BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The Daily Post has been seeking information about whether Caltrain’s policy of no longer telling the public when trains kill people has been successful, but the rail agency has taken three months and counting to release such records.
The information might help the Caltrain board decide if the current news blackout is solving a problem or if there are other approaches that should be considered.
The agency has missed its own deadlines and ignored emails in response to a California Public Records Act request.
The Daily Post filed a request on Dec. 2 for records related to Caltrain deaths in 2024, starting a 10-day clock for the agency to respond.
The request asked for communications among Caltrain employees about fatal strikes last year because Caltrain started a new policy in May of no longer telling the public about people getting hit.
Caltrain initially responded on Dec. 13 asking to extend its timeline to respond by two weeks. Over a month went by without a response, so the Daily Post emailed Executive Director Michelle Bouchard on Jan. 29 and the Caltrain board on Feb. 12.
Neither Bouchard nor the board responded via email.
The agency responded through its online records portal on Feb. 14, saying the delay was due to the extended deadline falling on the Friday after Christmas.
“Agency staff were out of office for the holidays . . . We appreciate your understanding regarding staffing issues, the timing of your request and intervening holidays, and the difficulty of locating text communication logs, and the associated delay in a production of responsive records.”
The agency said records would be produced by the end of February.
Last week the agency extended the timeline to March 7.
The message said records could be exempt from disclosure because they “reveal system or facility vulnerability.”
Agencies can be sued and ordered to pay attorneys’ fees for violating timelines required in the California Public Records Act.
Caltrain recorded at least 18 deaths on the tracks last year, the most since 2015.
Caltrain used to give a timeline of the strikes, the number of people who were on board and whether anyone else was injured.
Caltrain employees stopped telling the public about the deaths to prevent any copycat suicides, spokesman Dan Lieberman said in July.
Lieberman said the change led to a “sharp drop” in fatalities. After the blackout policy went into effect, Caltrain had deaths in May, June and July, compared to nine deaths in the first four months of the year, Lieberman said. But without the information sought by the Post, it is unknown whether the trend of fewer deaths continued after July. It seems unlikely if at least 18 deaths were reported for the entire year.
Caltrain board members never discussed the new policy.
San Mateo County Supervisor Ray Mueller in August proposed using AI and video to deter people from going on the tracks. Mueller made the proposal in honor of Dylan Scirpo, 17, of Menlo Park, a water polo player at Menlo-Atherton High School who died Aug. 11.
Palo Alto Councilman Pat Burt said Caltrain has already made progress by hiring Chief Safety Officer Mike Meader, adding fences and putting lights at dangerous crossings like Churchill Avenue.
Caltrain’s Technology, Operations, Planning, and Safety Committee will try to come up with an action plan by the end of this year, Heminger said at a meeting on Jan. 9.
“We’re not public health experts. We’re not psychiatrists. There’s so much you need to learn just to deal intelligently with this question,” Heminger said.
30% of deaths are accidents
Since 2018, 30% of deaths on the tracks have been accidents, according to a report provided by Caltrain on Oct. 17.
Caltrain paid out $5.3 million last year to family members of two people who were killed on the tracks.
Cynthia Denise Robinson, 57, of San Francisco, was killed in her car at the Broadway crossing in Burlingame on Aug. 17, 2021.
Erick Cuevas, 17, of San Jose, was struck while he was walking home from work in San Jose on May 16, 2020.
Caltrain appears to have abandoned the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s guidelines for reporting on suicides. The guidelines do not support Caltrain’s position of imposing a news blackout on when such deaths occur. Instead, the guidelines suggest ways the deaths can be covered.
“Covering suicide carefully can change perceptions, dispel myths and inform the public on the complexities of the issue,” the guidelines said.
If you or someone you know is having a mental health crisis, call or text the suicide and crisis lifeline at 988.
Related
If Caltrain is allowed to keep death statistics secret, we’ll never know how widespread of a problem this is. When one death occurs, we might be tempted to think it’s an unusual event. But when you hear that 18 happened in a year along a 40~ mile stretch of tracks, you have to wonder why Caltrain isn’t moving more quickly to deal with this problem. Hiding the data isn’t going to solve anything; it will just make it harder for people to fix this problem. If Caltrain continues with this policy, I think we need to start electing the Caltrain board in order to put people on there who are more accountable.