Video appears to show that car struck by LRT trains had right of way
MINNEAPOLIS -- One person was critically injured and several others suffered minor injuries in a crash between a car and two light rail trains in Minneapolis Monday night.
Metro Transit police said around 9 p.m., officers and the Minneapolis Fire Department responded to the collision downtown at South Fifth Street and Portland Avenue.
Video of the crash shared with WCCO shows the light was turning yellow for the vehicle trying to cross the tracks near the intersection of Fifth Street South and Portland Avenue.
Video shows the car pumping its brakes, but appearing to continue moving toward the crossing. The eastbound light rail train enters the right side of the screen, ultimately hitting the car.
That video also shows the train in the opposite direction was stopped at the intersection right before the crash. That car was eventually pushed into that train as well, lodging it between the two LRT tracks.
The car was so mangled the people inside had to be extricated. One person in the car has critical injuries. The second person in the car was not seriously injured.
Five people on board the light rail trains were also hurt, but should be fine.
Light rail riders WCCO spoke with say they feel drivers are very safety conscious.
Metro Transit said light rail vehicle movements are guided by signals along the tracks. Part of the investigation will be looking at what the rail and traffic lights were showing when the light rail train entered this intersection.
Downtown light rail service was paused during crash cleanup. Police said they cleared the scene by 10:30 p.m. and are investigating.
"If the cars didn't see it or the train, or the train didn't know to stop, I mean even though they got the bell that rings that's letting you know that the train is coming, a lot of times people are sitting in their cars and they're not paying attention either," Willie Willis, a light rail rider, said.
Metro Transit says safety is its highest priority and operators go through extensive training when they are hired and throughout their career. Since service began in 2004, there have been 416 recorded collisions with LRT trains. In only nine of those instances were train operators found to be to blame.
One of those struck Nic Westlake in St. Paul in 2017. Video of the crash that killed the ballroom dancer showed the operator ignored the stop signal. The operator was never charged because careless driving laws didn't apply to trains. Nic's family, including his brother Seth, pushed to change that -- and that did change in 2019.
Seth said it's hard to hear about this latest crash because of the loss they faced and the loved one they still grieve. He said they want more to be done to keep people safe.
"We made some change in the government, which we covered one loop hole, but we'd love to see even more change," Seth Westlake said. "We'd love to see effective work from Metro Transit to put mechanisms, safety parameters in place that can prevent this from ever happening. And it does hurt again to hear that it happened to someone else."
It could take several weeks to complete the investigation. The train operators have been place on administrative leave, which is standard during a crash investigation.