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A table comparing light rail and monorail Arguments for light rail and my rebuttal (PRT) Personal Rapid Transit Contact me |
Of course Sound Transit will take strong measures to insure maximum safety
for Link light rail. Train operators will be watching for people or cars
entering the tracks. Various safety devices and systems will minimize the
dangers to vehicles and pedestrians. I anticipate that Link will be one of
the safest light rail lines in the country.
But trains are inherently dangerous. Even with the best safety measures, it is the sad truth that at least a few people will die, others will be handicapped for life, and others will suffer lesser injuries. the term light rail is relative. Light rail trains are lighter in weight and usually shorter than heavy rail, which describes regular railroads such as Amtrak uses. But still a light rail train weighs many tons and has a fairly long stopping distance, enhanced by the fact the steel wheels slide on steel rails much more easily than rubber tires on asphalt or concrete roadways. Perhaps the victim-to-be will be a drunk, or a young child that suddenly darts away from its mother, or somebody that thinks they can run across the tracks before the train gets there, and guesses wrong. In such a case, the train operator will almost certainly be alert and immediately apply the brakes. But, unfortunately, in many cases the locked-up wheels will slide and screech down the track and hit the victim before stopping. It is not Sound Transit’s fault and it’s not the fault of the train operator that reacted immediately to the danger. It would be in almost every case the fault of the victim, for not obeying the rules or everyday common sense. Nonetheless, another human life has been lost or damaged, and perhaps another family suffering. The Seattle Area badly needs a good mass transit system. There are many potential riders in the Rainier Valley area that can benefit from a high-speed transit line throught the Valley. Isn’t it one of life’s inevitable tradeoffs that in order to provide a service of benefit to the community that we have to accept the fact that a few lives are going to be lost through the carelessness of the victims? NO! We can build a monorail instead of light rail. In addition to all the other advantages of monorail, monorail is safer. That drunk staggering across Martin Luther King Jr. Way South might still get hit by a car, but he certainly isn't going to get clobbered by a light rail train if we don’t build light rail, and he certainly isn’t going to get hit by a monorail train that runs up there, away from the cars and people. The same for the careless young child or the people thinking they can beat the train. These are some specific risks of light rail, especially where Link will run at the surface down the middle of Martin Luther King Way S.:
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©2003 Robert M. Fleming Jr.
This page was last updated 4 October 2004.