Metrolink is most-dangerous rail system per mile
Metrolink was responsible for nearly two-thirds of the nation's passenger deaths over the past six years.


Metrolink was responsible for nearly two-thirds of the nation's passenger deaths over the past six years, an investigation by the Daily News of Los Angeles has concluded.

But a $1.2 billion cash infusion available following the passage of a Nov. 4 sales tax measure will be used to significantly improve the safety of the commuter rail system.

The deaths all came from two horrific wrecks in Glendale and Chatsworth, but that factor does not lessen the urgency of finding solutions and building them, Metrolink directors said. Some of those improvements are expected to develop from a report due this week by a Metrolink safety review panel.

"We're gong to spend our monies based on those recommendations," Metrolink board member Richard Katz told the Daily News. "Our emphasis is going to be on safety."

The money from the sales tax measure, available over a 30-year period beginning July 1, can be used in Los Angeles County to expand the system, on safety upgrades and for operations, the Daily News reported.

Over the past six years, 39 out of 61 passenger fatalities across the nation involved Metrolink trains, according to an analysis of Federal Railroad Administration data.

The fact that Metrolink disasters in Chatsworth in September and Glendale in 2005 accounted for nearly all the 39 deaths, critics said, does not make the high fatality rate any less disturbing.

"I think this (fatality figures) is a major wake-up call for Metrolink," U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein, D-Calif. "There is no question in my mind but that the Metrolink has real problems."

Since 1998, the five-county commuter rail line has had 99 fatalities — more than other commuter rail systems with nearly eight times its readership.