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Click here
to try this site for an interesting look at the Wham Bam Tram
Metro light Rail.http://www.actionamerica.org/houston/whambamtram.pdf
The Wham-Bam-Tram
Houston Mass Transit or
Weapon of Mass Destruction?
by John
Gaver
March 18, 2004
Updated May 28, 2004
Houston.
We have a problem.
Houston's former Mayor
Lee P. Brown, backed by a variety of downtown Houston businesses,
including Enron, wanted a modern light rail system for downtown that, as
they said, would put Houston on the map. Well, they got their wish.
Houston's new MetroRail has certainly put Houston on the map, but not in
the way they planned.
The new MetroRail
system, now just under five months into normal public operation, is
indeed, drawing all kinds of national attention, because of the national
records that it is breaking. Unfortunately, the records that are being
broken are the kind that Houston Mayor Bill White, the City Council and
the MetroRail Board, would just as soon forget. You see, in just the first
four months of public operation, Houston's rail safety record has become
the absolute worst on record in the entire United States and by a very
wide margin, at that. Jokes abound about Houston having used dual use
technologies to turn their mass transit system onto their own
private weapon of mass destruction (WMD). Just don't tell the
Bush administration or they'll invade Houston.
As an example of the
records being set, according to a
KHOU television report, the Houston MetroRail has the dubious
distinction of having been involved in more traffic accidents in its first
two months of public operation, than any rail system, in any other city,
over the entire first year of operation - not exactly a record to be proud
of. Then consider the fact that the 7.5 mile route of the Houston
MetroRail system is far shorter than that of any of those other cities and
you will realize that the magnitude of the MetroRail failure is
multiplied, since a shorter route, should logically mean fewer accidents.
Is it any wonder then, that, many Houstonians now laughingly refer to it
in such terms as, the "Wham-Bam-Tram" or the
"Streetcar Named Disaster".
(Update
7/23/04: Since the original publication of this article, Action America
has learned that a San Francisco rail system actually holds the national
record, at 61 crashes in 2001. I initially thought that the entire 61
crashes was attributed to the BART system, but thanks to an email from an
alert and knowledgable reader, who had a link to the exact report that I
have been searching for, I went back and did some more research and
learned that the 61 crashes, though accurate, was actually for the San
Francisco, MUNI Rail System. The BART system, which has no grade
crossings, only had 17 accidents, over it's 103 mile route in 2001 - a
very respectable number, I might add. To put this in perspective, if the
Wham-Bam-Tram had such a low crash rate, it would have only had one crash,
up to now and would not be known as well, by the term, "Wham-Bam-Tram", as
its proper name, "MetroRail".
This
actually makes the Wham-Bam-Tram look slightly better than if the 61
crashes had been representative of BART's 103 route miles, since the MUNI
system included only 73.3 route miles of track. That comes out to a crash
rate of 0.83 crashes per route mil per year. The Wham-Bam-Tram, already at
52 crashes, just under 7 months into the year, will have roughly 82
crashes this year, at the current rate. That crash rate calculates out to
11 crashes per route mile, per year. Again, to put this in perspective, if
the MUNI system had a crash rate as bad as the Wham-Bam-Tram, it would
have had 806 crashes in 2001, instead of only 61. The current
Wham-Bam-Tram crash rate is roughly 2000% worse than the national average,
of 0.55 crashes per route mile, per year.
We
apologize for any inaccuracies in previous reports. Being a small
operation, we do not have news bureaus in other cities and must rely upon
news sources, who do. Occasionally, as Rush would say, one of the members
of our "vast and unpaid research department" will provide us the
information that we seek and for them, we are very grateful. We were
always satisfied with the accuracy of the 61 crashes in San Francisco, as
representing the record. But now, we are glad to be able to provide the
correct details, to go with it. You can find these and other details in
the
National Transit Database Data Tables for 2001. Select table 20 for
mileage and table 22 for accidents.)
Light rail supporters
are quick to point out that, in every one of the now, 41 MetroRail
accidents (see
counter and list), police placed the blame on the driver of the
automobile. Metro officials and other proponents refuse to admit that the
design of the system is largely to blame for most, if not all of the
accidents. Certainly, the drivers are at least partially to blame. But,
the sheer number and frequency of accidents points to an underlying design
flaw in the system - a flaw that has created
an environment conducive to driver error.
Since January 1, 2004,
when the Houston MetroRail began official operation, it has earned its
"Wham-Bam-Tram" reputation, by racking up 36 accidents and 5 more occurred
during limited trials in November and December, with 24 people injured in
those accidents. That averages out to one accident every 4.1 days of
official operation. If that rate continues for the rest of the year and
there is no reason to believe that it won't, the total for the year will
be roughly 89 accidents or more than 20 times as many accidents per route
mile, than any other city's light rail system has ever recorded in any
single year of operation. But, according to the Federal Transit
Administration and
reported in the Houston Chronicle, when measured using the national
standard of "accidents per route mile", that
crash rate is 25 times greater than the national average and
the trend isn't getting any better.
It should be noted that
when Houston's MetroRail supporters were trying to generate public support
for the vote on light rail, they told voters that it would take
automobiles off the road. They just didn't mention that it would do it,
one car at a time.
A
KHOU television investigation found that the cost to repair the
damaged rail cars exceeded $600,000 at the end of February. Project that
out to 12 months and the annual cost to repair the rail cars will exceed
$3.5 million. These are certainly not the kind of expenses that Houston
taxpayers were led to expect. Houston Metro officials say that they expect
to recover those repair costs from the insurance companies representing
the drivers. But, as I will show in a moment, such expectations are not
only overly optimistic, but that approach could well backfire on Metro,
costing taxpayers even more.
Those who supported
Houston's light rail project are now trying to blame the huge number of
accidents on the aggressive nature of Houston drivers. But, if that were
the case, then Houston would have a similarly high number of non-rail
related accidents. They don't. The fact that the number of
accidents along the Houston MetroRail line far exceeds the average for
Houston, as well as the accident rate of any other rail system in the
nation, clearly takes Houston drivers out of the picture and places the
blame where it belongs - on poor design and implementation.
If the Houston MetroRail
accident numbers were 10%, 20% or even 50% higher than any other city, an
argument might be made that area drivers were solely to blame. If the
Houston numbers were double that of any other city, then we would have to,
at least, give serious consideration to the possibility of a causative
flaw in the design of the MetroRail system. But, the Houston MetroRail
accident numbers are not 10%, 50% or even 100% more than any other city.
Their annual total will likely be more than 2000% that of any other rail
system, in any other city and 2500% above the
national average. Such overwhelming numbers leave no doubt
that there is a very serious causative flaw in the design of Houston's
MetroRail system. Even so, Houston Metro officials, refusing to admit to a
problem with their new toy, will not shut the train down while the problem
is analyzed and corrected.
Let's look at this from
a different perspective. If a company that manufactured ladders were to
start selling a new model of ladder and they suddenly started getting
confirmed reports of people falling off of that new model of ladder, at a
rate 20 times that of any other similar ladder on the market, they would
immediately issue a recall of that ladder, even before determining for
sure, if indeed, there was a flaw in the ladder's design or manufacture.
They would do that for one very simple business reason - to limit
liability. They could figure out the problem later. But, if they let
the defective ladders continue to be sold and it was later determined that
the ladder was at fault, they would not only be opening their company up
for a class action lawsuit, but because they failed to issues a prompt
recall, they would probably be found to be negligent, which would multiply
the size of any judgment.
Now, let's switch back
to the Houston Wham-Bam-Tram. Ok, so that's not really its name. But it
sounds so catchy. By continuing to run the MetroRail, even after such
overwhelming evidence that there is some underlying design flaw, Houston
Metro officials are setting up Metro and the City of Houston for a huge
class action lawsuit and establishing a solid case for negligence.
But, it gets worse.
Although such a suit might be filed by the drivers of the many vehicles
involved in MetroRail crashes and litigated by one of Houston's ambulance
chasing lawyers, the suit that the City of Houston really needs to fear,
is the suit by the massed automobile insurance companies that don't want
to have to pay out that $3.5 million a year to repair MetroRail cars, over
and above the cost to repair the insured automobiles involved.
Furthermore, since the insurance companies have deep pockets, such a suit
will certainly be litigated by a major law firm.
The statistics already
speak for themselves, but the insurance companies will, no doubt, show up
with dozens of expert witnesses. Not only would it be an open and shut
case, but because Metro failed to take the train out of service when it
became obvious that there was a serious problem with its design or
implementation, the plaintiffs will be able to demonstrate negligence on
behalf of Metro, thus boosting the size of the judgment or negotiated
settlement and the subsequent cost to Houston taxpayers.
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Proposed paint scheme to alert
drivers to danger posed by this vehicle
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Every day that the
MetroRail train stays in service, increases the likelihood of a major
class action suit against the City of Houston and Metro and also increases
the likely size of the judgment, in any such suit. If Metro is not going
to take this menace to public safety out of service, while its numerous
problems are analyzed and fixed, maybe they should, at least, give it a
paint scheme worthy of its ominous threat to public safety. At least that
way, when those lawsuits hit, Metro can claim that they tried to warn the
public.
With all the people
around the country laughing at Houston, over this fiasco, it's nice to
know that, at least Houstonians can still laugh at it themselves. Perhaps,
as the saying goes, they are only laughing, to keep from crying. |
Illegal
Left Turn Causes METRO Crash
"Everything
has been going great. This is the first time something like this (has
happened)," a METRO official said. The light rail and Marino's vehicle
received minor damage in the collision; however, no one was injured in
the accident. METRO told News2Houston this is the first problem they
encountered with a passenger vehicle. No passengers were on the train.
Marino was ticketed for making an illegal turn.
The pickup driver was hospitalized after he collided with a METRO
train.
The
accident happened around 10:30 p.m. on Main at Pierce."Well,
we believe what occurred is that the driver of the pickup truck did
not stop for the red light and so he ran the light, and the train
struck," said Sgt. J.P. Brightmon, with METRO Police.The truck
driver received minor injuries.Ten people were on board the light-rail
train. Some complained of injuries, but officials said they were all
minor.It was the 13th accident involving METRORail since it began
operating last year.Some drivers are surprised the accidents keep
happening."There's been a lot of accidents. How many? Like four
or five? Thirteen? Wow," sai"d Brian Petrie, a driver.
"There's a lot of stupid drivers out there for one thing, but
maybe METRORail is in bad spots where drivers don't see -- even good
drivers.
