Safety Meeting

Silicon Valley citizens will now be able to crawl out of wrecked train cars in a calm, organized fashion with the recent installment of large safety signs inside all of VTA’s Light Rail cars and buses. Posted in the last few weeks, the new signs give detailed instructions on what passengers should do in case of an emergency, including how to press a button to talk to the vehicle operator, and how to exit a train in a tunnel (Fly’s head’s hurting already).

These signs might seem like a no-brainier, given that other Bay Area transit agencies, like San Francisco’s MUNI, have had similar safety information posted all over their vehicles for years. Fly is sure that VTA’s sudden new concern with passenger well-being has nothing to do with the fact that Measures C and D passed last November, or that they’re making a visual show of how new funds are being put to good use.

VTA Public Information Officer Jennie Hwang Loft admits that these new safety precautions are a direct response to the Light Rail train wreck last March. In that accident, a number of passengers were injured when a train derailed near the Virginia station. VTA’s emergency procedures came under question when VTA staff did not evacuate the train, leaving injured passengers to crawl out of a rip in the side of a derailed car, hike down the tracks, and find their own way to safety. Eugene Bradley, founder of the Santa Clara VTA Riders Union, says that though it has taken the VTA 11 months to install the safety signs, he’s glad to see them, even if it’s too little too late.

“Voters passed these ballot measures, so the VTA is trying to put on a big show that it cares,” Bradley told Fly. “It shouldn’t take an accident and the passing of ballot measures to care about passengers.”

The Fly is the valley’s longest running political column, written by Metro Silicon Valley staff, to provide a behind-the-scenes look at local politics. Fly accepts anonymous tips.

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