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Man hit, killed by Red Line train at Park Street
By adamg on Sat, 02/14/2015 - 5:11pm
Red Line passengers head for buses at Park. Photo by Jason Lowenthal.
Around 4 p.m., the Boston Fire Department reports.
Transit Police report the "trespasser" was a man in his 30s.
The T has replaced Red Line service with shuttle buses.
Kelli Autumn videoed first responders on the platform:
Someone jumped underneath a north bound red line train to Alewife @universalhub. pic.twitter.com/S5LRCuLlf4
— Kelli Autumn (@Kelli_Autumn) February 14, 2015
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Comments
Park St.
Any life lost lessens us all... the pain this person suffered should be examined.. So sad
Screen doors
I know the costs for fixing the T are front and center now, but I will say I'm always a bit surprised that no where im aware of in the US (besides airports) use screen doors on subway platforms.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_screen_doors
They've really taken off in Asia and parts of Europe to help reduce suicides and accidents.
Some of our subway models
Some of our subway models have doors positioned differently, or wider than others, so good luck trying to figure out how to make that work. The new Red Line cars are going to have doors wide enough to allow a wheelchair to fit even if one door in the pair doesn't slide open (so, 6'-wide doors).
Actually, as I point out
Actually, as I point out every time someone suggests these for the T, they're mainly used in places that need climate controlled platforms. For example, the Dubai metro has PSDs, because it's so hot there they need air conditioned platforms but it would be incredibly wasteful to have all that cool air leaking out into the desert heat.
Also, there are very few transit systems that use PSDs.
Issues with installing PSDs on the T:
-They work best with automated systems, as they require the train doors to line up precisely with the platform doors, which is a challenge with manually operated systems, as it's difficult for drivers to always stop in the exact same spot down to the inch.
-They're very difficult and expensive to keep clean. On a system like the T these would very quickly become so disgustingly dirty you can barely see through them, and I'm sorry but I can't imagine the T actually cleaning them regularly.
-They require either a uniform fleet, or a fleet of cars with uniform door dimensions and locations, which the Red Line does not have. The 01600s only have 3 doors per car, while the 01800s have 4. So PSDs would not be possible on the red line until the current fleets are completely replaced.
While PSDs would help somewhat in reducing accidental strikes and suicides, they aren't really practical on the T.
-They're very difficult and
Remember when the T replaced the old, solid metal turnstiles with the delicate-looking plastic sliding doors they have now? And here we are a few years later and they're scratched, filthy, broken, often close crooked, often don't open, and a good number of them are literally held together with duct tape?
Yeah, just like that. But bigger doors.
Suicide barriers
Don't really stop suicides. They just redirect suicides to a spot that inconveniences fewer people. Which isn't necessarily bad, but it's not the boon to saving the mentally ill that people think it is.
this.
this.
Actually, that's wrong
Actually, research has shown that removing methods of suicide will actually reduce the number of suicides committed. It does not in fact just result in people choosing different methods.
Is that true?
I'd like to see the statistics on that.
Yeah, they have them in
Yeah, they have them in Taipei and they work great, but it's like Dubai where everything is AC'd. It's also heavily automated and very uniform, and there are strict rules there regarding food/drink to prevent dirtiness from being a problem.
Compare that to Boston...totally different, not happening.
I was there,
Waiting for train to Kendall. He committed suicide, he jumped in front of the train.
I'm sorry. How are you doing
I'm sorry. How are you doing.
My wife showed a few minutes
My wife showed a few minutes after it happened, the cops didn't even show up yet. She said the woman who saw it happen and called 911 was shaken and telling people not to go down to the tracks.
I understand that pain may cause a person do take their life, but jeez, take some pills, man. You don't need to involve a bunch of other people, including the driver of the train - imagine that!
Food for thought: In the
Food for thought: In the metro railway system of Mumbai, there are on average around TEN people killed EVERY DAY. Half of them are killed crossing the tracks. One of them is killed falling out of a moving train (the doors are fixed open). One of them is killed leaning out of a moving train, and hitting a object like a light pole or bridge. One of them is killed in the mad rush to board/deboard. This is for a railway system physically comparable in size to the MBTA commuter rail.
It's so different from life here, where one person getting killed on the subway is a major event, triggering a large emergency response, resulting in train service getting shut down for hours. If they shut down the trains in Mumbai every time someone got hit by train, the city wouldn't be able to function. They just move the body aside and continue on.
Not saying it should be one way or another. It's just remarkable to me how society is so desensitized in one place, and hyper-sensitized in another.
You know, the likes of your
You know, the likes of your post showed up during the Marathon Bombing - why do we care that a bunch of people got injured in Boston when dozens of people die in bombings and suicide explosions every day in the Middle East?
The massive difference is stability. We live in a first-world country that has well-established infrastructure both in terms of transit and emergency responses. We have rules and regulations that are reasonable and which are reasonably enforced. Also, we don't see bombings or train-killings often. Our passengers don't overload the trains, the doors on our trains are closed, we don't allow unsafe crossing of the tracks, and, by god, we don't allow anyone to ride on the roof. Did you happen to catch the story of the guy who performed a flip across the Red Line tracks and filmed himself doing it? He's doing community service because our society won't tolerate actions like that.
The exact reason you don't see the trains getting shut down in Mumbai is because stuff like that happens every day and they don't care. But here it doesn't happen every day and we DO care.
Was it really a suicide, or a slip-and-fall accident?
A lot of snow and ice is being tracked into stations in this weather.
EVERYBODY suffers from
EVERYBODY suffers from something.........it's a final act of selfishness and a dick move to off yourself in front of others.
(gets ready for pitchforks and cries of "understanding others pain")
Ex, M(y)ass.
Ex, M(y)ass.