Rohnert Park man struck, killed by SMART train in Santa Rosa

A Rohnert Park man walking early Friday morning on the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit tracks in south Santa Rosa was struck and killed by a southbound train, the fourth death for the North Bay’s year-old public commuter system.

Michael Rosenberg, 68, was identified as the man killed in the SMART collision, which occurred at about 5:33 a.m., a couple hundred yards south of the pedestrian train crossing at Hearn Avenue near Roseland.

Based on a Santa Rosa police review of video footage from the train, Rosenberg had his back to the train and appeared to ignore the engineer’s emergency horn and attempt to stop, according to Sgt. Jonathan Wolf. He is believed to have died upon impact.

“The train blew its horn and activated its emergency brakes and tried to get his attention,” said Wolf. “Trains don’t stop too quickly and he was hit. He made no obvious attempt to deviate from the train tracks.”

No one else was around at the time of the incident and there were no signs of anything suspicious, Wolf said. There also were no early indications Rosenberg was wearing headphones or may have been distracted when he was struck.

Santa Rosa police and the rail agency coordinated on the investigation.

“We’re still trying to determine what this individual was doing on the tracks,” said SMART Police Chief Jennifer Welch. “I can’t speculate on anything. Whether he was purposefully out there or using the tracks as a shortcut, we can’t know.”

Santa Rosa police expect to release their final report next week.

A pedestrian crossing exists on the roadway at Hearn Avenue, and no trespassing signs warn people not to enter the train’s right of way, which is blocked with chain-link fences on both sides south of the crossing. Behind the fence, a blacktop path for pedestrians and bicyclists runs parallel to the tracks.

“Unfortunately we can’t prevent everything,” said Welch. “We can only do so much. Staying off the tracks and off of the right of way is imperative.”

Twenty-six people were aboard the SMART train at the time of the incident, according to Welch. They were rerouted via a bus bridge established between downtown Santa Rosa and the stations in Rohnert Park and Cotati.

The rail system was running up to 40 minutes behind by midmorning before returning to the regular train schedule starting at 11:30 a.m., according to SMART. Police were able to clear the scene just after 11 a.m.

The death marks the fourth since the train system began operating in August 2017, and the second near the Hearn Avenue location. The prior incident, ruled a suicide, occurred in January when a 64-year-old woman stood on the tracks and was struck by an oncoming southbound train at the roadway crossing.

In August, a 72-year-old woman, who Novato police said was crawling on the tracks near the Hamilton Station, also died by suicide.

About two weeks later, a 29-year-old man was struck and killed by a northbound SMART train in Rohnert Park in what city public safety officials later ruled was an accident. The gas station attendant was hit as he walked across the tracks at Golf Course Drive while wearing noise-isolating headphones and engrossed in his cellphone.

Two other high-profile SMART train collisions have also occurred in Santa Rosa.

The first, in October 2017, involved a cyclist wearing headphones who went around the lowered gates at West Steele Lane and was hit and injured, but survived. The second happened this May when a box truck carrying furniture drove through the lowered gate arms at Todd Road and was destroyed by a train traveling at ?77 mph. The driver, who was injured but also survived, had no recollection of entering the train’s right-of-way as it approached.

“We don’t have what I’d call a pattern at this point,” said Wolf. “But the longer the train’s around, who knows what we’ll see.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin Fixler at 707-521-5336 or at kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com.