Editorial
LIRR Begins Closing Platform Gaps

On August 5 of this year, Natalie Smead, an 18-year-old tourist from Northfield, Minnesota, slipped through a gap between a Long Island Rail Road train and the platform at the Woodside station. Smead was killed after she crawled under the concrete platform and was struck by a train on the other side as she was trying to crawl out. Two other accidents, neither fatal, occurred not long after: a four-yearold girl fell through a gap as she tried to step onto an LIRR train at Penn Station on September 6; she was not seriously hurt. A little more than a month after Smead's death, 83-year-old former state Senator Carol Berman broke her ankle and hurt her ribs when she stepped off a train and straight into the gap at the Lawrence station on Long Island. The most severe of the non-fatal incidents that we know about happened two years ago when Shelly Rann, a former Broadway dancer, broke her neck and was left a quadriplegic after falling through the gap at the Forest Hills station.

Some 60 accidents a year happen because passengers boarding or leaving trains fall into these spaces, which at some stations are 15 inches wide. The LIRR, however began seriously studying the problem apparently only after Smead was killed. Two weeks ago, LIRR officials announced that the railroad will reduce the gap at eight stations, including Shea Stadium, where tracks already have been moved as much as 4.5 inches toward the platform, Jamaica, Deer Park, Hicksville, Huntington, Merillon Avenue, Mineola and New Hyde Park-not necessarily the worst locations, but those that LIRR officials have found to be out of compliance. The LIRR cannot meet its own standards for gaps no larger than seven to eight inches at some of its 124 stations, which reach from Manhattan to Montauk, because of the curvature of the platform.

A group representing riders, while pleased that the railroad is undertaking steps to close the gaps at some stations, expressed dismay that the LIRR maintains a gap standard more than twice that required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA mandates new platform work to have a gap no larger than three inches. At some LIRR stations, the gaps are 15 inches wide.

We find the fact that the LIRR began seriously studying the problem of platform gaps apparently only after Smead was killed deplorable. We know that commuter railroads, of which the LIRR is the largest in the nation, have more than their share of problems and concerns, and in many cases, must try to meet those problems while under strict budget constraints. But passenger safety should not be compromised.

We know that in the course of ordinary human existence accidents are inevitable. It is within the realm of possibility that a passenger could slip through even a very narrow gap between a train and a platform. It is the responsibility of every passenger carrier, however, to try to ensure the well-being of everyone who boards a public conveyance. Passengers put their lives in the hands of the people who design, build and maintain platforms as well as those of the operating department- the engineers and conductors who actually run the trains-and do so in the confidence that they can board a train and be borne to their destination without mishap. We applaud the LIRR for addressing the platform gap problem, but we can't help wondering why it took so long.