The Blue Line rail accident that took six lives last weekend might have been prevented if four barrier gates--rather than the standard two--had been in place at the intersection where a train collided with a taxicab, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's safety chief said Thursday.
The taxi, whose driver was unlicensed, was carrying five passengers when it collided with a southbound train at Greenleaf Boulevard and Willowbrook Avenue.
The empty commuter train, which was going out of service and heading back to its service yard, was traveling 55 mph when the cab went around a barrier gate, investigators said.
Only one intersection along the Blue Line's 22-mile route--at 124th Street in Los Angeles--is equipped with four barrier gates, part of a federally funded demonstration project.
"The staff feels that in this particular accident a four-quadrant grade-crossing protection device may have deterred the driver of the taxicab from entering the intersection, thus avoiding the collision," safety director Paul Lennon told the MTA board Thursday in his review of the accident.
After Lennon's report, MTA directors voted to undertake a sweeping assessment of the agency's safety measures and press for installation of quadrant gates at problem intersections, although regulatory hurdles could take months, if not years, to clear.
With the exception of 124th Street, the MTA now uses two gates at each intersection, which is standard throughout the United States. The gates close to stop oncoming vehicle traffic, assuming cars will stop at the gates and wait for trains to pass. But what often happens, as was the case in Saturday's collision, is that motorists enter the open lanes on the wrong side of the street, drive in front of the gates, and try to beat the train through the intersection.
MTA investigators, including Lennon, continue to insist that the driver involved in Saturday's crash, who was behind the wheel of an unlicensed cab with a suspended license, was 100% responsible for the accident.
During the board debate, directors argued that the transit agency must act much more aggressively to stop carnage on the rail line.
Since it opened in 1990, 53 people have lost their lives along the Blue Line right of way, by far the worst record of any of California's five light-rail systems and said to be one of the worst in the nation. All those who died in the accidents were either on foot or in motor vehicles hit by the trains. In each case, investigators said the accidents were preventable.
