SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco’s Transportation Authority board has postponed $62 million in funding for new light rail vehicles, reflecting a series of problems with the new Siemens equipment. And the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority has announced a dramatic safety measure with the new equipment, requiring operators to lock the rear doors open so passengers won’t be caught and dragged by the trains.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports on both developments.
The edict to keep the doors open came after an incident last week in which a woman’s hand was trapped by a closing door and she was dragged several feet before freeing herself. It is one of at least four such cases of passengers being caught by the doors since the cars began operation last October.
Meanwhile, the Siemens cars have had other problems: broken sheer pins, which link cars together, have forced Muni to limit the use of the new equipment to one-car trains; and issues with flat wheels, attributed to use of the cars’ emergency brakes, currently have 18 cars awaiting repairs.
Those issues, plus concerns over the doors, led the transportation authority board — whose members are also city supervisors — to delay the $62 million, intended to speed the purchase of another 151 light rail cars.
You can’t fix stupid. The woman stuck her hand in the door as it was almost completely closed. The old fix was big rubber gaskets that were soft and flexible. It was easy to get you had out. Now they want to leave the doors open all the time so what happens if someone of board falls through that opening while the train is moving?
Blaming a rider for getting her hand stuck in a door? When that happened, the door should’ve reopened, not allowed the driver to leave the station. That’s a major safety hazard and with new cars it suggests that it’s not a maintenance problem.
It strikes me that running with an open door represents at least as much of a safety hazard as having passengers get caught in a closing door.
It’s interesting that only SFMuni has problems with Siemens LRV’s…no other agency has reported any issues, do you think it might actually have to do with a combination of the riders and the operators as opposed to the vehicles themselves?
There is a big article in the SF Chronicle about this mess, one of the issues is that according to the article the train operators are taught to use the emergency brakes for multiple reasons that are not always an emergency which lock up the wheels and creates flat spots. Overall it sounds like the utilization and training of the operators has major problems.
I think it should read lock the doors closed.
In the LRV’s San Francisco has the motorman cannot see the rear doors with the mirrors mounted on the front outside of the car and the ends taper in.
Shear pins, BTW!