More Deputies, Hidden Cameras Patrol Blue Line : Transit: Security is beefed up in effort to decrease car-train collisions. Autos are sometimes hit as drivers try to sneak around the barriers.

To combat a stubborn problem of train-car collisions on the Metro Blue Line, county transit officials Monday said they have deployed additional sheriff’s deputies and promised to install hidden cameras to catch more drivers who sneak around barrier gates--sometimes with deadly results.

Ten additional sheriff’s deputies on motorcycles and in radio cars started patrolling along the Blue Line’s route in South-Central Los Angeles and Long Beach, where the trains operate at ground level and intersect streets.

“We want to send a strong message to people who ignore these warnings,” said Los Angeles County Transportation Commission board member Jacki Bacharach. “If you’re prepared to violate those signals, be prepared to be prosecuted.”

Fines for skirting a crossing gate range from $90 to $250, though county transit officials are promoting legislation in Sacramento to increase the penalty and force violators to attend traffic school.

Pole-mounted, radar-activated cameras will be installed soon at several dangerous intersections to photograph the faces and license plates of drivers going around lowered crossing gates, said Lou Hubaud, LACTC security chief. The Compton Municipal Court has agreed to accept the photographs as evidence, he said. Most grade crossings are in the court’s jurisdiction.

Expanded public education also is part of the program, Hubaud added. It will be aimed at those neighborhoods with the most violators, based on accident reports, citation records and train operator observations.

The extra deputies, who supplement those in four radio cars usually on duty at any one time, were added on Sunday. Sheriff’s Capt. Frank Vadurro said 40 drivers were cited that day for dodging crossing gates or making illegal left turns in front of trains. That is about four times the number of citations usually written on a Sunday, he said.

“We’re off to a good start--or a bad start, depending on how you look at it,” Vadurro said.

Extra deputies will patrol along the Blue Line 16 hours every day for three months. The LACTC is paying the $365,000 cost of the deputies’ overtime.

“It is important that the public understand we will do what it takes to ensure that people are safe and we don’t have further problems,” said Southern California Rapid Transit District board member Evan Anderson Braude.

The LACTC and RTD are eager to sharply cut the number of car-train grade-crossing accidents before the start of the Metrolink commuter service to Pomona, Santa Clarita and Moorpark in October and the Blue Line extension to Pasadena in 1996. Those services will add dozens more crossings to the region.

Although accidents can damage trains and delay service, the goal of the safety program is to protect drivers from themselves, said RTD spokesman Jim Smart. He said that no one on the 90-ton trains--passengers, operators or deputies--has suffered more than scrapes and bruises. The Blue Line has carried nearly 20 million passengers since it opened.

As rail transit services expand throughout California, they are accounting for a larger share of the state’s train accidents, the California Public Utilities Commission reports. In 1990, the most recent year for which statistics have been compiled, car-train crashes involving rail transit jumped 28%, while accidents for Amtrak and freight trains fell 15%.

The most recent accident involving the Blue Line occurred two weeks ago, when a man drove his van around a lowered gate crossing at East 64th Street. His van was pushed 100 feet down the track, and he suffered serious injuries.

BACKGROUND

At least six automobile drivers, passengers or pedestrians have been killed and another 40 have been injured in about 110 car-train collisions since the transit service opened in July, 1990. Drivers sometimes get into trouble, said RTD spokesman Jim Smart, because they falsely assume that only one train will pass each time that a crossing gate descends. But a low-speed freight railroad track parallels the Blue Line in some areas. “When a slow-moving freight train passes, they think they’re clear and sneak around the gate, only to be met by a Blue Line train doing 50 or 55 (m.p.h.) in the opposite direction,” Smart explained. “Going around the gate is a big mistake, often a fatal mistake.”