Welcome to Safe Rails for Marin and Sonoma
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Welcome to Safe Rails for Marin and Sonoma
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Summary
While riders may be safe on SMART trains, the public is not. There have been 13 fatalities on SMART tracks since the system went live in 2017. While some of these fatalities have been judged suicides, the total number of deaths exceeds the annual number of homicides reported in all of Marin County for both 2017 and 2018. Several of these fatalities have occurred at busy road crossings that fail to meet minimum safety requirements as detailed in the Federal Railroad Administration publication "Guide to the Quiet Zone Establishment Process", September 2013. Miles of SMART tracks go through residential areas, relying only on homeowner fences to prevent tragedy. Major gaps in fencing to prevent access to the tracks have gone uncorrected in two years of operation. Recent sidewalk "fixes" installed by SMART, are cheap, cosmetic changes that acknowledge the access problem but do not correct it.
There has to be a culture change at SMART that makes public safety the top priority.
Crossing at Petaluma. Nothing blocks children, skateboarders, or bicyclists from oncoming trains.
Fatal Road Crossing Design
Aside from closing streets, the FRA rates four-gated crossings as the safest in quiet zones. All paths to the tracks are blocked. The FRA also allows a replacement for crossing gates consisting of median strips or channelization markers to prevent cars from switching lanes in an attempt to beat an oncoming train. This exception, in quiet zones, does not block pedestrians or bicycles from colliding with oncoming trains in the ungated lanes. The tracks are wide open. Putting in a median strip is far cheaper than crossing arms and at many crossings SMART has chosen to save money over assuring public safety. Additionally, many of the median strips used by SMART do not meet the FRA design requirements, leaving crossings dangerously out of compliance.(49 CFR Appendix A) This apparent cost-safety tradeoff in the design of many road grade crossings should be corrected immediately. Several of the fatalities on the SMART rails can be traced to these unsafe crossings.
Ungated Road Crossing
Location of fatality at Novato Downtown Station. Only three gates with non-conforming median strip,
Open Access to Tracks
Preventing Access
As CalTrain has learned, restricting access to the tracks is the basis for reducing accidental and intentional fatalities. SMART has failed to act on this very basic public safety principle on its tracks. This photo is from Golf Course Drive in Rohnert Park, where the recent "fix" actually directs pedestrians on to the track. This crossing is the most deadly in the entire system.