Oddball facts about Metro trains and their first 25 accidents

Houston Chronicle ^ | March 29, 2004 | LANA BERKOWITZ

[Flyer]

Fear the Train!

*PING!*

As always, a FReep mail will get you on or off this Houston and Texas topics ping list.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Light-Rail-At-Work ping for ya!

[humblegunner]

The train on Main is certainly a pain.

[Flyer]

BTW, here's the stats for your charts and graphs all in one place. Makes your job a ton easier.

[TXBSAFH]

The Wham Bam Tram strikes again. But you have to admit they are getting the cars off the road, one at a time. Please add me to your ping list. Thank you.

[Flyer]

Please add me to your ping list

Done!

[Dog Gone]

With 31 wrecks (as of this morning) it's undeniable that Houston mass transit is taking cars off the road faster than planners envisioned.

[humblegunner]

here's the stats for your charts and graphs all in one place.

My cup runneth over, verily. ;-)

[Flyer]

With 31 wrecks (as of this morning)

As of this morning at 8:15. As fast as they are coming, we need to be more time specific.

[Allegra]

This is all hilarious. Zodiac signs, even!

I'm also chuckling at the little arguments on the Locale page about where the majority of the accidents have taken place.

[Teacher317]

25? Now THERE'S a quality scientific sample size to represent a populaiton of 270,000,000! /s>

[weegee]

What is the customary gift when someone has 25 accidents? A silver neckbrace?

[NotQuiteCricket]

The comical had an article a couple?few? weeks ago, talking about the ridership of the train (and how wonderful it is yadda yadda ignoring the $$ issue i.e. how the wham-bam tram will not be self sufficient). ANYWAY - how, where could I find the METRO bus rider numbers for the routes that were taken away by the wham-bam tram? Are those numbers available? I'm guessing a comparison would be damaging for the wham-bam tram by showing that mass transit ridership had declined for that area after the wham-bam tram was installed (because no one from METRO is holding them up and saying seee!!! we were right, more people are riding now than rode the bus!).

[NotQuiteCricket]

AND - what were the METRO bus accident figures? I bet that those would be unfavorable for the wham-bam tram too.

[weegee]

Avoid Main Street on Fridays.

I've got better advice that the Houston Commiecal will never print: "AVOID DOWNTOWN ALTOGETHER - Metrorail is a boondoggle and a quagmire".

[weegee]

The comical is making light of this tragic situation to try to defuse the critics.

If any of this data meant ANYTHING, the writer would predict in print the nature of the next accident "sex/race of driver, day/time, type of vehicle, etc.).

[Action-America]

Notice that more than 1/3 of drivers were from out of town (36%).

It just shows that Metro's choice of route was flawed, along with all their other mistakes (i.e. street level, way too quiet, should be painted black and yellow angled stripes, like a "DANGER" sign, etc.). I challenge anyone to pick 25 somehow geographically related accidents that occurred anywhere in Houston, except near the airports, where more than a third involved out-of-towners.

They put the Wham-Bam-Tram right through the middle of two of the areas of town that are a magnet for out-of-towners - the Medical Center and the Museum District. For that reason, a disproportionately high number of people driving in the area are not familiar with the area and are busy looking for street signs and landmarks, which naturally detracts from their safety observations, like watching out for a 49 ton train that shouldn't have been there in the first place.

By the time all of the lawsuits are over, the primary fault will be laid clearly at the feet of the Metro officials and designers, who came up with the insane design and route for the Wham-Bam-Tram. I expect that when all is said and done, they will all have to go into the federal WITSEC program (witness protection).

 

[weegee]

If the accidents are going to proportionally include a significant number of out of town drivers, then no education program to teach Houston drivers will eliminate the accidents Metrorail is encountering.

Education is NOT the answer. Maybe better breaks on the railtrains so that they can stop BEFORE an accident occurs.

[Flyer]

What is the customary gift when someone has 25 accidents? A silver neckbrace?

Maybe sorta silver - a chrome bumper?