(The following story by Jennifer Maloney and Eden Laikin appeared on the Newsday website on April 18.)
ALBANY, N.Y. — A state report released Wednesday found no link between the number of gap falls and the width of the gaps — finding instead that big crowds and high passenger volumes led to gap accidents at Long Island and Metro-North railroad stations.
But a Newsday analysis of records obtained during a five-month investigation of the LIRR’s gap problem found the width of the gap is an important factor, influencing the proportion of gap accidents out of the total accidents at a given station.
The review found that while the busiest stations do have more rider accidents of every kind — including gap falls — many of the worst gap-related injuries did not occur at the busiest stations; and some of them occurred at stations with significantly wide gaps.
State Department of Transportation officials said they could not find a clear link between gap width and accident frequency, and said they did not have enough data to analyze the severity of gap injuries.
In the 47-page report, the state DOT’s Public Transportation Safety Board also criticized the railroads’ information-gathering techniques, finding that key pieces of information often are missing from accident records and that LIRR passengers often fill out their own accident report forms.
Metro-North said it already has changed the way it gathers information about gap accidents, and the LIRR said it is planning to change its accident report forms, requiring a railroad employee to fill out one part and the passenger to fill out another.
Though the report questioned the completeness of the railroads’ accident records, the safety board used those records to perform its analysis.
“The report expresses an interest in having the data going forward being more complete but the data that the railroad provided obviously gives us some insight into the gap incidents that are occurring,” said state DOT spokeswoman Jennifer Post.
The report, which commends both railroads on their current efforts and some of their past ones, does not mention a key point, highlighted at a state senate transportation committee hearing in February: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the railroads’ parent agency, knew in 1987 that rider education was not enough to prevent gap falls. And while Metro-North took steps to narrow gaps throughout its system, the LIRR did not do so until the death of a Minnesota teenager last August, Newsday’s investigation found.
The state report, released at a transportation safety board meeting in Albany, recommended a number of gap safety measures, most of which the railroads already have implemented or are working on.
Among the board’s new suggestions is a directive to review and enforce crowd control at high volume stations.
According to the report, the LIRR had about twice as many gap accidents as Metro-North over the past five years. Explaining this disparity, the report noted that the LIRR has more passengers, wider gaps and more complex hubs and stations.
“The logistics of passengers rushing to make connections between trains adds an operating complexity on the LIRR generally not experienced on Metro North,” the report said.
State legislators who have been following the gap issue said Wednesday they needed more time to review the report before commenting on it.
Meanwhile Wednesday, state Sen. Dean Skelos criticized the MTA for not requesting funds for gap projects in its most recent proposed amendment to the 2005-2009 capital plan.
“We’ve been telling them to prioritize things,” he said. “The priority should be the safety of the commuter.”
LIRR spokeswoman Susan McGowan said the railroad is studying several long-term gap solutions.
“As soon as we can identify which solutions can be implemented safely, we will identify the capital costs and add them to the capital plan,” she said.