PD Editorial: SMART’s safety lessons are on track

For years, supporters of the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit line have worked diligently to encourage people to ride the rails through the heart of the North Coast.

Now, they’re urgently warning residents to stay off of them.

The reason: the train is coming. Soon. And with it will come the risks of people, bike and cars being struck by trains speeding down the line.

Other areas are all too familiar with these safety concerns. Caltrain, which serves the Peninsula via a 77-mile commuter railway connecting San Jose (sometimes Gilroy) to San Francisco, recorded 18 deaths on the tracks last year. It was Caltrain’s deadliest year since 2009, when 19 people died. The worst year was 1995 when 20 perished.

In about nine in every 10 cases, the deaths are ruled a suicide. But all too often there are cases where vehicles get stuck on the tracks due to traffic backups or an engine malfunction and tragedy happens. Sometimes it is just the result of poor decision-making such as a driver who opts to go around a down crossing gate - and loses the gamble.

It also can be poor judgment on the part of passengers who are running to make a train or don’t respect the risks of standing too close to the tracks. Such was the case in September, when a man at a rail station in Mountain View was standing too close on the platform and was struck as a train passed by. He was taken to a hospital but survived.

All of these are lessons local residents are going to have to learn - hopefully, not the hard way.

Although there has been plenty of conversation over the years about the need for a commuter rail line here, Sonoma County has not been served by a passenger train since 1958. Since then, North Coast residents have developed some poor habits, such as routinely walking along the railroad tracks, not looking when crossing the rails either on bike or by car and, more recently, going around the crossing guards when they’re down on the assumption that they are just being tested.

That will need to change, said Jennifer Welch, chief of police for SMART.

Welch told The Press Democrat’s Derek Moore that residents need to pay attention to the rules of the rails. “That is when the gates come down and the lights flash, you may not pass (under) those gates or go around those gates,” she said. “We really want to make sure that we keep the public safe, and it’s a community effort to do so.”

As part of that, SMART has launched an extensive public safety campaign that includes posting signs at rail crossings and passing out fliers and giving talks at schools and community events. Rail officials are also having to clear out a number of homeless encampments along the 42-mile rail line for safety reasons. We also encourage SMART to reach out to mental health organizations, much as Caltrain has done, in hopes of having some honest discussions about the risks the train presents once it starts running sometime this fall.

But trains have already started moving along the tracks, from the operation center near the Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport to downtown San Rafael, as engineers test the cars. Starting this week, the trains were expected to start operating at faster speeds.

SMART is right about the urgency of getting North Bay residents up to speed on the opportunities, as well as risks, that are coming down the tracks.