‘It’s an everyday thing’: Metro Transit rolls out safety effort to combat light-rail crashes and near misses

Last Tuesday night, teens jumped on the coupler of a Green Line train as it pulled out of a station in downtown St. Paul, forcing operator Brandon Brown to abruptly stop and chase them off.

For the teens, “it was like an amusement park ride,” Brown said. “They were running away laughing. They don’t understand the danger.”

From the front seat of his cab, Brown said “several times a day” he sees pedestrians hopping barriers, walking in front of trains and motorists disobeying traffic signals. One time, he hit a mobility van that made an illegal turn.

“It’s an ongoing issue,” Brown said.

The incidents, Brown said, underscore the need for the new safety campaign Metro Transit kicked off Wednesday in conjunction with the national See Tracks? Think Train Week. New billboards, digital signs, platform announcements and decals placed on the pavement at 69 locations are part of a campaign to remind pedestrians and motorists to look both ways when crossing tracks.

The annual September campaign returns with a bigger presence after it fell off in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic, said Andrew Brody, Metro Transit’s safety director. And the campaign comes as crashes on the Blue and Green Line are on the rise. Through Wednesday, there have been 24 mishaps on the Green Line this year, up from 20 at this time last year. There have been eight this year on the Blue Line, Metro Transit said.

Light-rail service in the Twin Cities started in 2004, and there have been 30 fatalities since then. Of those, 18 of the deaths involved pedestrians, six were bicyclists and five were motorists. That is on top of hundreds of near misses. The leading cause in all cases is attributed to those crossing tracks after disobeying a traffic signal, said spokesman Drew Kerr.

“We don’t like to see that,” Brody said. “Our duty is to do outreach and marketing to educate people. They can be injured or worse lose their life.”

Brody said Metro Transit does everything it can to ensure signals are working and train operators follow safety procedures. Every crossing is outfitted with signals, and when one malfunctions, technology alerts Metro Transit’s rail control center, which dispatches crews to fix the problem.

But safety is a “shared responsibility,” he added, noting that many crossing the tracks are distracted by their phones or wearing earbuds that block out bells and horns trains sound when pulling into stations. “That is hard to mitigate.”

The campaign is also aimed at getting drivers and pedestrians to look both ways, as trains may be coming from both directions at the same time, Brody said.

Brown, who has piloted light-rail trains for three years, said he hopes the campaign will get people to be more observant when interacting with trains and crossing the tracks.

“I’m glad we are doing this,” he said. “People need to pay more attention. People walk in front of the train if they are not paying attention. It’s an everyday thing. I hope they take heed.”