Track Lube Gums Up Environmental Review

I am not of the opinion that CEQA law itself requires “reform”. In the vast majority of projects, the process works fine for all concerned. There is, however, a small number of cases where inexperienced or clueless Judges have made some really baffling decisions. Case in point: the Metrolink Perris Vally extension:

The court released a single-sentence ruling late Thursday, March 28, denying a writ of mandate filed by the environmental group Friends of Riverside’s Hills. The group sued the Riverside County Transportation Commission in 2011, claiming it had failed to address a number of environmental consequences of the commuter train plan.

Yet the full text made available Monday, April 1, shows Judge Sharon J. Waters ruled for Friends on five of 15 points noted in the project’s environmental impact report: the effects on soil, use of track lubricant, pedestrian safety, train wheel noise and construction noise.

Hopefully the project won’t get held up because the EIR failed to mention the use of track lubricant.

 

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Metrolink Back-Seat Drivers

Senator Boxer is fuming that Metrolink has just a single crew member in the cab on 87% of its runs.

The agency had said it would double up on crew members in locomotives as part of a series of safety reforms after the Chatsworth crash a year ago that killed 25 and injured 135. The so-called second-set-of-eyes plan was a hastily implemented reform after investigators found that the Metrolink engineer had been text messaging on a cellphone and apparently ran a red light just before crashing head-on into a freight train.

The Chatsworth collision is an example of what risk-expert Dr. John Adams terms “low-frequency, high-impact” incident. These types of incidents provoke knee-jerk reaction from politicians who feel the need to do something regardless of cost-benefit.

To my knowledge, there has never been a peer-review study on the benefits of two train drivers. For all we know, such measure would be counterproductive, should the two become distracted while engaging in heated debates over the previous night’s Dodger’s game.

Amtrak-style train service, such as Metrolink, is notorious for low employee productivity. Most transit agencies (outside the US) run commuter service with just a single crewman (i.e. the driver), using Proof-of-Payment ticketing in lieu of conductors. Whereas “safety” regulations and make-work rules in the US necessitate all kinds of extra labor expenses — ticket punchers, ticket sellers, and now an extra train driver too.

There is also significant opportunity cost that comes with hiring superfluous drivers. Their salary comes at the expense of real safety measures; for example, hiring extra patrols at problem intersections to ticket car drivers going around crossing gates.

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Anaheim Grand Central Money Pit

Question: How big a train station is required to handle bidirectional 4 trains/hr?

Most railway planners would give an answer something like this:

But in Anaheim, the solution for handling for their measly 4 trains/hr (2030 projection!) is this $180 million palatial megacomplex, the Grand Central of Orange County, otherwise known as Artic:

The “Leed(TM) Platinum-Certified sustainable building” will provide over 1255 parking spaces.

Unfortunately, the station is not an anomaly. Many cities view train stations as a form of monument building. All over California there are similar stations either being planned or already built. It would be one thing if these were “Grand Central” station stops with tens of millions of annual trips. But they aren’t — even with most optimistic travel forecasts they will always be just minor suburban stops.

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Daycare probed after toddlers wander onto Metrolink tracks

Fencing along railroad tracks is rarely inspected or secured, as two toddlers discovered.

ANAHEIM – State regulators are investigating how two toddlers managed to escape from the sight of Anaheim daycare workers and wound up on nearby railroad tracks, where they were spotted by neighbors who alerted police.

The children were outside the grounds of the Anaheim YMCA Children’s Station at 100 S. Atchison St. Thursday afternoon during group playtime when staff members noticed them missing during a routine headcount, said John Guastaferro, a YMCA spokesman.

Rosie Mendez, 36, said her son, 2-year-old Eric Beder Mendez, got out onto the railroad tracks with another 2-year-old boy. She said she arrived at the daycare center shortly after 5 p.m. on Thursday, unaware that her toddler was missing.

The tracks are used by the Metrolink commuter rail service, which runs trains about every half-hour on weekday afternoons.

In many cases, fencing is installed merely to satisfy the lawyers. They create the illusion of safety, and can be actually counter-productive when they give false sense of security to parents and teachers.

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