Would a Rail-With-Trail Have Avoided This Tragedy?
An 18 year old high school student from Chesterfield, VA was trying to make his 10 pm curfew and decided to take a shortcut by walking home along active railroad tracks. It appears he didn't hear the train coming and was tragically killed.
If there had been a trail along this track, would he have been walking on active tracks or instead, walking home along a safe walking path?
According to the news story, many children in this neighborhood use this same shortcut each day.
In this neighborhood - and many other neighborhoods across the nation - this same, tragic story need not play out again and again if citizens had safe corridors to use rather than taking shortcuts and walking on active railroad tracks.
The railroads all cry danger, but once again, common sense tells us that if there had been a rail-with-trail along this track in Chesterfield County, this tragedy could have been avoided.
Let’s build safe cycling and walking paths beside the tracks so we don’t see this scenario play out yet again.