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The first light rail death was not an accident. 
Seattle Times
The death of a man who jumped in front of a Sound Transit light-rail train Monday has been ruled a suicide, according to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The victim was identified as James J. Bohrer, 40.
Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory... More by Charles Mudede
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Thanks for spoiling the ending of *that* book.
So, I know I’m supposed to feel pity for this guy, but people who commit suicide in such a public way piss me off instead. It’s one thing to want to end your life and to follow through with it, but suicide can/should be done with as little impact to others as possible. So you feel your life is completely messed up and you’re going to do it? Take some pills, drive into a tree, take up smoking… But to jump in front of a train? That puts the driver of the train under scrutiny, and his/her job at risk. Then there’s the trauma and guilt the poor driver must feel. And then anyone who was on the train… the delays, the tragedy, the fear… What a jerk. It’s like the woman who left her body for her 12-year-old to find or like a friend’s father who shot himself in the bedroom while the family was home. And I know that depression is generally a selfish state and having been guilty of that selfishness, I suppose I don’t really have a leg to stand on but stories like this make me so mad.
Would it be inappropriate to start stenciling little black stick figures on the side of the train?
She kills herself?
Well, there goes that book from my “must read by 30” list.
Didn’t Charles get skewered on this when he suggested a “non-accident” earlier on SLOG? Let the man have his hunches and stretch a bit – we all do it, he just seems to have a more ephemeral bridge from reality to speculation. Nothing wrong with that… it’s called entertainment.
On behalf of Fremont, I’d like to thank the light rail for taking some of the pressure off of the Aurora Bridge.
@6: Naw, now it’s a competition!
All light-rail passengers are pretty much the same. But each light-rail suicide does it for his own special reason.
@5 That’s what I was going to say. Essentially, this is Charles’ “Suck It” post for the day.
@5: Meh, stopped clocks and so forth.
So now is someone going to suggest we install a suicide barrier fence along the entire light rail line, like the one they want to put on the Aurora bridge?
@11 – yes. And let’s electrify it too. Everything’s better with electricity!
I am shocked at some of the comments on this post, as they display an attitude that has no place in our community. Most offensive is the idea that we should DO SOMETHING-this is NOT how we do things in Seattle.
First off we need to create a committee of elected, appointed and concerned citizens and give it a catchy name, my suggestion is the Sucide Prevention League and Trains (SPLAT) . The SPLAT committee, after months of “input,” neighborhood discussions, committee meetings, findings and reports will make recommendations to engage expensive consultants, attorneys, and engineering studies. Once a couple million or so is spent on said studies, a righteous group should be formed to SUE SPLAT based on some violation of public meeting law, or ethics violation as some committee member is married to, partnered with, or employed by, one of consultants, attorneys or study authors. After a couple years of delays in releasing the studies (they won’t have the result that city, county, Metro or Sound Transit wanted), we will need to have a Referendum on SPLAT’s findings, said referendum will be challenged, etc etc. The SPLAT program will eventually be terminated as the personal magnetic bubble will be perfected as the most widely used form of transporation prior to deployment of the SPLAT recommendations in spring of 2084.
That’s how we do things in Seattle-by not doing anything.
The Aurora Bridge opened in 1932 and the current upgrades to the suicide prevention fences were made pretty hastily in my estimation-seventy five years is a pretty aggressive schedule to actually do something around here, and I trust my fellow SLOGers to slow down and really discuss this issue before making any more rash calls to action!
Sigh. Time to put up more fences along the busway.
We all knew it was only a matter of time before this would happen, right? I mean, how many accidents did they have during test runs? Surface trains without barriers is a mucho bad idea – always.
#2 I disagree. Suicide is a unique opportunity to target people. The train suicide is dumb because it’s simply causing problems for people who haven’t done anything. But having nothing left to lose is a prime opportunity for targeting killings. It’s just a matter of picking the right targets, like Bernie Madoff.
Just in case anyone was wondering: fences would not have prevented this guy from getting in the path of an oncoming train. There is, in fact, no way to guard against people committing suicide this way.
Seriously, anyone who thinks the ability of this person to stand in front of the train is somehow a design flaw has absolutely no experience around rail transit. Complete grade separation would not have prevented this. In fact, since most grade separated city trains operate with a third rail power supply, it would have actually been easier for this man to off himself. And fences? What, are we talking twenty foot high barbed wire eyesores?
Seriously.