Yesterday, a blind man was killed by the Blue Line. It was approximately 9 a.m. at Del Amo Station. At least one eyewiness account of the incident has been posted on-line by a person who was admittedly apathetic to the unfolding drama but nevertheless did what she could in the immediate aftermath. (I have offered only the account as a file owing to harassing phone calls made to the person who wrote it, have delinked what may well soon be a dead link.) Her account conveys an appalling lack of concern by the L.A. County Sheriff's deputies he alleges were aboard the Blue Line as well as Metro.
In January of 2008 The Bus Bench discussed this very issue of how dangerous it is for the visually imparied to take the the train:
I have a friend who is visually impaired and walks with a cane. He lives right by the Gold Line, but he doesn’t take it.
“I can’t navigate the stairs and the escalators and elevators don’t work reliably enough.”
Instead when he goes to his job in Hollywood, he has to take a series of MTA busses and the DASH.
One day I waited with him for the DASH. It took one hour. When the bus finally did come I had to help him onto the bus, because his good leg had stiffened up so much he could barely get up the stairs.
In L.A. we only have bus benches where people in cars are most likely to look over and see advertising. That's why in South Central and East L.A. and in some of the more desolate spots, you'll just have stand on the hot concrete while the sun burns its way into your skull.
On the Gold Line, barriers were erected in late 2008 to help prevent such deaths. The Red Line, which has a station that stops three blocks from the Braille Institute, is rarely used by blind folk (I go through the Santa Monica station several times a week, at all hours, and take note of the rare cane tapping) for reasons such as these:
Why the Blue Line remains bereft of such barriers, despite it having been in service (for lack of a better term) since 1990, remains a mystery. One might speculate that the Blue Line is an ongoing experiment for teh sake of the other lines. The LASD has its station where the Blue and Green Lines converge, but sheriff's deputies are present primarily during rush hour and obviously for the sake of collecting revenue even as they impede straphangers between the two lines by demanding proof of fare in the narrow bottleneck on the landing. That is, when they are not loafing elsewhere. Or simply not present despite all the propaganda announcing they might be present albeit undercover. Or simply hanging round Metro with their hand out for more money. In any case, on the Blue Line, the seats are poorly arranged, the train stops at traffic lights while traveling at grade level and has far too many collisions every year for its relatively short run.
One wonders if this incident had to happen, especially after all that Metro and the LASD know.
-BusTard
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