Broken Train - No Double Track, Citizens Against Double Track, Northridge Citizens For Environmental Justice

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Broken Train

SAFETY?
The Citizens Against the Double Track Steering Committee believes that anyone who supports the addition of a 2nd railroad track in our Northridge neighborhood is either misinformed or has no regard for human life. In the words of committee member Barbara Romey, those of us living adjacent to the current single track have a right not to be killed. The current single track is straight and it is a minimally acceptable distance of 45-50 feet from residential property lines.

Consider that this amounts to approximately 15 yards between the current track and residential property. Now imagine squeezing another heavy rail railroad track in that tiny space so that residents are then subjected to a separation of only five to ten yards from massive trains. Most people would consider it a cruelty to place animals that close to a train, let alone persons. Consider also that it was never disclosed to anyone in our neighborhood that a second track could be installed in that narrow ribbon of safe zone we were all counting on as a reasonable buffer before purchasing our properties.

Moreover, the means by which Metro has so far bypassed providing full and complete Environmental Impact Reports for our community are totally unacceptable. Pure and simple, the Categorical Exclusion Worksheet contains one misleading and false claim after another. Whether such claims were made deliberately or due to incompetence, there is no justification for continuing to baselessly swindle our community out of its right to obtain those essential safeguards.

Apart from the facts outlined above, constituting serious issues of public injustice, adding a Track Shift as well as placing a track any closer to homes does not pass the smell test for providing adequate safety to anyone in our neighborhood. Such a proposal clearly reduces our safety and overall quality of life, and for a variety of reasons.

The above video proves without any doubt that accidents do happen.  There's nothing wrong with the safety record of the current track. In short, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Good designs integrate generous allowances for human error, missed maintenance schedules, and even deliberate acts of sabotage to minimize every conceivable hazard. But that is not the case with the CP Raymer to CP Bernson Double Track project. We are living in uncertain times and we don't need to make human beings a greater target by rerouting massive trains to run much closer to residential homes.

The proposed Double Track actually introduces new hazards, new sources of potential confusion from variability of track assignments north and south; and since it begins and ends by switching back to a single track on both ends, it is not really a Double Track at all in the true sense. It is more like a glorified siding, but connecting at both ends, adding much more danger, disruption and pollution to our neighborhood, along with the extra traffic, right along with the highly undesirable additional stink bomb of an unacceptable proximity to residential property lines.

Please help stop corporate greed and big government misanthropes from destroying our Zone R-A: Residential Agriculture way of life and our peaceful community from becoming a perilous, toxic corridor for endless rail traffic of every type, hazard and variety.

Let's be sensible here and stick with the single track. It works. Why? It's simple.

The single, straight track between Tampa and Woodley Boulevards, which provides excellent visibility in both directions, thereby making a head on collision something which has never occurred in its 102 year history, not only has a proven safety record, the track is a minimally safe distance from residential homes as mentioned above, and it also has no possibility of causing any confusion regarding track assignments for train engineers. On the contrary, the single track has always been a simple, sufficient solution with no serious accidents for nearly 103 years and we would like to keep it that way. We don't need a Track Shift, nor do we need the installation of a second track closer to homes. We don't want either.
 
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