A bright sunny Sunday afternoon in June on the Edmonds waterfront today. I imagine it was pretty busy down there when this happened:
Train-pedestrian fatality on Edmonds waterfront Sunday
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this intersection on the Puget Sound, it can be pretty chaotic and confusing when the Kingston-Edmonds ferry is loading and unloading, especially if you are someone who is trying to get on or off the ferry.
There is a lot going on in this area and intersection. Even without the relatively busy railroad tracks and crossing, when tourists and other people are out enjoying the sunshine, the waterfront park and diving, the dining and their ice cream cones there are a lot of moving parts and stuff to watch out for. If don’t spend time down there often, it can be super-confusing and overwhelming. ESPECIALLY if you’re rushing to make it onto the next ferry, or running to get back to your car in time to start your engine and board the boat when it’s (finally) your turn.
Judging from this news note and tweet from the Edmonds Police Department referring to BNSF (Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway) @BNSFRailway “responding to assist” in the investigation, if I had to guess I’d bet it was probably a freight train (not an Amtrak / passenger train) that hit the person, though their response to assist could just be because BNSF owns the tracks. Hard to say.
Also noteworthy is how I heard about this news: as a TRAFFIC warning due to the ferry being delayed for who-knows-how-long as they do clean up and investigation. It’s weird, though, because this train versus pedestrian collision is more emotionally disturbing than your daily traffic snarls on the freeway due to car accidents. Even when those involve fatalities, a lot of people can be impacted without actually witnessing the accident or the damage it did to human bodies. It’s very normal and even understandable to maintain total emotional detachment when you hear that I-5 is backed up do to a fatality accident and you’re going to be sitting in your hot car for hours and/or totally late to where you’re going, for example. But this accident today down here by the ferry to Kingston? It’s different. You know there were probably a number of people who witnessed something extremely violent and deeply upsetting when that train hit that person’s body. Maybe even the moments leading up to it, possibly involving something someone wonders now if they had an opportunity to prevent this from happening. Even if you don’t see the actual moment of impact, the aftermath of a train hitting a human being can be full of really distressing details.
On top of being fascinated by safety, traffic, design, and right-of-way issues, I’m also kind of obsessed with a sub-niche of all that: people who commit suicide by train or plane. Because of that, I know that a very high percentage of train collisions involving pedestrians or automobiles are intentional: somebody decided to be on those tracks when the train came. When the train hits them, it’s because they (thought they) wanted the train to end their life and solve their problems.
Still, there are also a lot of train versus pedestrian accidents that are completely accidental. The $6.5 million settlement of this lawsuit last year is an interesting example of one that killed a couple on their way to a baseball game in Seattle.
I’m guessing today’s death of a pedestrian on the train tracks in Edmonds was one of those unintended accidents. On a day like today on a busy afternoon, it’s so easy to forget about or just not even notice you are in a very dangerous spot that can kill you and/or your companions or kids VERY QUICKLY. If you’re not paying attention. If you’re looking at your phone. If you’re just lulled into a false sense of security and confusion because the barriers and warning signs really are not that big or bold or clear. Well … this could be you, your child, or your elderly parent. Dead as fuck.
Having run over these very train tracks myself with my wife AS THE GATES WERE GOING DOWN AND THE BELLS RINGING TO SIGNAL AN APPROACHING TRAIN, I know how tempting and EASY it is to make that mad dash or just not really even realize where you are standing or on a busy day be NOT-EXACTLY AT THE INTERSECTION, and therefore not facing any barrier at all or seeing the gates go down in front of or behind you.
Shit happens, and this spot could for sure be made safer. It’s easy to think somebody must be stupid to get hit by a train, but that’s really not always the case. When you’ve got high-volume traffic and waiting-around with so many different kinds of vehicles intersecting in one spot and these high-pressure deadlines (making your ferry and getting on and off the ferry can be very high pressure), the train is not the only thing you’ve got on your mind or in your field of vision. As far as auditory warnings go, those can be overwhelmed or mixed up with ferry announcements and/or music being played and multiple conversations going on right around that restaurant on the corner next to the train tracks. If you’re an exhausted neurodivergent person who is already overwhelmed by sensory input, it can be very difficult to separate all of that stimuli and make sense of it, or you can be at the point of completely tuning it out. Yes, the bells are very loud, but even with the urgent sound of danger, it can be hard for humans who are less risk-averse than others to really register a sense of danger when the gates lower so slowly and the train looks so slow-moving in the distance. Most people really are not trained to have a sense of urgency or mortal danger at crosswalks the way they should, and very rarely do you see other pedestrians modeling appropriate and aware crosswalk behavior.
You could probably go spend twelve hours down there in Edmonds at this ferry intersection on a June or July Sunday and observe half a dozen or more close calls between pedestrians, cars, and trains. Maybe I’ll go do that sometime just out of crosswalk harpy curiosity.