Houston At-Grade Rail Gets Safety Repackaging

Despite Honolulu rail’s recent successes – the FEIS’s acceptance by the Governor, signing of the Programmatic Agreement, the FTA’s issuance of a Record of Decision and the City Council’s award of an SMA permit – we just know someone will insist the project would be cheaper if built at ground level.

With that in mind, we’re returning to a frequent Yes2Rail theme – safety – by checking in with Houston, TX, which is scrambling to make its at-grade rail system safer.

Earlier this month, Houston’s METRORail unveiled a wrapped train (pictured above) that implores vehicle drivers to pay attention to approaching trains. Too often, drivers don’t, and the results are themselves eye-catching, as we showed here last February.

Honolulu’s trains will run on tracks elevated about 30 feet above ground level. We’ll never experience events like what the citizens of Houston and Phoenix, AZ have almost come to expect.

That’s why officials are wracking their brains for safety campaigns, for example, wrapping their trains. Looks like they gotta do what they gotta do.