You can't make this stuff up. First, a child had a terrifying accident at the SMART station when she somehow managed to fall between the train and the platform.

Blame the SMART board for building these high platforms and ordering (not enough) high level boarding trains to go with them while dooming themselves to not provide the full service commute they promised to provide because they were forced to do so by law, if you want.

Just in case you were wondering this post has nothing to do with the abject failure of the SMART board to find a genuine developer to develop their Santa Rosa yard property into high density traffic-creating (cars, not train riders) housing. That's unrelated.

Second, the crack news team at CBS "On Your Side at Five" 5 decided that the best way to report this story would be to stand the spot for the doors of a filled SMART train full of harried commuters and block their exit from the train, forcing them to detour down the very yellow line which swallowed up the 5 year old.

Luckily no 5 year olds were commuting on this train, much to the chagrin of the crack news team.

It brings back memories of Stanley Roberts the journalist-scold who reported on the SMART xings in San Rafael and actually interviewed some drivers stuck in the crossings about how dumb they were to be standing(idling) in the SMART xings.

Third, the mother of the child then calls for the trains to be stopped until children running around on the platforms can engage in that activity safely.

In the end I think everyone comes out looking about the same in this case: pretty stupid. Exception being the kid. The kid learned a valuable lesson and has emerged from this ordeal much SMARTER.

[sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com]