The City of Houston has many things going for it that it can be proud of, but its rapid transit rail system ain’t one of them. Building a rail system at grade level down busy city streets was an idiotic plan of the first magnitude. And the transit authority is continuing to add more idiotic grade level routes. There have been numerous collisions between the trains and automobiles, the latest one being the most serious so far.
And the Metro police seem to be more like Keystone cops. They went to the wrong hospital to interview the dump truck driver and when they couldn’t find him there, they reported that he had fled from the hospital before he could be treated for his injuries.
Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad if George Greanias, Metro’s President and CEO, hadn’t spent so much time watching porn on company computers, but I doubt it because the street rail system was planned and constructed before he got that job.
Metro’s motto should be: ‘Houston, We Have A Problem!’
TRUCK DRIVER WORKING ON METRO RAIL EXPANSION TAKES OUT DANGER TRAIN; 15 INJURED
by Kevin Whited
blogHOUSTON.net
October 4, 2011
Dump Truck Driver Vanishes After Crash That Derailed Light Rail Car: Victims suffered minor injuries - Stephen Dean, KPRC-2 News
__Police said a dump truck driver disappeared after colliding with a METRO light rail car Tuesday, knocking it off the tracks in downtown Houston, Local 2 Investigates reported.
__The driver was working as a subcontractor to build METRO's newest light rail lines a few blocks away when, police said, he ran a red light and was broadsided by the rail car at Main and Capitol around 9 a.m.
This idea of running light-rail trams down busy streets at grade is SO (third) world class. We should build more! (Oh wait, the driver who disappeared was doing just that).
__Fifteen people were taken to the hospital, including the rail operator and the dump truck driver.
We wish everyone injured in this latest fiasco a speedy recovery. It's not their fault our transit organization thinks light-rail trams are a good mix on busy streets with Houston's horrible drivers.
__METRO officials said the dump truck driver, Paniagua Prisciliano Espino of Espino Trucking in Fresno was taken to the hospital, but he took off before police could arrive to ask questions.
__METRO said he left the hospital before he could be treated, and he wasn't seen again.
Hmm, now why do you suppose he would do that? Probably just confused (perhaps suffering from a concussion), right?
(10/05/2011 UPDATE) KPRC-2 now reports that the driver was NOT missing:
__On Tuesday, police said that Espino had disappeared from the hospital because he was not there when they went to question him. On Wednesday, investigators said Espino was taken to different hospital than what they were told.
__Espino left the hospital and went home after officers did not show up.
__METRO police said Espino never tried to run or hide from them. There was simply a communication error.
Well, you'd think METRO's expensive communications operation might have gotten that important detail, but that shop seems to work about as well as the rest of the organization.
It's good that METRO has some lowly buses they can press into service when incidents like this shut down their prized light-rail-tram transit backbone (or rain does, or an electric short does, or smoke in a car does, or a pedestrian does, or... well, you all know the story by now).
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