SUN VALLEY : Alarcon Wants Fence for Railroad Tracks

In the wake of another fatal accident on the Metrolink rail line, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon has said he will urge transit officials to fence off the rail right of way.

The fence would border both sides of the tracks in the northeast San Fernando Valley’s 7th Council District, from Sun Valley to Sylmar, and would be part of a broader beautification plan being prepared for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Alarcon said. Only a two-mile stretch of the tracks in the Sylmar-San Fernando area now has such fencing.

“Eleven of the 15 people killed on Metrolink tracks have been killed in my district,” Alarcon said.

In the most recent death last Thursday, a pedestrian was struck as he walked onto the tracks about 40 feet north of a designated rail crossing at San Fernando Road and Sunland Boulevard in Sun Valley.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office has declared seven of the 15 Metrolink deaths suicides.

Most of the fatalities occurred at protected and designated crossings and thus had little to do with fencing, Metrolink spokesman Ray Shea said.

“We’re sure it will do good in some places, but we’re not sure it will do good everywhere,” Shea said.

Metrolink last year placed two miles of wrought-iron fence along the rail corridor from Polk Street to the Pacoima Wash in the Sylmar-San Fernando area at a cost of about $900,000, according to Mark Dierking, an MTA project manager.

Funding is not available for similar projects, Dierking said, but MTA is not giving up on the concept.

“We’re trying to piece together funding in various ways,” he said. “We’re talking with the council about putting a bike lane along the track, which would include putting fences along the rail.”