The Green Line (aka “The Vomit Comet” – ride it late on a weekend night or early on a weekend morning to find out what that means. Or…don’t) has claimed its second life this year:
The crash occurred at Syndicate Street and University Avenue about 4:30 p.m., according to Metro Transit spokesman Howie Padilla. Two men were crossing the tracks at the intersection, when a westbound train struck one of them.
The man who was struck by the train was taken to Regions Hospital, where he died about 5 p.m., Padilla said.
The crash disrupted Green Line service between Hamline and Western avenues until shortly after 5:30 p.m., according to posts on Metro Transit’s Twitter account.
That’s on top of another, two blocks away, last January, and at least 2-3 more previously.
That’s a project I may need to take on – going over the human factors problems that make the Green Line such a death machine.
On top of the six (last I checked) on the Blue Line, and makes the Metro Transit trains’ body count roughly 11 times that of Minnesota carry permit holders.
Oh, come on, just because 11 people have died doesn’t mean it was a stupid idea to put 50 ton carriages at grade level with only a bearing surface to stop them in a bar district.
Oh, wait…..
Dude, you’re on fire today.
There is not enough detail for me to lay blame on the Metro. After reading the story, I’m inclined to consider this a “Darwin Award” situation.
There is not enough detail for me to lay blame on the Metro. After reading the story, I’m inclined to consider this a “Darwin Award” situation.
I rode the Green Death Line to and from an afternoon Twins game back in August. The St. Paul portion of the return trip – in the 4 p.m. “happy hour” – featured half a dozen drunks in my car. I’m pretty sure they weren’t baseball fans.
6,000 pedestrians were killed by cars nationwide last year, in this MPR report (so it must be true).
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/03/01/npr-pedestrian-fatalities-remain-at-25-year-high-for-second-year-in-row
7,000 pedestrians have been run over by trains nationwide, in a twenty-year period, according to Wikipedia (so it must be true).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_railroad_safety_in_the_United_States
Cars kill the same number of people in one year as trains kill in twenty years so cars are twenty times more dangerous, right? Except there are 263 million cars and only about 1,000 trains, so trains kill more people per vehicle than cars. And the train number is as low as it is only because who walks across a train yard? Nobody. Except on University Avenue, where the train runs right through the pedestrian walkway in several locations, thereby making victims more available to increase the body count.
You really have to add the people killed while riding, or waiting for the choo-choo to get the full picture of the carnage.