(The following article by Tona Kunz was posted on the Chicago Daily Herald website on March 19.)
CHICAGO — In the wake of three children dying on Chicago-area railroad tracks in less than a month, Metra unveiled Thursday its most aggressive public safety campaign in 20 years.
“Railroad safety has to be taken seriously in order to prevent any more tragedies like these,” Metra Chairman Jeffrey Ladd said in a statement. “Railroad tracks are unsafe for pedestrians and should never be used as a path or a shortcut.”
Metra operates 700 trains each weekday in the suburbs. Leaders in the towns the trains pass through wonder how much good the ad blitz will do.
Metra wants schools to talk about rail safety during assemblies and as part of the daily announcements.
But most schools near tracks already do that.
At Jefferson Middle School in Villa Park, near where 13-year-old Alyssa Gonzalez was killed by a train Wednesday, school officials go so far as to use news stories about area train deaths as warnings.
But talks about the deaths of two teens in the last 23 days did little to stop the daily flood of students taking short cuts across the nearby tracks, neighbors near the school said.
Metra also wants police to step up patrols and enforcement near the railroad.
“That wouldn’t really be practical,” Villa Park Village Manager Bob Niemann said. Officers give tickets when they stop scofflaws, but won’t change their patrols, especially to include areas where they would have to walk the tracks, he said.
But police do plan to incorporate the new safety handouts into school and public service visits.
Adults should start seeing 30-second public service announcements on local television stations and full-page ads in newspapers urging parents to talk to their children about train safety. Pamphlets also will be left on the trains.