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Not in my Name
How many more senseless deaths must NM endure in service to poorly thought out mass transit? Another notch in the Rail Runner's caboose. Though this one appears to be a suicide, the line's kill-to-passenger ratio seems disturbingly high.
We need to stop the madness. Now.
We need to stop the madness. Now.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Steve Whitman on -
Are you eally saying we should abandon the train because of 3 or 4 accidents - the latest being a suicide? Thats madness, not the trains. I agree that changing habits regarding crossing the tracks might take some time, but jeezus, the trains are BIG and LOUD and stay on the tracks and only go by a few times a day. If you can't avoid getting hit by one you shouldn't be endagering the rest of the population by operating a motor vehicle on the streets! Or maybe Dan's tounge is firmly in cheek....
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Permalink Reply by mombat on -
I am sorry that there have been accidents, but scraping the train is not the answer. The line uses through the existing rail lines which have been there for many years. The tracks are like ditches or arroyos, most of the time they carry nothing, but they are working you must pay attention .
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Permalink Reply by bleve on -
You could put it in my name... the incidents are isolated and this is a flimsy attempt to use a tragic suicide to bash the project.
Ideas about how it could be better planned may strengthen your outcry for justice.
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Jane on -
I've been here a year and it seems to be the 505 suicide theme. I'm from Seattle, and there we have the Aurora Bridge- more than 200 people have committed suicide there, and they even put up a suicide "barrier" and I heard something about emergency suicide hotline phones too. There has been a lot in the media about the emotional trauma that the workers (who recover the bodies) go through.
Not sure where I'm going with this but it's totally fascinating to me. There are so many private ways to commit suicide- why jump in front of a train? Maybe they dont want to take their fate into their own hands?
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Jane on
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Yeah, and *someone* needs to clean up the mess. I think the train deal is totally faulty, messy and selfish.
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Permalink Reply by once banned twice shy on
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Dude. I'll bet if you take a look at any place that has commuter train traffic, there are a number of accidents. I know from experience that in the Northeast Corridor, there are quite a few people hit by trains while passed out on the tracks, or trying to beat a train or whatever. A friend who lives in the Netherlands tells me that suicide by train is VERY popular--among those who want to commit suicide, of course.
I saw on the news last night that the state is installing gates at ungated intersections and I imagine they are checking other intersections. But indeed, the people who live out there in the boondocks have gotten lazy about crossing those tracks and will now just need to pay more attention.
But I'm with Steve Whitman--maybe Dan is joking about this whole thing.
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Permalink Reply by Lazlo Nibble on -
Dude. I'll bet if you take a look at any place that has commuter train traffic, there are a number of accidents.
Caltrain (Gilroy to San Francisco) has about as many miles of track as Rail Runner will when the Santa Fe link is completed, and they average around one fatality a month, half of them suicides. Their route is much more densely populated than Rail Runner's but that also means they have a lot fewer barrierless grade crossings, so the chances of a train "sneaking up" on you are just about zero. If your car gets hit by Caltrain, you either stopped on the tracks or drove around the gates.
BART has no grade crossings and I've still lost count of the number of suicides that have happened since we moved here in '99. There are at least two or three a year, probably more. Bay Area news outlets don't report on them -- or on Golden Gate Bridge jumpers, for that matter -- though they do make an exception if there's a major rush-hour disruption as a result. (The euphemism in system announcements is "medical emergency". But BART can't easily reroute traffic around a problem so the only "medical emergency" guaranteed to shut down a BART train is finding someone underneath one.)
I grew up south of Los Lunas, a couple hundred yards from the tracks. (Last August's Rail Runner accident was at the grade crossing I used to use every day; the folks killed were friends of my parents.) There were plenty of fatal accidents on those unprotected crossings over the years, but as someone else already observed, they weren't publicized because because the trains involved were routine Santa Fe/BNSF freights rather than commuter runs on a brand new government-run line. People just don't pay attention.
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Permalink Reply by ze barefoot pirate on -
I'd take you up on that offer to pay for cab fare, but I bet you didn't really mean that you personally should pay. No, "they" should do it. That's not a well-thought-out statement.
When I drive to work in Albuquerque from Los Lunas, I put 50 miles on my 1993 Honda every day. Now I can drive to the train station (1.3 miles) and catch the train to work. True, it adds an hour and a half to my commute time, but I don't have to pay for parking anymore and the wear-and-tear on my car is extensively reduced. I love the train! I just wish the transport system in ABQ was better, so I didn't have to take my car when I have appointments in other parts of town. The money I save is considerable, and my car will last longer. And I'm not fond of cabs anyway.
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