crmeatball Wrote:
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> Story here or at yesterday's trainnews.
>
> On wednesday, a 15 year old girl was killed on the
> new Mid-Jordan Trax line south of Salt Lake City.
> This line is not scheduled to open in revenue
> operations until August, but they have been
> running test trains for the past few months.
>
> The issue at hand here is federally mandated sound
> mitigation. Since UTA is receiving federal funds
> for this project, they are required to implement
> sound mitigation. They originally recommended
> sound berms for this reason (in addition to the
> fact they are more effective), but local residents
> and the city insisted on these monstrous, ugly
> sound walls. Now, the community is up in arms
> about the lack of visibility due to the sound
> walls which has now lead to the death of this 15
> year old girl.
>
> As UTA has been expanding recently, generally they
> have been using existing rail lines, which while
> not heavily used, never have been formally
> abandoned. This new activity is causing alot of
> conflict with local residents, who were told by
> their realtors the line was abandoned and no
> trains ever ran. So now, local residents are
> fighting against this rail expansion or are
> placeing this sound requirements which have now
> lead to this tragic event. Is this a problem
> nationwide, or just here in UT?

According to the newspaper article, the gates and lights were properly functioning. If one choses to walk onto the tracks while the gates and lights are operating, whose fault is that?