01-06-2017, 11:11 AM
(01-06-2017, 08:03 AM)Canard Wrote: I'm just curious, and I think I know the answer, but do you guys actually have any clue how many fatalities there are per year on LRT systems in the US?
There were 40 in 2012. More recent figures are preliminary (yes, this is from the 2016 report. No, I don't know why their information products are so out of date) but say 33 for 2013 and 39 for 2014.
Probably safe to say: Some tens of humans are killed in the US by light rail each year.
Yes, the lives saved by more efficient transport; Yes, the economic benefit of a transit system; Yes, the order of magnitude difference in fatalities compared to automotive transport (disputed, I don't have a source for this. Someone will need to find the # of passenger miles attributed to both modes for normalization); Yes the knock-on benefits to environment, urban intensification...
But. Those are still fatalities, those are still people who die, and those are going to happen to our system in our lifetimes and possibly to someone we know. And it will be used to vilify the system, the operators, the riders, and the supporters.
Are there are steps Grandlinq and the Region could be taking today to minimize these deaths? Are there steps _we_ can take?