High Speed Rail in Tillicum: Part One of Three

This is part one of a three-part series on the subject of High Speed Rail (HSR).  There are three questions this series seeks to address:

1.  Separation — How acceptably does HSR alleviate concerns of safety with respect to trains vs. pedestrians and trains vs. traffic?

2.  Motivation — How accurately does HSR present its information? In other words, is there material that HSR makes available for public consumption, while pursuing an under-the-radar purpose reflecting an ulterior motivation?

3.  Transportation — How affectively does HSR address the needs of transportation?

As you read this there remains but a few weeks left (Dec. 11, 2011 deadline) in the effort to gather 5,500 signatures of Lakewood registered voters to put before the people the opportunity to vote on the most significant transportation issue our city will likely ever face.  "Remember," stated the 2011 Informed Voter Guide issued by the Freedom Foundation, "it's your government, it's your money, it's your future."

To help with the effort you can download the petition here.

http://www.communitymattersweb.com/pages/posts/latest-news-39.php

Part I

"So, have enough people died yet?  Unfortunately, it often takes a high body count to finally convince business or government to take preventive safety steps." - L.A. train crash the deadliest U.S. rail disaster in 15 years, September, 2008.

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) officials are of a one-track mind in ruling out all but one option to save passengers six minutes on the Seattle-to-Portland run - that singular option being the rerouting of Amtrak passenger trains away from the scenic Puget Sound waterfront and through the business districts and along the neighborhoods of Lakewood and DuPont at a cost of $91 million.

Saving minutes vs. saving lives

Safety is not, as so often portrayed in pro-train arguments, a scare tactic.  It is one reason, not the only reason, but nonetheless a very important reason deserving a significant place in the discussion of HSR, and as such it should not be cavalierly dismissed, nor ought the victims of train accidents simply be labeled suicidal or trespassers, nor fairly targeted are those raising the issue of safety as fear-mongering.

Safety, after all, was the number one reason expressed by the Lakewood City Council when on January 19, 2010 the members unanimously adopted a resolution opposing the project.  The city of DuPont passed a similar objection, as did the Clover Park School District.

http://www.cityoflakewood.us/documents/news_and_events/pt_defiance_resolution.pdf

In Lakewood's resolution council members wrote, "Trains traveling at high speeds with no grade separation between trains and cars through urban areas, most of which are low-income, generated an unacceptable risk to community safety."

The Lakewood City Council is not fear-mongering. According to Gus Melonas, spokesman for BNSF, "Sixty percent of students admit that they trespass on train tracks. We have found that if people want to cross a track, they will go over, under and through a fence."  And Dean Dahlin, train engineer with Union Pacific acknowledged that "at least 70% to 80% (of students) say they've been in a car that has driven around the gates at a railroad crossing."  (Tacoma News Tribune, October 26, 2008)

Nationally, statistics may show that although "vehicle v. train collisions" have decreased in the last few years, "pedestrian v. train collisions" have increased.  ("Crash Stuff, All crashes of the world."  Train Accident Statistics, October 22, 2009)

"Over 600 car drivers and passengers die each year trying to beat the crossing-gate arms.  Another 700 are killed by walking too close to train tracks."  ("Death on the Go - Dying While Traveling")

"Someone in America is hit by a train about every 115 minutes, say federal rail safety officials," according to an October 26, 2008 Tacoma News Tribune article.  Statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation indicate that "almost every 90 minutes in America, a driver is hit by a train."

Grade separations are ugly

What is the plan to prevent deaths-by-train?  Per pro-train brochures, standard safety measures at 10 crossings in Lakewood and DuPont, but with regards grade separations, WSDOT says they're too expensive.  And, as to train speed, 79 mph today, 115 tomorrow.

A grade separation - an overpass - that would leave Tillicum's, or any of the other 10 crossings in Lakewood and DuPont, crucial street connection to I-5 undisturbed isn't going to happen because WSDOTtakes the view that "it's too expensive, unsightly, a grafitti magnet, and a gang hangout," said a WSDOT spokesperson at a forum hosted by the Tillicum Woodbrook Neighborhood Association, January 6, 2011.

Not only does WSDOTget a failing-grade on grade separations, but what the public is told on Amtrak's "Fact Sheet" with regards train speed isn't what the feds are saying.  Whereas local passenger-train promotional material states that "trains will travel at a maximum of 79 mph," contrarily "the Federal Railroad Association is proposing to boost the top speeds of Amtrak from 79 mph to 110 mph.  Incremental improvements are planned to eventually support 110 mph service with greater frequencies on the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver portion of the corridor" states the Pacific Northwest Corridor publication at www.fra.dot.gov.

State rail and marine director Scott Witt, who oversees Amtrak Cascades service for WSDOT, is quoted by C.B. Hall in a Crosscut.com article as admitting that "under the HSR program, the corridor is expected - one of these days - to host trains traveling at up to 110 mph."

Emergency vehicles will have to wait like everyone else

Local jurisdictions often have no control over the train travel in their area resulting in delays for local emergency response to catastrophic situations in the community.  This basically means that the fire trucks will have to wait while a transcontinental train passes.

And that's if the train passes.  What if it in fact is the problem?  Derailment happens.  Human error occurs.  Fast, loud and relentless, "Unstoppable" was based upon an actual 2001 Toledo, Ohio incident of a runaway train heading for a large population center threatening catastrophic loss of life.  In another incident a rush-hour commuter train in the Northeast was stopped in time to avoid collision with a freight train that "had gotten loose" on the same set of tracks.  But those in the Los Angeles tragedy of 2008 weren't so lucky.  "The deadliest U.S. rail disaster in 15 years" involved a commuter train crash that killed 25 people, likewise the result of an engineer's error - in this case having failed to stop for a signal, an unconfirmed report suggesting the engineer was text messaging at the time.  (Tacoma News Tribune, September 17, 2008)

Lakewood resident Alan Hart 

http://www.thesubtimes.com/2011/11/07/letter-do-we-need-to-deliberately-increase-our-risk/

has estimated the statistical likelihood of train accidents in the city should WSDOT succeed in its endeavor to thrust HSR through town.  Hart suggests that while the numbers don't tell the whole story, consideration should be given to "the mess a railroad accident creates and the close proximity of high speed rail to our homes, our schools and the effect of hours or days of closure will have on our roads."

Hart has a point given the news out of Kent this past May 11, in which "a 47-year-old man was hit and killed by a train while riding his bicycle across the West Gowe Street railroad crossing downtown.  The rail crossing was closed for about 90 minutes for the investigation."

http://blog.thenewstribune.com/crime/2011/05/11/kent-bicyclist-hit-killed-by-train-at-downtown-crossing/

Northwest train-death headlines in just the last 36 months

BURLINGTON, Wash. - "A man was killed by an Amtrak train after walking onto rail property," November 7, 2011.

http://www.kirotv.com/news/news/man-hit-killed-train-burlington/nFXpc/

"Young woman struck and killed by a Sounder commuter train in Seattle," November 7, 2011.  Excerpt: "Crew members blew the whistle and applied the emergency brake but were unable to stop.  The rail line was shut down for about two hours."

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/11/07/1896843/woman-hit-by-seattle-commuter.html#ixzz1dKOna5Cs

"Pedestrian struck and killed by train in Seattle," January 30, 2011.

"2 die in separate train fatalities in Sumner, Marysville," January 15, 2011.

"An Amtrak train traveling from Chicago to Seattle on Thursday hit and killed a woman walking on the tracks about nine miles east of Seattle," November 26, 2010.

"Amtrak train kills 40-year-old man walking on tracks in Sumner," October 9, 2010.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/10/09/1375070/sumner-amtrak-train-kills-man.html#ixzz1CFzBW4U4

"Sounder train hits, kills man in Puyallup," August 18, 2010.  Excerpt: "A Sounder train struck and killed a man in Puyallup on Tuesday morning, but the crew didn't immediately realize it."

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/08/18/1305361/sounder-train-hits-kills-man-in.html#ixzz1CFxbJVLD

"An 18-year-old woman was killed and her male companion injured Sunday evening when they were struck by a southbound Amtrak Train near Titlow Beach," August 8, 2010.

"Two injured when car hits train in Lakewood," March 26, 2010.

http://blog.thenewstribune.com/crime/2010/03/26/two-injured-when-car-hits-train-in-lakewood/

"Woman killed when struck by train in Steilacoom," March 23, 2010.

"Boy, girl fail to hear horn, killed by Amtrak train," April 15, 2009.  Excerpt: "The train was traveling about 75 mph and couldn't stop in time."

"Woman using a walker killed by train," October 26, 2008.  Excerpt: "An 85-year-old woman using a walker was struck and killed by a train as she tried to cross to Sunnyside Beach in Steilacoom."

Amtrak's "corporate culture of tolerance"

"The deaths of two girls are the basis of a wrongful-death lawsuit against what the victims' families call Amtrak's 'corporate culture of tolerance.'  BNSF Railway, which owns the railroad tracks on which the Amtrak train was traveling, requires its engineers to use the emergency brake to avoid pedestrians.  But Amtrak disputes whether its employees need to follow rules set by the owners of the railroad track, according to court documents.  In a deposition for the case, Amtrak foreman Tim Branson testified that the train company never evaluates engineer competence when fatalities occur.  There is also no requirement that an engineer be tested for substance abuse after a trespasser fatality, according to state and federal officials.  Although toxicology reports were done on the two girls after the accident, none was done on the engineer."  The 2002 lawsuit was settled in 2006 and "sealed from public view," according to a story in the Tacoma News Tribune, October 26, 2008.

This safety argument is not fear mongering but legitmate concern for public welfare.  It is the number one reason the city council of Lakewood passed a resolution opposing the project.  By train officals own admission, no amount of fencing can keep people off the tracks.  By WSDOT spokesperson's acknowledgment, grade-separations are not only not planned, they're discouraged.  And with evidence of Amtrak's "culture of tolerance" - a key focus of a wrongful death lawsuit, what safety sense does it make to take a passenger train off an inarguably more remote section of track along the Puget Sound waterfront, where death by train already occurs, and instead thrust that train through the business districts and life-congested neighborhoods of Tyee Park, Nyanza Park, Tillicum, and DuPont, increasing the speed and the number of trains per day, every single day of the week?

Death potential is high and time for investigation of accidents that occur at vital intersections is long, making access to at least one neighborhood - that of Tillicum- potentially impossible for emergency vehicles.  Taking this all into account we would be worse than remiss and rather negligent if - as elected representatives of the people through whose neighborhoods this project is planned to go - we did not protest this project based upon the safety issue alone.

But there's more.  Much more.

If safety is the far more obvious elephant in the room, then what follows in the next installment in this series, to continue the analogy, is not unlke a jungle where we cannot see the forest for the trees - unless we look closely to discover what lies behind.

In other words there is that which WSDOT makes available for public consumption and then there is what amounts to deep-in-the-forest information that reveals a more true-to-track-record rail this train has long been traveling on.

Again, the days are numbered (December 11, 2011 the deadline) for which to do that which only lies in our hands to accomplish - gather 5,500 signatures of Lakewood voters to put this issue before the people.  Petitions, and instructions, are available here. http://www.communitymattersweb.com/pages/posts/latest-news-39.php