Published Thursday, July 2, 2009, by the San Mateo County Times

Safety task force forming after surge in deaths on Caltrain tracks

By Mike Rosenberg
San Mateo County Times

In response to a recent surge in deaths on the Caltrain tracks, regional
officials said Thursday they are forming a safety task force to complete what
may be the most intensive effort to prevent suicides and accidents in the
railroad's history.

The Community Task Force on Safety will investigate installing new technology,
such as surveillance cameras, and will establish maps of previous fatalities to
establish and fix hot spots for suicides and accidents. It will also aim to
install more effective signage and fencing and will conduct extensive public
outreach in hopes of removing the stigma of discussing suicide and depression.

The 11-member group will include Caltrain representatives, elected officials,
law enforcement, mental health professionals, school district leaders, local
teenagers and other stakeholders from San Francisco to San Jose.

The task force will meet eight times during the next six months, including two
public hearings, and by the end of that span will present the agency with a list
of recommendations designed to significantly decrease fatalities on the Caltrain
tracks.

Formation of the task force comes after four deaths on the tracks in May and two
more fatalities in June, including apparent suicides by two students at Gunn
High School in Palo Alto, Jean Paul Blanchard and Sonya Raymakers. During that
span, local transit police also stopped four other suicide attempts by local
youths, including two more Gunn students.

"Everybody became alarmed by this," said Mark Simon, Caltrain's executive
officer for public affairs. "It's a community problem. We want to try to address
the underlying cause (of suicide)."
The seeds of the task force were planted on New Year's Eve, when 19-year-old
Allison Springfield committed suicide by standing in the way of a Caltrain that
was running through Mountain View.

Former Assemblywoman Sally Lieber was in downtown Mountain View that night, and
she heard the sirens of the emergency vehicles rushing toward the train tracks.

"I was thinking, 'I really hope that's not a Caltrain accident,'" said Lieber,
who is also a former Mountain View councilwoman.

Eldridge got home, went online and read a Facebook status update posted by her
Facebook friend, Jordan Eldridge. The posting said Springfield, Eldrige's
friend, had just committed suicide on the tracks.

"I just felt at multiple levels that we had really failed Allison and that we
really needed to do better and try to fix this situation," Lieber said.

So Lieber, Eldridge and former Palo Alto Councilman Vic Ojakian, whose son had
previously committed suicide, began meeting with Simon in January. They began
reviewing every death on the tracks since 1985, looking for a pattern or
anything else that could help them reduce the number of suicides and accidents
on the railroad.

Following the widespread coverage of the Gunn student tragedies, a "whole slew
of people" joined the effort, Simon said -- everyone from school officials to
mental health professionals to local youth groups.
Then Caltrain board chairman Don Gage met with the group, and on Thursday he
announced his support for the task force. The board will formally approve the
task force's formation at its Aug. 6 meeting, and then specific members will be
chosen.

Some local groups, officials and hospitals have already signed on, and the task
force in August will give presentations to the boards of supervisors and city
councils of communities along the Caltrain tracks to receive their support and
input. Caltrain board vice chairman Sean Elsbernd, a San Francisco supervisor,
said officials from the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District,
which has long battled with a suicide issue of its own, will offer their
expertise as well.

"I think that we can make some progress," said Gage, a Santa Clara County
supervisor.

But it won't be easy. Suicides have long been an issue for Caltrain, which has
had an average of nine deaths on the tracks per year from 2006 to 2008.

Since 2006, the agency has installed $2.2 million worth of fencing, with another
$1 million worth of fencing to be erected soon. In the past few years, officials
have put up a pair of suicide prevention signs every 600 feet of track and given
more than 200 safety presentations to more than 13,000 people.

Transit police have even been trained by mental health experts. Since 2006,
deputies have given more than 1,700 citations and arrested more than 40 people
under the 5150 penal code, which regulates those with mental disorders who are a
danger to themselves or others.

Those preventive measures don't always work. In fact, Springfield killed herself
right next to a Caltrain suicide prevention sign, Lieber said.

Caltrain is also facing a budget challenge, and some of the recommended fixes
might require funding. But Simon said the issue of cost will be less important
than effectiveness of the measures proposed.

"I'd love to be able to see them stop the suicides," said Sharon Roth, who has
helped train transit police as a member of the National Alliance on Mental
Illness of San Mateo County. "They've set themselves up with a very difficult
task."

Reach Mike Rosenberg at 650-348-4324 or mike.rosenberg@...