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After four students at Gunn High School committed suicide "at or near the same Caltrain crossing in Palo Alto," a group of area parents have asked Caltrain to reduce the speed of trains to a staggeringly slow 5 miles per hour.
ABC 7 reports that area parents want to see train speeds reduced to between West Meadow Drive and Charleston Road, the area where the teens died via train impact. (Every week in the U.S., 7 people die by jumping in front of trains according to a recent study.) So much so, in fact, they've concocted a petition:
The Palo Alto community has been devastated by the tragic loss of lives on the Caltrain tracks. We now have a suicide hot spot in the section of the tracks at West Meadow and Charleston. We need time as a community to come together and address the underlying problem of teen depression. It is well documented that direct action must be taken at a suicide hot spot to deter further attempts.We ask Caltrain to implement a schedule, effective immediately, of slowing all trains from West Meadow to Charleston to a speed of 5 MPH in order to prevent further suicides on the tracks in this area.
In preparing this request our research has turned up a number of facts that support this measure.
1. They will not go elsewhere. Research has shown that individuals bent on suicide at a hot spot will not simply move further down the tracks. See links.
2. If you restrict access to the ‘means’ you will reduce the number of incidents. It has been proven that even a small impediment at a suicide hot spot reduces the number of incidents at that spot. This is why we are also watching the tracks. We believe that this vigilance, in combination with slower trains will reduce the number of incidents and perhaps stop them.
3. In the case of a suicide hot spot the threshold for the individuals who may be considering suicide is lowered. This is especially true for teens . This means the existence of the hot spot and access to it is increasing the number of incidents.
4. Although teen suicide has many possible causes and there are many preventive measures we may take as a community, slowing the trains is a short term solution.Although a train at 5mph may be no less deadly, we believe it will be less attractive while giving us the chance to clear the tracks and giving the driver time to stop... [read the rest of the petition here.]
Seeing as how the Bay Area is always in desperate need of decent, on-time public transportation, this simply cannot happen. (Any foamers out there want to calculate the delay time with a speed reduction of 5 MPH? Give us your figures in the comments.) But what say you, readers?
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It would be fairer, and more transit friendly, to simply close off the Meadow and Charleston intersections to cars and pedestrians, and put up a 10 foot tall electric razor wire fence on both sides. Let Palo Altans drive around the "hazard" since they can't seem to teach their kids basic safety lessons.
Or maybe they can pay for that high speed rail tunnel they want so badly. It will cost tens of thousands per person, but surely - surely - that is a small price to pay to prevent one more teen suicide.
I like this thinking. Tens of thousands of people are killed by cars every year. Lower all speed limits to 5mph! That is close to the speed of Muni so it wouldn't make much difference. And of course planes shouldn't fly more than 10 feet of the ground to reduce fatal crashes. Etc. etc.
And don't forget the bitter irony that it is people in Palo Alto who are against high speed rail even though it would mean completely fenced in tracks with no at grade crossings thereby dramatically reducing the possibility of a suicide.
AJ - it's not basic safety lessons - these were suicides.
But this idea is completely ridiculous. I would accept it if, as skibu666 suggests, that we lower speed limits for drivers to 5 MPH.
Also bullets should be re-engineered to go slower and knives and razor blades should not be able to cut to a depth of more than 1/16".
And while we are at it - close the GG Bridge. That would solve the whole suicide barrier question once and for all.
I'm wondering if these are the same Palo ALto residents that are trying to stop High Speed Rail which would create grade-separated tracks for both HSR and Caltrain.
Ugh, I feel for the parents, they obviously want to feel like they are doing something. But this is just plain dumb. Focus on why the kids committed suicide, not the train, which is one of thousands of available suicide options.
Fast trains = Darwinism at work.
As a Palo Alto resident and vehement HSR supporter and NIMBY-hater, I am ashamed of these people who live among me that are so busy with their fucking high dollar, self important careers and their elitist narcissism cant take responsibility for the failures of their own parenting. If the train cant kill your kid, the kid will steal your bottle of Valium and do it that way. Idiots.
Property values > children's lives
Otherwise they would have raised the rails ~10 years ago when the money was there.
I love this idea but I don't think they are taking it far enough. Make the speed limit 5 mpg near all bus stops. Equip everyone under 18 with a non-removable GPS device so parents always know when they are doing something potentially dangerous, like crossing the street. If they could remove cars and trains from Palo Alto all together, that would be best, but they surely wouldn't do that because that idea is JUST AS CRAZY AS THIS ONE.
The stretch in question is just around 0.3 miles (and the speed limit for cars there is 35..)..so it takes 3 minutes to do that at 5mph.. where at 50mph it might be 30seconds.
Other than that there's not a lot of math to do unless you're trying to get really accurate. I really don't think the delay introduced from accelerating and slowing down twice would be a huge amount, maybe add an extra couple minutes to the leg between san antonio and california avenue.. which is 4 minutes currently on their schedule. on the ones that are like two miles apart i doubt they are going full speed anyhow since it takes like half a mile to stop already. the bullet trains would be affected more than the locals in that regard.
Even if it's not a big deal, i'm not sure it would really help, those things weigh like 200+ tons so even at 5mph its still heavy enough to mess ya up, actually i'd imagine it would be worse.. because you'd still be crushed to death, you'd just have a few seconds to experience it instead of an instantaneous splat.
The people with the petition acknowledge that point as well so it really comes down to as they say 'making it less of an allure' or whatever, which i still think paying attention to your kids before they hit rock bottom is maybe a better option.
Express trains go through there at 79mph, the maximum speed for non-automatically controlled trains under FRA rules:
http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html
Caltrain only has so many trainsets. A 3-5 minute delay on one train means there isn't a train ready to go back the other way. So it leaves 5 minutes late, and still has to have the 5 minute delay. You can't just move the schedule back, because that would cascade into other trains.
Yes, a petition will solve the problem! I am disgusted by these parents who lack basic parenting skills, like, perhaps sitting their children down and having a serious discussion with them. Let's take all of the parents who think that a petition to slow down trains is going to stop teen suicide and throw them in front of an express train. Assholes.
An online petition, at that.
Hey, these people are busy! No time for clipboards and even less time to raise children. Apparently.
Unless for some reason it's completely unworkable from a logistics point of view, this sounds like a good idea. The teen suicide problem there is tragic, and slowing the train down for a short time seems like a compassionate and wise thing to do. Perhaps it can be done for the remainder of the school year, giving time for the location to lose its attractiveness for troubled young people.
No. Sit down.
There's also the somewhat controversial perspective that if someone wants to commit suicide, they should be able to do it legally and safely. Maybe there should be a Suicide Clinic next to the high school. I know that sounds insensitive but isn't taking your life by jumping in front of a train a morally irresponsible thing to do to the conductor and passengers of the train?
How about we throw the parents in front of the next CalTrain run and save the rest of us from the grief and hassle of these idiots?
Its this kind of nanny-statism by upper-middle class twits that keeps the Republican party alive in this part of the country.
Sounds great, except that it will mess up connections to buses, light rail and/or BART and cause everyone who rides the train to have to leave earlier in the morning and arrive home later at night. Taking transit around here is already enough punishment as it is.
As one example: Caltrain shifted its weekend southbound schedule by 15 minutes in March. That made it so that the first connection to the highway 17 bus arrived in Santa Cruz at noon instead of at 10:50 am. Just for one 15 minute change.
The train is not the ultimate cause of the suicides, it is the situation these kids were in up to the moment they decided that the only way out was to kill themselves which is really sad. If there were no trains, they'd have found some other way to do it.
It is easy for "parent groups" to focus on the train, because it's a big ugly thing that goes fast, and since that's how it happened, therefore "Fixing" the train will "end suicides."
Palo Alto needs to stop looking at external factors and take a good look at itself. why are kids from what seems to be a wealthy, safe, and stable town like Palo Alto feeling so crappy that the only thing they see as a relief is a horrible thing like killing themselves? WTF?
I know it's easier to cap on Caltrain, so let the capping begin. But I sure wonder what is going on in Palo Alto that is creating such a hostile living situation for so many young people. I mean, you don't see this in Menlo Park, or San Mateo and THEY have trains running through town too...
Last time I checked, you are just as dead having thrown yourself under the wheels of a train going 5 mph as one going 60.
My guess is that these Palo Alto parents, for whom the universe apparently revolves around, are not the ones with the kids at risk of suicide. These parents are the ones who, for example, sue the school district, and later a university, when their kid gets a "B" because he got drunk with his pals the night before a test.
Can Caltrain petition those parents to teach their children a little common sense around train tracks?
Well, I guess that wouldn't work so well with suicides. I'll go back to shouting at clouds now.
how about we petition these people to pay attention to their kids so these horrible things stop happening in the first place
I hope all the parents who want to slow the train to 5 mph always wear their seatbelts, never speed, never speed up when the light turns yellow, never race ahead of the train crossing gates, never drink anything before driving, get a physical exam every year. Those actions will save more lives than slowing the train down.
Nothing like avoiding taking responsibility ... good job Palo Alto parents blaming the train's speed above 5 mph! What other cop outs do you promote?
"Its this kind of nanny-statism by upper-middle class twits that keeps the Republican party alive in this part of the country."
Can someone please point this imbicile to the closest republican party controlled city?
I feel like what these parents don't get is that if the kids want to commit suicide, they will commit suicide. Sure, it may not be by jumping in front of a train — but they will will end their lives nonetheless.
Slowing the trains will do nothing.
And at least one person kills themselves on the train tracks here in Tokyo daily — but no one's petitioned for the trains here to slow down. They've just put up barriers inside the undergrounds.
If tens of thousands of people are killed on the freeways every year, and reducing the speed limit to 40 or so max would cut this total by 70%, do you think people would get in line behind the bill? I'll sign up for this if they sign up for that.
Whether to kill yourself or not is one of the most important decisions a teenager can make.
ooohhh lets blame the trains , WTF?
Top method of suicide is the firearm, followed by suffocation and poisoning. Before slowing down the trains, lock your medicine cabinet so suicidal Stevie can't down 50 sleeping pills because he can't handle high school anymore.
Let's suffocate a few of the Palo Alto online petition signing parents so their kids still have a shot at growing up as normal adults. Oh wait, they're all screwed. They signed a suicide pact with their insulated, parental pill popping, drunk friends. Wait until next summer when they all get back together and plan for next years suicides.
Be sure to get them another new iPhone for Xmas so when you go away on business and junior has to come home to an empty house (again) with no parents and an illegal named Imelda raising them, you can feel good about yourself, until you are busy making the funeral preparations - which Imelda will also manage. You selfish assholes.
There are plenty of doctors in Palo Alto, why no public discourse on all of this teen suicide? Because it is backed by a bunch of guilty soccer moms with no soccer games to attend - you know, when they have time away from their busy careers as planners, divas, nail, hair and spa appointments.