Light-rail smarts are paramount

These are the Countdown Days.

School is almost over. Summer is almost here. If carefree had a smell, it would be a mix of freshly cut grass and chlorine.

Sound Transit is counting down, too, for the July 18 start of Link light-rail service.

But the agency is anything but carefree, especially in Rainier Valley, where the trains will run at street level, near homes, schools — and kids.

So Sound Transit is visiting schools to deliver light-rail safety messages and distributing a cartoony board game aimed at driving those lessons home.

On Thursday, the agency will host a free community screening of five short safety films made by local high-school students about life around light rail. (The screening will be 6-8 p.m. at the Rainier Vista Boys & Girls Club at 4520 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S.)

Sound Transit has already distributed safety information in 11 languages to every ZIP code along the light-rail route.

But the school outreach allows them to connect with students directly. And the hope is that the students will share what they have learned with family members — just as they do with other things in a country that for many is not their first.

"The kids are the ones who are the translators, the messengers," Wing Luke Elementary Principal Davy Muth told me the other morning.

We were standing at a school assembly where some 500 cross-legged kids watched Mayor Greg Nickels recite safety messages along with the Sound Transit mascot, "Zap Gridlock," and outreach specialist Carol Doering.

"Those trains are pretty big! Have you seen them?" Doering asked the kids, as Nickels nodded along. "You need to talk with your families about this, too."

Sound Transit has come to this school three times to talk to the kids, but Muth is still a little worried because the tracks are "really open."

There are crosswalks along the street-level sections of the light-rail line, but no gates.

Sound Transit spokesman Bruce Gray said that's because the trains are running at 35 mph — the same speed as cars. Pedestrians need only follow the same rules they do with other vehicles.

Muth understands that, but is still worried.

So two months ago, Muth took students on a walking trip along the light-rail corridor to teach them how to wait and cross.

"Now the kids know more than me," she said.

Some of them, anyway.

Zharia Hammon, 11, has seen kids try to dash across the tracks.

"Since it's like, right in front of the school, some kids don't wait for the sign to say 'Go,' " she said. "Nobody's gotten hit, but it will be coming and they'll just hurry up and run."

There have been two accidents during Sound Transit test runs.

In one, a driver made an illegal, left-hand turn in front of the train. In the other, a woman was crossing the street against the light with her head turned south while the train headed north.

"She hit the side of the train," Gray said. "She was OK."

Between the Sound Transit visits and what she has seen on the street, Hammon feels like she can manage sharing the street with the light-rail.

But will she ever ride it?

"I think if I'm on the thing, that will be scary," she said. "I mean, I like it, but I just don't think I want to go on it just yet."

Not quite carefree. But she'll get there.

Nicole Brodeur's column appears Tuesday and Friday. Reach her at 206-464-2334 or nbrodeur@seattletimes.com.

She misses lunchroom assemblies.