BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto parents are working to restart a track watch program that would have volunteers sitting by the Caltrain tracks to deter any suicide attempts.
The effort comes after two Palo Alto students died by suicide this year, most recently on Aug. 9.
Parent Debbie Mukamal is leading the volunteer effort. She said she doesn’t want to do an interview yet because her group is still working on a lot of details, like training for volunteers.
Their goal is to start in early September, and they’re looking for about 1,000 volunteers a week to cover four crossings and two stations 24/7.
Shifts will likely be two hours long and can be done in pairs.
“We can’t afford to wait to address this crisis one more day,” Mukumal told council on Aug. 18.
The track watch program originated in October 2009 after four Palo Alto students died by suicide that year. A group of about 40 parents traded one-hour shifts, sitting in lawn chairs from 7 p.m. until the last Caltrain at 1 a.m.
“I do it because there is a chance that it might help,” mother Karen Gibson said at the time. “And if it helps one child, then it’s worth it to me.” A month later, the city hired a security guard to watch the tracks during the day when parents weren’t there. “This shows that when parents mean business, things happen,” mother Marielena Gaona-Mendoza said at the time.
Psychologist Marleen Wong, assistant dean of the USC School of Social Work, praised the program at a discussion about teen mental health in December 2009.
“This is the greatest community collaboration going on anywhere … What you are doing here will go to help solve this problem on a national level,” Wong said.
The city eventually replaced all of the parents with security guards that cost $1.2 million per year.
But the security guards were criticized for behaving unprofessionally, including one who was pleasuring himself in his car and another who burglarized a home while on the clock.
Council in 2018 voted to buy a $1.5 million electronic detection system that alerts police when people are on the tracks.
The system was developed by CSC Integrations specifically to detect and deter suicides. The cameras can detect people up to 1,000 feet down the tracks and then alert Palo Alto dispatchers, who relay information to San Mateo County sheriff’s deputies working as transit police. A warning is also broadcast onto the tracks.
The city spends about $300,000 a year to monitor and maintain the detection system but won’t provide details about its performance, such as how often the system is activated and what the police response is.
Palo Alto Councilman Pat Burt, who is also on the Caltrain board, said on Aug. 19 that Caltrain, VTA and the city are working on a series of safety improvements, using new technologies that can be installed in the coming months.
Churchill Avenue has been a pilot location for safety improvements given its proximity to Palo Alto High School.
Rail Sentry, a system that uses cameras, LiDAR and AI, was installed a few months ago to stop trains when someone walks onto the tracks.
Caltrain is also looking at installing trespasser panels with soft rubber cones about six inches tall that collapse when someone tries to walk across them.
“It’s a very clever, pretty new technology,” Burt said, calling the panels “cattle guards for people.”
Burt said he’s in discussions with VTA and Caltrain to get funding for Rail Sentry and trespasser panels at the East Meadow Drive and Charleston Road crossings in south Palo Alto.
Burt said the new technologies can be installed at 1% of the cost of separating the tracks from the road by building bridges and underpasses.
Caltrain reported 10 deaths on the tracks in 2022, 15 deaths in 2023 and 19 deaths last year — the most since 2015.
Palo Alto High School student Ash He, 15, died on March 4. Gunn High School student Emily Fiedel, 17, died on Aug. 9 — the seventh death on the tracks this year.
Gunn parents called on the city of Palo Alto to restrict access to the Caltrain tracks at a meeting on Aug. 18.
“Please take some sort of action to take that one lethal way away from these kids. Give them a chance,” said Jaime Shpall, the mother of two sophomores.
Mother Arlina Ahluwalia said her sons were 2 and 4 years old when they lost someone they considered to be a big brother to a suicide on the tracks.
They’re 13 and 15 now, and access to the tracks remains.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association have all declared a national emergency regarding youth mental health, with suicide as the second leading cause of death among teens, Ahluwalia said.
“Our burden is the tracks. That is our fully accessible means, as we have been reminded of on average once a month this year alone,” she said.
To volunteer for track watch, email [email protected].
A couple of these kids who died were transexuals. Maybe we stop pushing weird sex ideas on our kids in the schools and see what happens? The Minnesota shooter said in his “manifesto” that he regretted going from one gender to the other, and he planned the shooting because of it. Was that the case here?
“Pushing weird sex ideas” sounds very judgmental. This comment is not empathetic to to a child’s suffering with gender identity issues. Perhaps we as a society need to do more to support these children. Likely attitudes like this are part of the problem.
You’re right. Surgically mutilating the sex organs of children as young as 12 doesn’t sound like a weird idea!
I personally know a few transgender children and no one has mutilated their sex organs, it’s merely how they identify. Please educate yourself
Nobody is saying the kids mutilate themselves. It happens in an operating room at Stanford or Kaiser. It happens after adults convince them to change sexes. Educate yourself!
I know transgender children. No adults are pushing them into surgery they are not ready for. On all sides it’s a delicate and difficult road. Have some compassion! Guess it’s easier to judge and put people in boxes than understand how difficult this road must be for them.
Maybe we need to show everybody a little bit more love and understanding so they don’t feel pressured by Society?
Wait! Wasn’t Caltrain’s plan was to keep the train deaths a secret and this would stop??? Are you saying that didn’t work???
Human track watchers would have saved a lot of lives and money if they would have been allowed to stay. Whatever the city did after shooing away the parents didn’t work. The city council should be held responsible for shutting down the track watch program.
Do you know any transgender children? I do. No one is forcing them into surgery. Most families I know are waiting to let the kids decide when they are of age. It’s easy to show no empathy when you can villainize! Stick with not helping and villainizing someone who may be struggling.w
Why are you so defensive? Nobody is villainizing anyone here. If this is a normal and natural thing, you would be celebrating this kind of surgery. How about a compromise? Wait until the child is 21 before you have their sexual organs permanently removed. Is that too much to ask? Young people don’t have fully-formed brains before 21 and might make decisions they’ll regret later. You want to bet that the two trans kids who killed themselves were regretting their surgeries?
“when they are of age” — and what age might that be? 12, 14, 16? Who is putting these ideas into kids heads? Let’s stop these train suicides by firing the perverts in the PAUSD.
Len, you and “Concerned” are so ignorant. Len, let me ask you, who put the idea that you were (presumably) a man into your head? Or who told you to be attracted (presumably) to women? What’s that? No one did. Exactly. It works the same way with these children. Attitudes like yours is what’s causing tremendous stress and desperation in these children.
SMH, you avoided my question by changing the subject. At what age should kids decide that a surgeon should remove their sexual organs. Please answer with a number.
The idea is so flawed. There are two other Caltrain intersections in Palo Alto.
I am proud concerned parents are working for a solution. Bravo to all!
Caltrain needs to be transparent with these deaths. We should open the files and look for root causes and commonalities. Making the data secret and pretending there isn’t a problem won’t solve anything. Caltrain, you can do better.
Maybe looking at the root of the problem is a better approach compared to putting a bandaid over an actively hemorrhaging wound. The culture of toxic achievement in this town is causing kids so much despair that suicide feels like a viable option. The schools perpetuate the problem that likely starts at home. My children who went to PALY came home with horror stories about teachers and their fellow students. It’s not a safe place to be a teenager. These kids are an at-risk group. Let’s just net honest about it.
The track watchers were bad PR for Caltrain and the Caltrain enablers infiltrated into local government. Highly visible track watchers at the crossings were very effective, but they were a constant reminder of the tragic deaths and their presents at the crossings subconsciously associated the problem with Caltrain… so they had to go. Caltrain will roll out all kinds of gimmicks in an attempt to mollify public outcry, but track watcher will not be returning.
The city found $1.2 million per year to replace parents with security guards.
A better way to spend $1.2 million per year would be to hire a full-time licensed psychologist for every high school and middle school.
A year ago, I traveled on trains throughout Sweden, Switzerland, and France; there were no signs telling people to call 988 for mental-health care, and zero suicides.
The previous statement is false.
In 2024, there were 92 confirmed suicide deaths on the railways in Sweden, according to final statistics from the Swedish Transport Analysis Agency (Trafikanalys). These deaths were part of a total of 112 fatalities in Swedish rail traffic for the year.
The Swiss Federal Railways hasn’t broke out suicides in their rail deaths since 2014. Prior to 2014, the number of rail suicides each year was about 140, according to that agency.
2024 figures for France aren’t available yet, but the EC’s Eurostat reports there were 265 railroad suicides reported in France in 2023.
The only thing that’s true about “Eric’s” comment is that there aren’t signs telling people to call 988 for mental-health care. He’s right, it’s not 988. In France the suicide hotline number is 3114, in Switzerland it’s 143 and in Sweden it’s 90101.
There are signs in all three countries as well as the rest of the EU telling people the number for suicide hotlines.
Europe’s problem with railway suicides is far worse than here on the peninsula.
I know the “activists” and the psychiatrists don’t want to talk about this, but we’ve got to stop medicating these kids. They need to experience real life, even if it isn’t always pleasant, and not walk around like mind-numbed robots.
If we don’t know the truth about these suicides, how can we solve them???
Something has to be done. Teen suicide (suicide in general) is so sad. Who knows if the program will work but it’s worth a try.
Another government program won’t solve anything. But that’s such a Palo Alto response to believe government will solve a problem. Did suicides go down after Project Safety Net? They went up. Let’s approach this problem by dealing with things we can control. If a common factor that the victims were suffering from sexual dysphoria, let’s address that — rather that pretending it’s not an issue. If the problem is prescription drugs, let’s address that. I realize the doctors who prescribed these drugs won’t want to talk, claiming doctor-patient privilege. But since the patient is dead, maybe the DA could get a court order requiring them to talk. Let’s get to the bottom of this. We don’t need a new government agency, we need our existing agencies to get to work.
I agree with your logic. The “root” of the problem is suicidal people don’t want to live any more. They don’t necessarily want to end their life. They want to end their pain, and the only way to end their pain is by ending their life. I guess you have to get through to them before it gets to that point but it’s easier said than done. Now what?
I urge the PAUSD Board of Education to vote “yes” to recommend that the District enter into a partnership with the JED Foundation.
[Portion removed — Terms of Use Violation. Please, no links.]
This partnership will address ways that our City and Schools can work together more effectively to prevent youth suicide.
This District has long struggled with youth suicides. We just had two high school students commit suicide, one last spring and one toward the beginning of this school year. We cannot wait any longer. We must urgently learn from these tragedies and leverage the powerful expertise of the JED Foundation.
Based on the last City-Schools meeting, the JED team will begin by carefully evaluating all existing resources and will consult with all stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, staff, community organizations, medical centers, and any other entities we believe are vital to our prevention efforts. Based on their wealth of clinical and community-based experience with comparable school programs and knowledge of evidence-based practices, they will identify gaps and provide education to fill those gaps. Finally, they will study how any novel programs are implemented to ensure they function well. Through JED, we will also join a community of schools across the nation where we can learn from one another and share innovations. PAUSD should seize the opportunity to partner with the City and not wait for another tragedy.
Dr. Ken Horowitz
525 Homer Ave
Palo Alto
650-464-8959