Spurred by the deaths of three teenage boys on the train tracks in a 24-hour period in 2011, the state Department of Transportation and NJ Transit redoubled safety efforts.
The agencies extended fencing, stepped up patrols and placed new warning signs at stations. They increased education in schools and filmed hard-hitting public service announcements, one of them bluntly titled "You’re Dead."
They even took to social media, targeting kids and adults alike with the message that a train is a brutally efficient killer.
But more than a year after that safety initiative was launched, the deaths continue to mount. Worse, they have accelerated.
Twenty-three people have been killed on tracks shared by NJ Transit and Amtrak this year, setting a pace that could make 2013 New Jersey’s deadliest year on the rails in decades.
The eight-month total, bloated by 10 deaths in July and August, already has eclipsed last year’s 22 fatalities. Since 1990, deaths on NJ Transit’s system have climbed above 30 just five times, with a high of 34 in 2010, agency records show.
Behind the surge are suicides, which have steadily increased even as accidental deaths have declined, the records show. Just two of this year’s fatalities have been labeled accidents. Four have yet to be classified. The rest are considered suicides or possible suicides....
Trespasser deaths — a category that includes those who died intentionally or who were accidentally killed walking along or across the tracks — jumped 26 percent in the first five months of 2013, according to records kept by the Federal Railroad Administration. More recent figures have yet to be compiled by the agency....
Last August, the FRA convened a national summit on trespasser deaths with state transportation officials, law enforcement officials and representatives of Operation Lifesaver, a nonprofit group that promotes rail safety.
The attendees came up with dozens of ideas for improving safety, some of which have been implemented in New Jersey, but the industry as a whole continues to struggle with people intent on taking their own lives. For some of those people, the tracks are a beacon....
Gun owners who commit suicide, for example, will typically use their own weapons to end their lives, Berman said. In the absence of a weapon, he said, people will look for what’s close and convenient.
There is another reason — perhaps an obvious one — why suicidal people choose the tracks: Trains almost always kill....
There are few discernible patterns in the 23 years of data provided by NJ Transit. Sometimes fatalities are spaced out evenly over a year. Sometimes they come in bunches. In one 18-day span this summer — July 31 to Aug. 17 — seven people were killed.
"They choose the tracks because the tracks are there. Availability and access are the top reasons when one has intent."
The victims this year ranged in age from 18 to 60. All but three were men, a statistic in keeping with national averages.
A demographic study produced by the FRA last year showed that 82 percent of those killed on the tracks were men. Eighty-one percent were white. In just over half the cases, alcohol or drugs had been used prior to the incidents.
In an attempt to counter suicidal behavior, NJ Transit is placing posters bearing a crisis hotline at the agency’s 164 stations. That work is about 80 percent complete, spokesman William Smith said. The number is (855) 654-6735....
Beyond the posters, NJ Transit and the state DOT have made scores of safety improvements. In Garfield, the scene of more train fatalities than any community in New Jersey, workers have added fencing and an electronic sign that gives an audible warning when a second train is coming.
In Matawan, so-called "skirts" have been installed below crossing gates, preventing people from ducking under them. Along certain high-risk routes, workers have cleared brush to give engineers better visibility.
In Hamilton Township, where several people committed suicide by stepping in front of high-speed Amtrak Acela trains, police now monitor a camera that watches over the tracks, said Hirt, the Operation Lifesaver coordinator.
If someone shows signs of despondency or wanders too close to the tracks, police respond, Hirt said.
Even with those measures, however, more could be done, contends Berman, of the American Association of Suicidology.
Fencing, for instance, should be extended even farther from rail stations, he said....
And while signs advertising a crisis hotline certainly won’t hurt, Berman said, they should be paired with dedicated telephones that instantly connect to a counselor. NJ Transit and Amtrak don’t provide those phones, he said.
In a statement, NJ Transit said it is doing "everything possible" to prevent accidental deaths and has partnered with suicide prevention agencies to address suicidal trespassers.
The agency also urged people to consider the impact fatalities have on train crews and first responders....
