The pace has obviously quickened. Light rail only covers 7.5 miles in Houston today. The carnage figures in 20 years should be really impressive.
The last real report said we were on pace for 44 for the year, the worst record in light rail startup in US history.
I don't know where you got that, but it's way off. In fact, I just went through the list of Wham-Bam-Tram crashes and at no time since the second public operation accident on 1/13, has the accident rate been that low. On 1/13, the rate was one crash every 6.5 days or 56 crashes per year and it rapidly increased after that (I include pedestrian accidents only when there is an injury reported).
Today, we are on track for 98.3 crashes in the first year.
Do the math. It has been 78 days and there have been 21 crashes or pedestrian injury accidents since 1/1/4.
78 days / 21 crashes = a crash every 3.71 days
365 days per year / 3.71 days = 98.3 crashes projected in a year.
Furthermore, according to a KHOU report, the Wham-Bam-Tram has already had more crashes in the first two months of operation than any rail system in any other city had in the first year of operation. Not only that, but the Wham-Bam-Tram route is much shorter than the routes of any of those other trains.
The Wham-Bam-Tram is crashing at a rate at least six times greater than any other train system in any other city ever did. You would think that someone at Metro would realize that something is seriously flawed in the design of the Wham-Bam-Tram.
On the other hand, I hear that the engineers and city planners who came up with the design have applied to the US Attorney's Office for inclusion in the Witness Protection Program. 8^)