http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2522354MetroRail's crash rate 25 times U.S. averageMetroRail records 36th collision of year
By LUCAS WALL
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle
The collision rate for MetroRail trains during the first quarter of this year is about 25 times the national average for light rail systems, according to data from the Federal Transit Administration.
MetroRail's crash total reached 36 on Wednesday after a driver in a Pontiac Grand Am turned into a train shortly before 5 p.m. near Reliant Park, then hit a sport utility vehicle.
With 26 collisions in the first quarter of 2004, MetroRail is on pace for 104 wrecks in its first year, which would represent a crash rate of 13.87 per route mile. That is 25 times the national average of 0.55, based on 2001 data the FTA collected from 17 cities operating light rail.
If Houston does tally 104 rail crashes this year, it would be almost double the number experienced recently in any other city. San Francisco, with 61 light rail wrecks, led the nation in 2001 (the last year for which FTA data is available).
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