To MTA and Expo Light Rail Board members
As a follow-up to our request for a Congressional investigation into the safety of the Blue Line and MTA's discriminatory planning practices (fixexpo.org) I am enclosing an article from the Arizona Republic, “Bad train crashes expose spotty federal safety program.”
Phoenix, which opened its light rail line just a few months ago, has seen a ridiculously high number of accidents and increase in accidents along the roads the light rail travels.
Some feel the flurry of accidents is unexpected, given the heavy blitz by politicians and public relations firms, all of whom promised the system would be “safe.”
The article is a good one that tackles the national light rail safety issue. It is the type of light rail safety investigative piece that was regularly seen out of the L.A. media before editors thought the public had become synthesized to the maiming and killings on the tracks primarily occurring in South L.A., Watts and Compton:
FTA safety statistics show that light rail is the most accident-prone form of mass transit. Light rail trains crash more than twice as often as average, and significantly more frequently than buses.
To no surprise, the stats show that by far the safest form of mass transit is “grade separated” rail (of which heavy rail is 99 percent of the time) and is what the Expo Line will be in the one mile from La Cienega to Robertson, where more money is being spent to construct the Expo Line there than in the entire primarily at-grade 4.5-mile portion of rail in South L.A.
The only issue I have with the the Arizona Republic article is the direct comparison between the number of vehicle accidents and the number of train accidents. Deniers of the hazards of at-grade light rail crossings often use this public relations tactic to imply that light rail is safer than cars when it clearly is not.
Given that there are tens of thousands more cars on the road for every single light rail train on the road, such arguments are as logically flawed as the claim that Compton is safer than Canada because there are fewer murders per year in the Hub City than to the north.
Every comparison of rates undeniably and unequivocally show that the 225-ton trains that come without steering wheels and take a few football fields to come to a complete stop are the most dangerous vehicles on the street.
Thank goodness the taxpayers of South Los Angeles are going to pay for a $6 billion to $9 billion Subway to the Sea to protect the Wilshire community, where County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky lives, from the hazards of at-grade rail.
How we do wish the MTA and Expo Authority boards, along with the local politicians, break out of this belief that the communities of the 2nd Supervisorial District, which includes the Blue Line and Expo Line Phase 1, are supposed to be content with being treated like second class citizens.
All the best,
Damien Goodmon
Coordinator, Fix Expo Campaign
Mr. Goodmon, that rare modern combination of journalist/activist, may be contacted at dg@fixexpo.org
