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Woman under a train at Jackson Square
By adamg on Sun, 12/07/2014 - 11:24am
UPDATE: Transit Police report the woman suffered life-threatening injuries.
Orange Line service was shut shortly after 8 a.m. as firefighters and EMTs rushed to Jackson Square to extricate somebody from under a train there. The T ran shuttle buses until around 9:15 a.m., when regular service was resumed. No further details available.
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2nd person this week?
Time for guardrails or something? This is the 2nd in one week or so and the 3rd in a month (1 death)
I like the MBTA workers with
I like the MBTA workers with the flashlights and the booming voices at Down Town Crossing. That'll wake up a stumbling, nodding out junkie away from the tracks.
Intentional or not?
If somebody wants to jump on the tracks, they will, guardrail or no.
Inclining warning tracks?
Are there any transit lines that use inclines on warning tracks (yellow line area)? This would certainly halt strollers, wheelchairs and the like from going over the edge, and it would serve as a tactile barrier for visually impaired/cellphone attached-distracted/ataxic individuals from being able to go over without first going up.
Good idea; would need careful engineering.
Before putting this into practice, I'd want to see the idea tested out really carefully, with different amounts of pitch, height, etc., to be sure that we weren't solving one (statistically minor) problem by creating another one, for example a tripping hazard. People's feet really expect a flat surface to stay flat and level; it takes a surprisingly tiny variation in height to trip people.
it would serve as a tactile
That's what the yellow bumps are supposed to be - a tactile warning strip.
I've never heard of anywhere using some sort of incline, and I think it would create too many issues and be prohibitively expensive to retrofit to an existing platform. First you have to worry about drainage, which the MBTA isn't great at anyway (see Assembly). Doing this would prevent any water from draining off the edge of platforms, many of which don't have any other drainage. Plus you would need to have the top of the incline level with train cars, for wheelchair accessibility and so people aren't tripping left and right, so you would need to either lower every platform surface, or raise every track, which would be very, very expensive and time-consuming.
Theoretically this could be done for any new stations built, but I don't think it would provide enough of a benefit to be worth the trouble, which is probably why to my knowledge it's never been done anywhere in the world.
Slope
Slope has to be 2% of shallower to meet MAAB (MA Architectural Access Board Regs) and ADA (you know this one, and the DOJ updated it in 2010).
Just info to add to your valid concerns.
How other parts of the world
How other parts of the world solved this problem:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_screen_doors
Only a very small portion of
Only a very small portion of the world's subway lines use PSDs, and only on new construction. They don't work well on older, legacy systems like ours. I can go into the specific reasons if you would like.
Also the majority of places that do use PSDs use them primarily for climate control, not safety, which is only a secondary benefit. The idea is that by providing PSDs you can more cheaply air condition train platforms and not have the cool air dissipate into the tunnels or open air.
Agreed
And I see this as one more mechanical item to go wrong in our non-climate controlled, near marine grade environment T stations.
Here's hoping
She is OK.
Actually, she is not OK.
Actually, she is not OK. They are fighting to keep her alive this very evening. Also, the solutions on here might prevent an accident but if a person wants to die they will find away.
Ugh
That sucks. And to your second sentence, too true.