It's Michael Walden's first week as the operator of a Los Angeles Metro Blue Line train. He's a former bus driver, but the differences between bus and rail are like night and day.
Accidents are commonplace, and deaths to motorists and pedestrians along the Blue Line are the highest among California's light-rail systems.
Trains can reach speeds of up to 55 mph while buses are stalled in traffic. After the trains reach top speed, it takes them more than the length of a football field to stop. And, in the 54-minute, 22-mile run from downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach, Walden will cross 101 streets, breezing past senior citizen centers, shopping malls, low-income housing projects, parks, swap meets and industrial strips.
Virtually all of the deaths are the result of miscalculations or carelessness by pedestrians or motorists, transit police investigators say. Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials are providing system operators with training on how to be aware of such hazards, but point out that these dangers inherent in an urban system at ground level are often beyond their control.
Critics call the setup a formula for disaster, and the line's track record bears them out.
47 Deaths in 10 Years
Since the Blue Line began operating in 1990, 47 pedestrians or motorists have lost their lives after being hit by the light-rail train, the result of more than 400 accidents, according to state and local records kept for light-rail systems.
On this day, Robert Johnson, who supervises the training of train operators, is hovering over Walden's shoulder.
Peering down the track with Walden, it is easy to see the problem: Cars and trucks on both sides of the train head for the same intersection. Kids straddle bicycles, waiting impatiently for the train to pass. People push shopping carts toward the tracks. Commuters stand dangerously close to the tracks as they wait for Walden to stop.
"You see that car coming alongside? What do you think he is doing?" Johnson asks, reciting his training mantra. "Is he accelerating? What do you think he might be doing, trying to turn left?" The car stops. "If the vehicle starts to move an inch, you are on the horn, you are on the brake."
Johnson, a hard-nosed, veteran train operator who looks out at the world from under an MTA baseball cap, pounds into his students' heads what is obvious the first time they step into a Blue Line cab: The trains have no steering wheel.
