaching to the public to make it safer for them. We have done more than anyone in the country to make grade crossings safer.”
There is some evidence that the steps may be paying off.
In 1998, there were 10 fatalities involving Blue Line trains. This year, there have been four.
But critics say the MTA is not doing enough.
Even four deaths, they say, should be a red flag. During the five-year period from 1994 to the end of 1998, light-rail lines in Sacramento and Santa Clara County reported only two deaths between them to the PUC. Last year, San Francisco’s rail system, despite running more than twice the passenger miles as Los Angeles’ system, had three pedestrian and motor vehicle related deaths, according to commission records.
Similar differences exist nationally, although voluntary reporting to the Federal Transit Administration by cities such as Atlanta, Baltimore, St. Louis and Salt Lake City appears to be less exacting than that required by the PUC.
Critics believe that slowing down the trains and creating more grade separations, meaning raising the tracks above or burying them below street level, would help.
“You need to be looking at grade separations,” said Wendell Cox, a national transportation consultant who was a member of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission from 1977 to 1985 when much of the planning for the Blue Line occurred. “It’s not fair to blame motorists. It’s a terrible cop-out to blame pedestrians or kids, to say they were at fault.”
“Speed equals danger,” said Tom Rubin, former risk management chief for the old Southern California Rapid Transit District, which was merged into the MTA.
“The basic problem is very simple: You don’t put a high-speed rail line through a very dense urban area, such as South-Central Los Angeles and Long Beach, unless you have it absolutely totally grade separated. By that I mean you don’t have crossing streets,” said Rubin, based in Oakland. “Total grade separation would eliminate 90% plus of fatalities and 100% of train-auto collisions.”
Money woes and system upheaval are huge barriers to the kind of massive capital works project that would be required to either bury or elevate the tracks.
Commuters now make 55,000 trips a day on the Blue Line. Because many of them are onetime bus riders who were switched to the trains, shutting down the train for any length of time would create serious problems because some of their old bus lines have been canceled.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, chairwoman of the MTA governing board, agrees with Cox and Rubin that grade separation would help. But she said money is a problem. She pointed to budget problems that brought a premature end to the county’s subway construction program.
“Obviously, if you have over-ground or below-ground rail you’d have fewer accidents,” she said. But, these days, she said, “Either you have no rail or you have it at grade.”
With no major improvements in sight, those who ride or live close to the Blue Line are struggling to cope, sometimes none too pleasantly.
“I heard a thump and then saw a man’s hat fly by the window and I said, ‘Oh, my God, I think we’ve hit someone,’ ” said a longtime Blue Line rider, recalling one experience. A resident of Long Beach, she works at a downtown Los Angeles bank and asked that her name not be used.
Experienced Blue Line riders say accident-caused delays have led them to develop taxicab pools with fellow commuters for shared rides home. They map out alternate bus routes. They know relatives who can pick them up if things get bad enough.
Despite the accidents, there are complaints that the MTA is too slow in moving commuters off stricken trains.
“They have accidents all the time,” said Compton resident Grace Flowers, who also works at a downtown Los Angeles bank. “I don’t blame the MTA, but they should have contingency plans. We can be stuck on this thing two, three hours.”
What seems to strike a personal chord with those familiar with the Blue Line is that many of those who lost their lives or were hit by the train were engaged in commonplace comings and goings.
They were rushing to catch a train. Or hurrying off a platform at the end of a trip, thinking about home. Or they were walking in a daze, perhaps with a little too much liquor in them. A 13-year-old boy lost his life running after a ball.
Masses are still said for Rosa Cebellos, a 66-year-old woman who was the Blue Line’s first fatality, at St. Lawrence Brindisi, a Roman Catholic church in Watts a block from the Blue Line tracks.
Cebellos was on her way to Mass, clutching a prayer book, when she was hit by a train.
Wajeha Bilal, a community activist who works out of a small office in the historic Watts train station at 103rd Street, gets so agitated that she often rushes out to the tracks and pulls people back because they are standing too close to the tracks.
Bilal, part of the Watts economic development effort, said she has been pleading for years with the MTA to have a crossing guard stationed at the intersection to hold back the human tide that surges down 103rd every day.
“We need a crossing guard here very bad. They said they had no budget for it,” said Bilal, standing a few feet from where Troy Young was hit last June.
As if to make her case, elementary-age children, just released from some of the four schools in the area, pour into the 103rd Street corridor.
“You kids, get off those tracks!” she shouts, seeing some of the children scampering along the tracks, playfully picking up stones from the roadbed or trying to balance themselves on the rails.
Danger on the Tracks
Metro Blue Line accidents consistently cause more injuries than California’s other light-rail systems.
Train accident deaths 1994-98
Los Angeles: 20
Sacramento: 1
San Diego: 11
San Francisco: 3*
Santa Clara: 1
* 1994-96 data not available
Train accidents per 100,000 miles
Los Angeles: 1.9
Sacramento: 1.5
San Diego: 1
San Francisco: 0.9
Santa Clara: 1.4
By Douglas P. Shuit
November 15, 1999
It’s Michael Walden’s first week as the operator of a Los Angeles Metro Blue Line train. He’s a former bus driver, but the differences between bus and rail are like night and day.
Accidents are commonplace, and deaths to motorists and pedestrians along the Blue Line are the highest among California’s light-rail systems.
Trains can reach speeds of up to 55 mph while buses are stalled in traffic. After the trains reach top speed, it takes them more than the length of a football field to stop. And, in the 54-minute, 22-mile run from downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach, Walden will cross 101 streets, breezing past senior citizen centers, shopping malls, low-income housing projects, parks, swap meets and industrial strips.
Virtually all of the deaths are the result of miscalculations or carelessness by pedestrians or motorists, transit police investigators say. Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials are providing system operators with training on how to be aware of such hazards, but point out that these dangers inherent in an urban system at ground level are often beyond their control.
Critics call the setup a formula for disaster, and the line’s track record bears them out.
47 Deaths in 10 Years
Since the Blue Line began operating in 1990, 47 pedestrians or motorists have lost their lives after being hit by the light-rail train, the result of more than 400 accidents, according to state and local records kept for light-rail systems.
On this day, Robert Johnson, who supervises the training of train operators, is hovering over Walden’s shoulder.
Peering down the track with Walden, it is easy to see the problem: Cars and trucks on both sides of the train head for the same intersection. Kids straddle bicycles, waiting impatiently for the train to pass. People push shopping carts toward the tracks. Commuters stand dangerously close to the tracks as they wait for Walden to stop.
“You see that car coming alongside? What do you think he is doing?” Johnson asks, reciting his training mantra. “Is he accelerating? What do you think he might be doing, trying to turn left?” The car stops. “If the vehicle starts to move an inch, you are on the horn, you are on the brake.”
Johnson, a hard-nosed, veteran train operator who looks out at the world from under an MTA baseball cap, pounds into his students’ heads what is obvious the first time they step into a Blue Line cab: The trains have no steering wheel.
Fixed as they are to rails, trains can’t turn away from an accident. That creates a helpless feeling for operators because if they see someone or something on the tracks ahead of them, all they can do is brake and wait for the impact, Johnson says.
Listen, in the spare language of a police report, to the Blue Line’s William McClendon, who in June was operating a train that struck and killed Troy Well Young, a pedestrian, at 103rd Street and Grandee Avenue in Watts.
“I was traveling 35 to 40 mph when I observed the man walking east along the south sidewalk area,” the 55-year-old train operator said. McClendon said he had been sounding his horn, but Young didn’t turn away. “I began emergency braking. He kept walking. He was looking south. There was nothing else I could do. I turned my head and heard the impact.”
Johnson hopes Walden will finish his career without an accident, but he is less than optimistic. Among other lessons, Walden will learn the phrase “pray for the dead,” a grim mnemonic reminder of the cadence that trainmen use for their warning sequence: two long horn blasts, followed by a short one, then another long one.
“It isn’t a matter of if you have an accident, it is when,” he says matter-of-factly.
So many accidents happen that the Blue Line has claimed more lives over the last five years than the state’s other four light-rail systems combined, according to Public Utilities Commission records. These statistics do not include heavy rail, such as MetroLink or Amtrak trains.
Nationally, the casualties are so high that Los Angeles accounts for a disproportionate share of America’s light-rail accidents, according to the Federal Transit Administration.
Officials seeking to improve the Blue Line’s safety record acknowledge that some problems are not fixable, such as the Blue Line’s location in Los Angeles County’s densely populated urban and industrial core. They say that taking the trains off the streets and creating a grade separation would dramatically help, but assert that there is no money available to elevate the tracks or put them below street level.
Working to Eliminate Casualties
Locked into what now is a mature, 10-year-old system that defies a massive overhaul, the MTA struggles to bring down Blue Line casualties with rigorous training of operators like Walden, aggressive law enforcement, and constant tinkering with fences, horn sounds, signal lights, traffic gates and other safety hardware.
Swing gates, which pedestrians have to pull back, rather than push forward, have been installed at some stations. The sound of the horn has been changed. So-called “T-signals,” which signal train operators, are being replaced because some motorists were confused and thought the T meant turn.
Trials are underway with street barrier gates that block all four lanes of traffic at intersections, rather than the conventional practice of two. More and more video systems are being added to intersections so that scofflaws can be photographed running red lights, tracked down and prosecuted.
MTA executives are also working with Union Pacific, which runs long freight trains parallel to the Blue Line tracks. Accidents are often caused by people trying to get around the freight trains, only to walk or drive into an oncoming Blue Line train.
The MTA has “gone well beyond” the safety requirements of regulatory agencies, said Lou Hubaud, a career MTA executive with responsibility for Blue Line safety. “This agency has gone way out there in reaching to the public to make it safer for them. We have done more than anyone in the country to make grade crossings safer.”
There is some evidence that the steps may be paying off.
In 1998, there were 10 fatalities involving Blue Line trains. This year, there have been four.
But critics say the MTA is not doing enough.
Even four deaths, they say, should be a red flag. During the five-year period from 1994 to the end of 1998, light-rail lines in Sacramento and Santa Clara County reported only two deaths between them to the PUC. Last year, San Francisco’s rail system, despite running more than twice the passenger miles as Los Angeles’ system, had three pedestrian and motor vehicle related deaths, according to commission records.
Similar differences exist nationally, although voluntary reporting to the Federal Transit Administration by cities such as Atlanta, Baltimore, St. Louis and Salt Lake City appears to be less exacting than that required by the PUC.
Critics believe that slowing down the trains and creating more grade separations, meaning raising the tracks above or burying them below street level, would help.
“You need to be looking at grade separations,” said Wendell Cox, a national transportation consultant who was a member of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission from 1977 to 1985 when much of the planning for the Blue Line occurred. “It’s not fair to blame motorists. It’s a terrible cop-out to blame pedestrians or kids, to say they were at fault.”
“Speed equals danger,” said Tom Rubin, former risk management chief for the old Southern California Rapid Transit District, which was merged into the MTA.
“The basic problem is very simple: You don’t put a high-speed rail line through a very dense urban area, such as South-Central Los Angeles and Long Beach, unless you have it absolutely totally grade separated. By that I mean you don’t have crossing streets,” said Rubin, based in Oakland. “Total grade separation would eliminate 90% plus of fatalities and 100% of train-auto collisions.”
Money woes and system upheaval are huge barriers to the kind of massive capital works project that would be required to either bury or elevate the tracks.
Commuters now make 55,000 trips a day on the Blue Line. Because many of them are onetime bus riders who were switched to the trains, shutting down the train for any length of time would create serious problems because some of their old bus lines have been canceled.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, chairwoman of the MTA governing board, agrees with Cox and Rubin that grade separation would help. But she said money is a problem. She pointed to budget problems that brought a premature end to the county’s subway construction program.
“Obviously, if you have over-ground or below-ground rail you’d have fewer accidents,” she said. But, these days, she said, “Either you have no rail or you have it at grade.”
With no major improvements in sight, those who ride or live close to the Blue Line are struggling to cope, sometimes none too pleasantly.
“I heard a thump and then saw a man’s hat fly by the window and I said, ‘Oh, my God, I think we’ve hit someone,’ ” said a longtime Blue Line rider, recalling one experience. A resident of Long Beach, she works at a downtown Los Angeles bank and asked that her name not be used.
Experienced Blue Line riders say accident-caused delays have led them to develop taxicab pools with fellow commuters for shared rides home. They map out alternate bus routes. They know relatives who can pick them up if things get bad enough.
Despite the accidents, there are complaints that the MTA is too slow in moving commuters off stricken trains.
“They have accidents all the time,” said Compton resident Grace Flowers, who also works at a downtown Los Angeles bank. “I don’t blame the MTA, but they should have contingency plans. We can be stuck on this thing two, three hours.”
What seems to strike a personal chord with those familiar with the Blue Line is that many of those who lost their lives or were hit by the train were engaged in commonplace comings and goings.
They were rushing to catch a train. Or hurrying off a platform at the end of a trip, thinking about home. Or they were walking in a daze, perhaps with a little too much liquor in them. A 13-year-old boy lost his life running after a ball.
Masses are still said for Rosa Cebellos, a 66-year-old woman who was the Blue Line’s first fatality, at St. Lawrence Brindisi, a Roman Catholic church in Watts a block from the Blue Line tracks.
Cebellos was on her way to Mass, clutching a prayer book, when she was hit by a train.
Wajeha Bilal, a community activist who works out of a small office in the historic Watts train station at 103rd Street, gets so agitated that she often rushes out to the tracks and pulls people back because they are standing too close to the tracks.
Bilal, part of the Watts economic development effort, said she has been pleading for years with the MTA to have a crossing guard stationed at the intersection to hold back the human tide that surges down 103rd every day.
“We need a crossing guard here very bad. They said they had no budget for it,” said Bilal, standing a few feet from where Troy Young was hit last June.
As if to make her case, elementary-age children, just released from some of the four schools in the area, pour into the 103rd Street corridor.
“You kids, get off those tracks!” she shouts, seeing some of the children scampering along the tracks, playfully picking up stones from the roadbed or trying to balance themselves on the rails.
Danger on the Tracks
Metro Blue Line accidents consistently cause more injuries than California’s other light-rail systems.
Train accident deaths 1994-98
Los Angeles: 20
Sacramento: 1
San Diego: 11
San Francisco: 3*
Santa Clara: 1
* 1994-96 data not available
Train accidents per 100,000 miles
Los Angeles: 1.9
Sacramento: 1.5
San Diego: 1
San Francisco: 0.9
Santa Clara: 1.4
Wednesday, February 17, 1993
The Trauma of Train Operators
Unwilling Agents of Death Rail
Engineers are nearly always blameless, and they know that fatalities are a price of the Southland's growing transit network. But still the tragedies are impossible to forget.
Los Angeles Times
By Hugo Martin and Nora Zamichow
February 17, 1993
Los Angeles, CA - Danny O'Connell remembers clearly the astonished face of the man who died at his hands four years ago.
O'Connell had just begun training to become a locomotive engineer-following in the footsteps of his grandfather and great-grandfather-when a motorist slipped around a lowered crossing gate in front of the speeding train O'Connell was operating.
"I was the last person he saw," said O'Connell, 32, of Yucaipa. "The expression on his face was so clear. I'll never forget it."
As an engineer for Metrolink, O'Connell relives the incident whenever one of Los Angeles' new commuter trains is involved in a fatal accident. That has been five times since the service began in October, most recently on Feb. 3 when a man sitting on the tracks in Sun Valley was hit by a train en route to Santa Clarita.
Across town, the light-rail Metro Blue Line between Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles has had 148 accidents, resulting in 12 deaths and numerous injuries, since it opened in July, 1990.
The accidents have reinforced for O'Connell and the 78 other Metrolink engineers and 63 Blue Line operators that deaths and injuries are as much a part of their job as mechanical glitches, long hours and kids who throw rocks at the cab or put furniture on the tracks.
The 140-mile Metrolink commuter system and the 22-mile Blue Line are segments of a 400-mile web of light- and heavy-rail lines that eventually will stretch from Ventura to San Diego to the Inland Empire.
As the system continues to expand through residential neighborhoods and commercial areas, the potential for accidents increases. And for every death or injury, the men and women at the throttles must cope with trauma, guilt, anger and a slew of other psychological and physical reactions.
"A lot of people don't think how the engineer feels-what kind of nightmares he has," said Tom Stokes, an engineer who was involved in seven non-fatal train accidents before he came to work for Metrolink. "In my mind I can see the faces of everybody I've hit."
Although they cannot cite precise figures or studies, rail authorities-including the Federal Railroad Administration-say that over the course of a career a locomotive engineer may be involved in as many as half a dozen deaths on the tracks.
In most of the accidents, the engineers or operators are found innocent of wrongdoing, particularly because they have little control once the trains get up to speed. Most often the deaths and injuries result from a motorist or pedestrian trying to outrun a speeding train and misjudging the distance or speed.
Each year, the average American engineer has a 1 in 6 chance of being involved in an accident, with a 1 in 15 chance that it will result in injury and a 1 in 60 chance that it will cause death, according to estimates by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, an international union based in Cleveland.
Although Blue Line operators are not classified as engineers because they work on a light-rail system, their chance of being involved in an accident is nearly 100% a year, if the current trend holds, with a 1 in 4.5 chance that it will result in a death.
The chance that an engineer will be involved in a fatal accident is higher than the chance that a police officer will be involved in a shooting. Last year, the Los Angeles Police Department marked a 10-year high for officer-involved shootings, about 10 per 1,000 officers, of which about a third were fatal. During the same year, locomotive engineers averaged 17 fatalities per 1,000 engineers, according to the union's statistics.
And like police officers after shootings, engineers say, they have etched in their memory every injury and death their trains have caused.
Some cope through black humor. Metrolink engineers often talk about an Amtrak engineer they say has been involved in 17 fatalities and joke about his macabre trophy: a coffee mug with 17 stick figures marked on the side.
"It's sick," agreed O'Connell. But, he said, "you become callous about it" because "you can't let it get to you."
One of the four engineers involved in fatal Metrolink accidents is Chris Younger. He'd had several accidents over 2 1/2 years as an engineer, but never one that resulted in a death until the night of Jan. 22.
That was when Eric Pola, 23, of Encino dashed in front of Younger's train as he ran to catch up with two friends sneaking into a drive-in movie in Chatsworth. Pola tripped on the tracks and Younger's 60 m.p.h. juggernaut hurled his body about 200 feet.
Although, given the odds, Younger had expected his train to kill somebody sooner or later, he said that after the accident he avoided looking at the body.
"I got off the engine and walked forward so I wouldn't see anything," he said. "I had to cool off for a minute."
He said he went home and concentrated on moving into his new house.
"Knowing it wasn't my fault, it still doesn't make it an easy experience," he said.
Ronnie Bean, a Blue Line operator, was in a crash last spring. He still has dreams and flashbacks.
At 6:20 a.m. on May 26, Bean was traveling south when a van slipped around a crossing barrier. Bean, 45, leaned on the horn and hit the emergency brake. "That's all you can do," he said. He thought he was going to die in the wreck, which he could see coming.
The train punched into the middle of the van on the passenger side. "It just literally wrapped around the front of the train," Bean said. "I thought it was going to crush the whole front end of the train. I thought, `This is it.' "
The van driver hurtled through the van's windshield and lay crumpled and bleeding on the ground. Although the driver survived, Bean was overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness.
"After impact, you just sit there, that's what makes you a victim-you are a victim of their negligence," Bean said. "There's a helplessness. You can't divert the train, you can't steer around the van. . . . You remain a victim of things like this for a long time. It just eases off after a while."
Another Blue Line operator, Eugene Keyes, hit a pickup truck making a left turn in front of his train, which was traveling at 35 m.p.h on a Saturday morning last year.
"This one guy, it was just me and him," said Keyes, shaking his head. "His eyes just got huge. He had this look like `I'm going to die'. . . . I hit him. All I saw was his eyes-the fear."
The train smashed into the truck's rear wheel. Although the truck was damaged, the driver slowly drove away.
Unlike police officers, who are usually taken off the streets for a time after a shooting, Metrolink engineers and Blue Line operators are not required to take time off after an accident. They are, however, offered counseling-by a psychiatrist for Blue Line operators and employee counselors for Metrolink engineers.
But most engineers say a train accident is an experience that only other engineers can understand, and thus they often turn to each other for support.
"No one understands better than someone who has gone through it," said Steve FitzGerald, a spokesman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. He said most turn to a spouse or another engineer, and a few leave the railroad industry altogether.
Metrolink engineer Ken Clanahan had the misfortune of being at the controls in two fatal Metrolink accidents.
On Nov. 25, Clanahan's train, traveling 77 m.p.h., hit a dump truck at an unmarked crossing in Pacoima. The driver, Jaime Farias, 37, was pronounced dead at the scene.
In the second accident, Apolinar Arellano, 32, of Sun Valley, was struck Feb. 3 as he sat on the tracks near San Fernando Road in Sun Valley. Clanahan reported seeing five men on the tracks, apparently drinking alcohol. When he blew the train whistle, four stepped off the tracks but Arellano remained.
Clanahan declined to be interviewed, but at the Metrolink maintenance yard the day after his latest accident, he somberly described the incident to fellow engineers and Metrolink conductors, recounting that the body was thrown so far from the tracks that it was some time before it was found under a pickup truck 250 feet away.
The other engineers nodded and offered a sympathetic ear. He thanked them quietly and walked off.
Stokes, an engineer for nine years, said most engineers feel more anger than sympathy for pedestrians and motorists who cross in front of a speeding train.
"The people who run the gates do not have the right to jeopardize my life and the life of my passengers," he said.
But the greatest difficulty, engineers say, is coping with the feeling of helplessness that comes at the time of the accident. They point out that an engineer can do little to avoid pulverizing a motorist or pedestrian who winds up on the tracks in front of a speeding train. A 6,000-ton train traveling 60 m.p.h takes up to 1 1/2 miles to come to a stop, they say.
"If someone wants to cross a track in front of a train and they misjudge the timing, there is nothing the engineer can do except watch the scene unfold," FitzGerald said.
James High, a psychiatrist who has worked with several Blue Line operators involved in traumatic accidents, said the aftereffects include sleeplessness, extreme agitation, withdrawal and flashbacks of the crash.
Physical afflictions may include stomach problems, headaches, sweaty palms, heart palpitations and sore muscles, he said.
Most often the operators will continue to relive the accident to try to figure out what they could have done differently, he said.
"One factor that makes something more damaging is the fact that it happens out of our control and in effect bursts the bubble of believing that we have control of our lives," he said.
O'Connell agreed: "Have you ever hit a dog while driving a car?" he asked. "That is the helpless feeling you get when you hit someone. Then you think about what you hit."
Engineers are nearly always blameless, and they know that fatalities are a price of the Southland's growing transit network. But still the tragedies are impossible to forget.
Los Angeles Times
By Hugo Martin and Nora Zamichow
February 17, 1993
Los Angeles, CA - Danny O'Connell remembers clearly the astonished face of the man who died at his hands four years ago.
O'Connell had just begun training to become a locomotive engineer-following in the footsteps of his grandfather and great-grandfather-when a motorist slipped around a lowered crossing gate in front of the speeding train O'Connell was operating.
"I was the last person he saw," said O'Connell, 32, of Yucaipa. "The expression on his face was so clear. I'll never forget it."
As an engineer for Metrolink, O'Connell relives the incident whenever one of Los Angeles' new commuter trains is involved in a fatal accident. That has been five times since the service began in October, most recently on Feb. 3 when a man sitting on the tracks in Sun Valley was hit by a train en route to Santa Clarita.
Across town, the light-rail Metro Blue Line between Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles has had 148 accidents, resulting in 12 deaths and numerous injuries, since it opened in July, 1990.
The accidents have reinforced for O'Connell and the 78 other Metrolink engineers and 63 Blue Line operators that deaths and injuries are as much a part of their job as mechanical glitches, long hours and kids who throw rocks at the cab or put furniture on the tracks.
The 140-mile Metrolink commuter system and the 22-mile Blue Line are segments of a 400-mile web of light- and heavy-rail lines that eventually will stretch from Ventura to San Diego to the Inland Empire.
As the system continues to expand through residential neighborhoods and commercial areas, the potential for accidents increases. And for every death or injury, the men and women at the throttles must cope with trauma, guilt, anger and a slew of other psychological and physical reactions.
"A lot of people don't think how the engineer feels-what kind of nightmares he has," said Tom Stokes, an engineer who was involved in seven non-fatal train accidents before he came to work for Metrolink. "In my mind I can see the faces of everybody I've hit."
Although they cannot cite precise figures or studies, rail authorities-including the Federal Railroad Administration-say that over the course of a career a locomotive engineer may be involved in as many as half a dozen deaths on the tracks.
In most of the accidents, the engineers or operators are found innocent of wrongdoing, particularly because they have little control once the trains get up to speed. Most often the deaths and injuries result from a motorist or pedestrian trying to outrun a speeding train and misjudging the distance or speed.
Each year, the average American engineer has a 1 in 6 chance of being involved in an accident, with a 1 in 15 chance that it will result in injury and a 1 in 60 chance that it will cause death, according to estimates by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, an international union based in Cleveland.
Although Blue Line operators are not classified as engineers because they work on a light-rail system, their chance of being involved in an accident is nearly 100% a year, if the current trend holds, with a 1 in 4.5 chance that it will result in a death.
The chance that an engineer will be involved in a fatal accident is higher than the chance that a police officer will be involved in a shooting. Last year, the Los Angeles Police Department marked a 10-year high for officer-involved shootings, about 10 per 1,000 officers, of which about a third were fatal. During the same year, locomotive engineers averaged 17 fatalities per 1,000 engineers, according to the union's statistics.
And like police officers after shootings, engineers say, they have etched in their memory every injury and death their trains have caused.
Some cope through black humor. Metrolink engineers often talk about an Amtrak engineer they say has been involved in 17 fatalities and joke about his macabre trophy: a coffee mug with 17 stick figures marked on the side.
"It's sick," agreed O'Connell. But, he said, "you become callous about it" because "you can't let it get to you."
One of the four engineers involved in fatal Metrolink accidents is Chris Younger. He'd had several accidents over 2 1/2 years as an engineer, but never one that resulted in a death until the night of Jan. 22.
That was when Eric Pola, 23, of Encino dashed in front of Younger's train as he ran to catch up with two friends sneaking into a drive-in movie in Chatsworth. Pola tripped on the tracks and Younger's 60 m.p.h. juggernaut hurled his body about 200 feet.
Although, given the odds, Younger had expected his train to kill somebody sooner or later, he said that after the accident he avoided looking at the body.
"I got off the engine and walked forward so I wouldn't see anything," he said. "I had to cool off for a minute."
He said he went home and concentrated on moving into his new house.
"Knowing it wasn't my fault, it still doesn't make it an easy experience," he said.
Ronnie Bean, a Blue Line operator, was in a crash last spring. He still has dreams and flashbacks.
At 6:20 a.m. on May 26, Bean was traveling south when a van slipped around a crossing barrier. Bean, 45, leaned on the horn and hit the emergency brake. "That's all you can do," he said. He thought he was going to die in the wreck, which he could see coming.
The train punched into the middle of the van on the passenger side. "It just literally wrapped around the front of the train," Bean said. "I thought it was going to crush the whole front end of the train. I thought, `This is it.' "
The van driver hurtled through the van's windshield and lay crumpled and bleeding on the ground. Although the driver survived, Bean was overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness.
"After impact, you just sit there, that's what makes you a victim-you are a victim of their negligence," Bean said. "There's a helplessness. You can't divert the train, you can't steer around the van. . . . You remain a victim of things like this for a long time. It just eases off after a while."
Another Blue Line operator, Eugene Keyes, hit a pickup truck making a left turn in front of his train, which was traveling at 35 m.p.h on a Saturday morning last year.
"This one guy, it was just me and him," said Keyes, shaking his head. "His eyes just got huge. He had this look like `I'm going to die'. . . . I hit him. All I saw was his eyes-the fear."
The train smashed into the truck's rear wheel. Although the truck was damaged, the driver slowly drove away.
Unlike police officers, who are usually taken off the streets for a time after a shooting, Metrolink engineers and Blue Line operators are not required to take time off after an accident. They are, however, offered counseling-by a psychiatrist for Blue Line operators and employee counselors for Metrolink engineers.
But most engineers say a train accident is an experience that only other engineers can understand, and thus they often turn to each other for support.
"No one understands better than someone who has gone through it," said Steve FitzGerald, a spokesman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. He said most turn to a spouse or another engineer, and a few leave the railroad industry altogether.
Metrolink engineer Ken Clanahan had the misfortune of being at the controls in two fatal Metrolink accidents.
On Nov. 25, Clanahan's train, traveling 77 m.p.h., hit a dump truck at an unmarked crossing in Pacoima. The driver, Jaime Farias, 37, was pronounced dead at the scene.
In the second accident, Apolinar Arellano, 32, of Sun Valley, was struck Feb. 3 as he sat on the tracks near San Fernando Road in Sun Valley. Clanahan reported seeing five men on the tracks, apparently drinking alcohol. When he blew the train whistle, four stepped off the tracks but Arellano remained.
Clanahan declined to be interviewed, but at the Metrolink maintenance yard the day after his latest accident, he somberly described the incident to fellow engineers and Metrolink conductors, recounting that the body was thrown so far from the tracks that it was some time before it was found under a pickup truck 250 feet away.
The other engineers nodded and offered a sympathetic ear. He thanked them quietly and walked off.
Stokes, an engineer for nine years, said most engineers feel more anger than sympathy for pedestrians and motorists who cross in front of a speeding train.
"The people who run the gates do not have the right to jeopardize my life and the life of my passengers," he said.
But the greatest difficulty, engineers say, is coping with the feeling of helplessness that comes at the time of the accident. They point out that an engineer can do little to avoid pulverizing a motorist or pedestrian who winds up on the tracks in front of a speeding train. A 6,000-ton train traveling 60 m.p.h takes up to 1 1/2 miles to come to a stop, they say.
"If someone wants to cross a track in front of a train and they misjudge the timing, there is nothing the engineer can do except watch the scene unfold," FitzGerald said.
James High, a psychiatrist who has worked with several Blue Line operators involved in traumatic accidents, said the aftereffects include sleeplessness, extreme agitation, withdrawal and flashbacks of the crash.
Physical afflictions may include stomach problems, headaches, sweaty palms, heart palpitations and sore muscles, he said.
Most often the operators will continue to relive the accident to try to figure out what they could have done differently, he said.
"One factor that makes something more damaging is the fact that it happens out of our control and in effect bursts the bubble of believing that we have control of our lives," he said.
O'Connell agreed: "Have you ever hit a dog while driving a car?" he asked. "That is the helpless feeling you get when you hit someone. Then you think about what you hit."
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