Post by bennyp81 on Jun 20, 2005 10:04:14 GMT -8
Pierre A Plauzoles
User ID: 1202654 Oct 11th [2002] 1:09 PM
It seems that of late, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the number of transit-related accidents, particularly fatal accidents. Has any comparison been made with the days of the PE and LATL? How amny accidents per passenger-mile traveled are recorded for the P Line (Pico/Rimpau to Dozier/Rowan)? What abnout the W Line (Washington /Rimpoau [to York/Eagle Rock?] or the Long Beach Red Car Line (predecessor to the MTA Blue Line)? Perhaps the result would bring to light a strong tendency in our own day (as opposed to the 1930s, '40s and '50s) toward a rather high level of carelessness on the part of pedestrians and automobile drivers.... We live in a permissive society where such carelessness is, unfortunately, allowed to thrive unabated; accidents are the price that the people who choose to be careless in their driving (or walking) pay for their inattention. Why should the MTA or its operators be blamed for said carelessness???
Robert
User ID: 2037954 Jun 1st [2003] 4:28 AM
Woman Pushing Bike Is Hit, Killed by MTA Bus
From Times Staff Reports
June 1, 2003
A 20-year-old woman pushing her bicycle died Saturday when she stepped off a curb and into the path of an MTA bus, police said.
The bus was heading east on Adams Boulevard and making a right turn onto Figueroa Street about 4:40 p.m. when the unidentified woman was struck, said Jose Ubaldo, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The woman died at the scene, police said.
=========
Bob
PaulC
User ID: 0206274 Jun 1st 11:55 AM
Man! I feel for her family.
Paul
Robert
User ID: 2037954 Jun 1st 12:36 PM
Yes Paul, all fatalities are tragic and we all feel for their loss as well as the grieving family and friends.
Indirectly, why I posted this is any fatality involving transit, police chases or police/fire being in fatal accidents always make headlines, some more than others. Other fatal traffic accidents normally don't make the headlines here in Los Angeles. I know, small town papers even print the police blotters and Aunt Jane's apple pie being stolen from her window.
Another point is, the fact that it is a bus, it was a short and to the point news report. We don't know how many bus fatalities there have been in Los Angeles in the past 13 years.
The next fatality, and we all pray that their will never be any more, on the Blue Line will make headlines again, stating that THE DEADLIEST LIGHT RAIL LINE IN THE UNITED STATES STRIKES AGAIN. Give a history of all fatalities, and state that this is number 62 since the Gold Line started service. Not that this is the third fatality in the last couple of years, with one of them being a suicide.
Bob
PaulC
User ID: 0206274 Jun 1st 1:29 PM
The buses probably have a record worse then the blue line. The last bus accident I heard and read about was in Pasadena when a bus I think was hit buy a car and lost control and ran over an older lady standing at the bus stop. Plus buses are mixed with auto traffic, so this makes their risk of accidents higher. I've been in one bus accident myself in Hollywood.
Paul
John
User ID: 9510053 Jun 1st 1:52 PM
Having been involved in only one bus accident in 24 years of bus-riding, it seems to me that the Metro Buses have an extremely good safety record.
Cliffj
User ID: 0812164 Jun 2nd 2:31 AM
Sorry John you are WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!
Before all the hubbub about the Blue Line, all we heard and saw down here in S.D. on the news was Metro bus accidents left and right! As a matter-of-fact, I'm quite surprised that so much attention have been taken off the L.A. bus system and replaced by the negative attention put on the city's rail system. So, you can save that one for one of your D. Shapiro replies Big Man!
And please...don't bother to reply to this as I know you won't! (Tee Hee)
Daniel Schwartz
User ID: 9488873 Jun 4th 6:34 PM
From the Daily Trojan
www.dailytrojan.com/article.do?issue=/V149/N03&id=01-bus.03c.html
Bus accident kills recent graduate
An ‘extraordinary’ future in filmmaking awaited School of Cinema-Television grad Tania Trepanier, colleagues say
By ANNIE MUSKE-DUKES
Staff Writer
A recent graduate of the USC School of Cinema-Television was killed after being hit by a bus Saturday.
Tania Trepanier graduated this May with a Master of Fine Arts in film and television production, said Jacqueline Angiuli, director of communications at the School of Cinema-Television.
Trepanier was walking her bike on the way to visit a friend at approximately 4:40 p.m. She stepped off the curb at the corner of Adams Boulevard and Figueroa Street and into the path of a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus that was turning right, according to a Los Angeles Times report.
Police said she died at the scene. The family is not pressing charges, said Heidi Woods, an MTA representative.
Trepanier was Canadian by birth, and lived in Africa, the Caribbean and India until her late teens.
In her director's notes for her 2002 documentary, "Dance Can Do All That," Trepanier said that when her family moved back to Canada, she "felt cut off from her childhood experiences." She used the film as "a way to express her hibridity."
According to her Web site, Trepanier began her filmmaking career after receiving a number of grants from the Canadian government. Her experiences included writing, directing, producing, editing and working as a cinematographer.
She entered the cinema school's graduate program in the spring of 1999 to study production. In 2000, she received a scholarship from USC's Lambda Alumni Association.
For four semesters, she was a graduate teaching assistant for Pablo Frasconi, a senior lecturer at the School of Cinema-Television.
She had teaching experience from several institutions, including USC, the University of British Columbia and the Young Filmmaker's Academy in Los Angeles.
"The TA's role is critical, she was the connection between the students and faculty, and was extraordinary at pulling people together," he said. "She was as dedicated to her own work as she was to the work of the people she was supporting."
Trepanier had received numerous awards for her films. These included first prize at the Nova Southeastern University Common Ground Student Short Film Competition and honors as an International Baccalaureate scholar. She was a finalist for the 2003 Dore Schary awards and a finalist for the Multicultural Motion Picture Association's Diversity Award scholarship.
Trepanier was traveling to film festivals across the country this summer to show her graduate thesis film, "Seahorses." She had just returned from a film festival in Toronto and was planning on attending a film festival in San Francisco this week, said Becca Doten, a friend and USC alumna.
According to Trepanier's Web site, "Seahorses" is about a woman named Lily who wakes up in the hospital with no memory. Two people are with her — a man who claims he is her husband and a woman who claims she is her wife. Lily spends the rest of the film trying to regain her memory.
"(Trepanier) was in a category of students trying to expand the language of film, and as such she was in a category with very few peers," Frasconi said. "The path of her future filmmaking seemed quite clear and extraordinary."
Trepanier also had a BA in international literature from the University of British Columbia and an MA in Women's Studies from Dalhousie University.
Copyright 2003 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 149, No. 03 (Wednesday, June 4, 2003), beginning on page 1 and ending on page 10.
Andrew S
User ID: 0269124 Jun 4th 6:59 PM
Very, very sad - to happen at that time of her life too.
Roberto
User ID: 1223124 Oct 22nd 2:39 AM
From Daily News
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
MTA alters stop policy
Taft High drive-by fuels 12-point plan
By Lisa Mascaro
Staff Writer
MTA officials announced sweeping changes Tuesday in response to a drive-by at a bus stop near Taft High School minutes after a bus driver had passed up a crowd of students because he believed they were being unruly.
As part of a 12-point action plan, drivers will be required to notify authorities when they encounter trouble on the streets and fail to make a stop.
The plan includes opening new lines of communication between the Los Angeles Unified School District and Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- which had no direct telephone line between their respective law enforcement agencies and are now setting one up on speed dial, officials said.
Under the changes, if bus drivers pass up youths at bus stops they must notify the MTA operations center and school police will be called.
"Communication and accountability is the linchpin in this from this day forward," said MTA Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky.
"That's what I'm looking for. That's what the schools are looking for. That's what the students are looking for," said Yaroslavsky, also a county supervisor.
"If there's a problem, the driver should be in communication with the appropriate authorities. There's been a lack of accountability and lack of communication. This sets it up so there won't be any more excuses."
The MTA-led panel of about 20 transit, school and law enforcement officials hammered out the recommendations over the past month since the tragic Sept. 9 drive-by shooting, when police said a car of apparent gang members fired into a crowd at a bus stop after school, wounding three students who had no gang ties.
In the aftermath of the shooting, parents and community leaders protested MTA policies that allowed the driver to pass up what he considered an unruly crowd without having to notify authorities of the problem.
One of those injured, 17-year-old Lisbeth Santana, said Tuesday that she doubted the new policy would do any good.
But her mother, Estela, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter, said the new policy might help and is worth a try.
"The most important thing is it's really opened up lines of communication between MTA and ourselves," said LAUSD spokeswoman Stephanie Brady.
"There's going to be a direct phone line between the MTA and ourselves ... Everything that's in here is all to implement better control and safety for the students."
The MTA's new policies will take effect as soon as buses are rolling again with the end of the current transit strike, which was in its eighth day Tuesday.
Some 21,000 LAUSD students depend on public transit to get to school.
The changes include:
Bus drivers who pass up any waiting passengers must now notify the MTA operations center. Before, drivers only had to report a pass-up if the passenger was disabled or if a crime was being committed.
Depending on the nature of the pass-up, the operations center will call the MTA's law enforcement agency, which is now the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. If those passed up are under 18, sheriff's officials must contact the Los Angeles School Police Department. If the young people were passed up for unruly behavior, the school police must respond and restore order.
Bus drivers must notify the MTA operations center and request a supervisor or police officer if young passengers are kicked off the bus for improper behavior.
MTA general managers will inspect bus stops near schools to see whether they should be relocated. At Taft, the Ventura Boulevard bus stop where the students were shot at will be moved west of Winnetka Avenue, closer to the campus where school supervisors are already out in the afternoon managing traffic and students, officials said.
A new bus safety program will be launched as a pilot program in San Fernando Valley schools, and expanded later throughout the county. Bus drivers will receive additional training in handling young passengers.
Schools will take steps to better organize students at drop-off points, and school officials will notify the MTA of school schedule changes as well as of new schools being opened.
On the afternoon of the shooting, just after the start of the school year, the bus driver said he saw a crowd of unruly students gathered at the bus stop, some spilling out into the street, when he decided to pass them up.
Minutes later, police said, the trio of suspected gang members pulled up to the bus stop, shouted a gang slogan and fired a semiautomatic handgun into the crowd of about 40 people.
Santana and Augstin Galindo, 16, were wounded, as was 15-year-old Paul Herzlich, who suffered critical injuries. None had gang ties.
More than two weeks later, one suspect was arrested and two others then gave themselves up. Two of the 20-year-olds pleaded not guilty to charges that could leave them facing life in prison if convicted, while the third suspect was released without charges being filed.
City Councilman Dennis Zine, who was among those calling for answers from school and transit officials after the shooting, said it's about time the changes were made.
"You'd think in this day and age they would have already done that and we wouldn't need a tragedy of three kids being shot," Zine said.
Zine noted that the problem of pass-ups has been noted citywide, and he hopes the new policies will change that.
"I'm glad this was a swift move to make this happen," Zine said. "It's just common sense; you see an incident, call the police."
Taft High School Principal Sharon Thomas also welcomed the new rules, as well as plans to relocate the bus stop closer to campus.
"That'd be a win-win for both of us," she said, explaining that her staff is already on hand at the closer location to help supervise students and traffic.
However, Brady said there are no formal plans for the district to start having other schools change their supervision policies near bus stops.
Yaroslavsky, whose office was flooded with mail and calls on the issue, said the new policies are straight forward.
"When a bus passes somebody by, there ought to be a good reason for it," he said.
"This is a road map to our bus drivers ... There needs to be a good reason for it, and the reason that you need to call downtown," he said. "We should not let that incident have taken place in vain."
Robert
User ID: 2037954 Oct 22nd 2:33 PM
October 21, 2003
CONTACT:
Ed Scannell/Marc Littman
MTA MEDIA RELATIONS
(213) 922-2703/922-2700 www.metro.net/press/pressroom
E-mail: mediarelations@metro.net
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MTA-Led Panel Makes Recommendations in
Wake of September Bus Stop Wounding of
Three Taft High School Students
(Los Angeles) - A multi-agency task force formed by MTA to review bus-operating procedures following a Sept. 9 shooting of three students at a bus stop near Taft High School in Woodland Hills has recommended a broad series of steps to improve the safety of LAUSD students. Task force members including MTA, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the district's police department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will carry out the 12-step action plan.
"I want to commend the MTA and the other participating agencies for addressing this very serious issue with the urgency it deserves," said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Chairman of the MTA Board, who requested that MTA convene the independent panel. "These recommendations should go a long way toward helping to ensure that we can avoid any repeat of this tragic incident in the future."
The Sept. 9 shooting, believed to be gang-related, occurred a few minutes after the operator of a Metro Rapid Line 720 bus chose not to pick up students at a bus stop at Ventura Boulevard and Winnetka Avenue because he believed some of the students waiting at the stop were unruly and posed a safety risk. Three Taft High School students were wounded in the shooting, one of them critically. Three suspects were arrested and remain in custody.
"The actions the task force members have chosen to pursue go well beyond the panel's initial focus," said John Catoe, MTA deputy chief executive officer. "While not every incident can be anticipated or prevented, this tragedy has spawned changes that will create a safer climate at bus stops located near LAUSD schools served by the Metro Bus system."
The plan includes several key actions:
MTA will modify its current policy that requires bus operators to notify MTA's Bus Operations Control Center (BOCC) of a pass-up only if it involves a wheelchair bound or otherwise disabled customer. The new policy will require immediate notification upon passing up a bus stop, regardless of the situation.
Depending on the nature of the pass-up, MTA will contact its law enforcement provider, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. If the pass-up involves students under the age of 18 or unruly students, MTA's law enforcement will contact the LAUSD police department for follow up and/or intervention.
MTA will create a bus safety-training program for schools similar to its rail safety-training program and will initially test it in schools in the San Fernando Valley. The program will be expanded later throughout MTA's service area. In addition, MTA and LAUSD will determine if LAUSD training programs related to situations involving adolescent behavior might be incorporated into MTA training programs.
Whenever an MTA bus operator has requested an unruly passenger under the age of 18 to vacate a bus, the operator must request a supervisor or police officer to respond. The LAUSD's police department will be notified when a student is put off the bus during school pick-up or drop-off hours.
MTA's Chief of Police, Captain Dan Finkelstein, and LAUSD Police Department Commander Steven LaRoche will develop procedures for contact and coordination between the two agencies.
Other steps identified by the task force include:
Notification to MTA of new school openings and coordinate location of bus stops and changes to service new schools
Notification to MTA of school schedule changes
Inspections of bus stops at or near schools to determine whether the stops should be relocated to provide maximum space
Familiarize LAUSD personnel with MTA's Bus Operations Control Center, incident reporting system and new technology
MTA Deputy CEO John Catoe will report to the Board in 120 days and in 6 months on the progress of the task force in implementing the 12 recommendations.
MTA-161
Pressroom | www.metro.net
Dane
User ID: 1473814 Jun 29th [2004] 5:28 PM
Los Angeles Times 6/29/04:
BEHIND THE WHEEL
For Better Safety, MTA Takes a Virtual Reality Check
A $400,000 bus simulator is a new tool to help the L.A. County transit agency test and train its drivers and reduce accidents.
By Caitlin Liu, Times Staff Writer
Soon, MTA bus drivers might be careening down the wrong side of a street, running red lights, knocking out pedestrians and smashing into tall buildings. And Angelenos will be better off for it.
The accidents are part of a video game-like world generated by a new virtual reality bus at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's training center.
The $400,000 bus simulator became part of the agency's training program this week and is being used to improve defensive driving skills for both new and experienced operators.
"It's similar to an aircraft simulator," said Mark Anderson, director of operations training for the transit agency. "We can actually practice things in a safe environment, a controlled environment, that we can't do on city streets."
The MTA employs about 4,300 drivers. During morning and afternoon peak hours, about 2,000 Metro buses are crisscrossing Los Angeles County.
Last year, the agency logged 3,751 bus accidents, 145 of which resulted in injury or death. Most of the rest were minor incidents, such as fender-benders or clipped side mirrors. The figures don't reflect who was at fault, and the overall accident rate is comparable to that of other large transit agencies, according to the MTA.
But accidents cost the agency more than $28.5 million annually in personal injuries and property damage liability.
"We're constantly looking at new ways to reduce our accidents — first and foremost is training," said John Catoe, the agency's deputy chief executive. "If you [prevent] one or two accidents, that can more than pay for the simulator."
The new device is not the MTA's first venture into virtual reality. Two years ago, the agency bought a $400,000 trailer containing a theater to present 3-D movies to raise public awareness on light-rail safety.
Audience members are strapped into seats that move to simulate the rumbling of a rolling train, and giant industrial-size fans create the feeling of acceleration. When a pedestrian stops on the tracks, the train makes an emergency stop and the theater's seats lurch.
The virtual reality bus replicates the interior of a standard Metro coach. Equipped with a bucket seat, a large steering wheel and an instrument panel, it also has pedals for accelerating and braking. Surrounding the bus cab are five 60-inch projection screens and three 42-inch plasma screens offering drivers a 325-degree view.
Through the windshield, a driver sees animation images of a city street, with stop signs, traffic signals and oncoming cars. Side-view mirrors reflect the traffic behind the driver, minus blind spots.
Sitting a few feet away from the cab and screens, instructor Carlos Baez is at a computer, clicking a mouse to create conditions that drivers encounter. He selects "rain," and the screens display a downpour, reducing visibility. "Wind" makes steering jerky and difficult.
Baez can make dashboard indicators light up to see if the trainee is paying attention to emergency alerts of engine failure, a flat tire or a fire in the passenger compartment. He can program pedestrians darting into the street or a car cutting into the path of the bus.
"You can set up scenarios, try to replicate dangerous situations," Baez said.
First-time drivers who take the virtual bus for a spin learn the following: Just as in real life, the virtual bus won't go anywhere — no matter how insistently the accelerator pedal is pressed — unless the parking brake is released.
A 40-foot bus has a turning radius much larger than that of a small Volvo, and failing to apply brakes in time can result in a cyber fender-bender.
The peaceful panorama jostles suddenly, and the computerized system belches out a "thump-thump" sound, when uneven steering causes the virtual bus to vault a curb, narrowly missing a man on a sidewalk.
The bus simulator could be used to weed out trainees who shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of a real bus, instructors say. Currently, about 25% of trainees flunk out because they fail a written test, lack customer service skills or can't handle the actual driving.
New drivers marvel at the bus simulator. "It was amazing … how realistic it was," said Timothy Laprade, 22, a bus operator who just completed training. "It'll give drivers more confidence …, give them a pretty good feel for the bus before getting in one."
User ID: 1202654 Oct 11th [2002] 1:09 PM
It seems that of late, a lot of emphasis has been placed on the number of transit-related accidents, particularly fatal accidents. Has any comparison been made with the days of the PE and LATL? How amny accidents per passenger-mile traveled are recorded for the P Line (Pico/Rimpau to Dozier/Rowan)? What abnout the W Line (Washington /Rimpoau [to York/Eagle Rock?] or the Long Beach Red Car Line (predecessor to the MTA Blue Line)? Perhaps the result would bring to light a strong tendency in our own day (as opposed to the 1930s, '40s and '50s) toward a rather high level of carelessness on the part of pedestrians and automobile drivers.... We live in a permissive society where such carelessness is, unfortunately, allowed to thrive unabated; accidents are the price that the people who choose to be careless in their driving (or walking) pay for their inattention. Why should the MTA or its operators be blamed for said carelessness???
Robert
User ID: 2037954 Jun 1st [2003] 4:28 AM
Woman Pushing Bike Is Hit, Killed by MTA Bus
From Times Staff Reports
June 1, 2003
A 20-year-old woman pushing her bicycle died Saturday when she stepped off a curb and into the path of an MTA bus, police said.
The bus was heading east on Adams Boulevard and making a right turn onto Figueroa Street about 4:40 p.m. when the unidentified woman was struck, said Jose Ubaldo, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
The woman died at the scene, police said.
=========
Bob
PaulC
User ID: 0206274 Jun 1st 11:55 AM
Man! I feel for her family.
Paul
Robert
User ID: 2037954 Jun 1st 12:36 PM
Yes Paul, all fatalities are tragic and we all feel for their loss as well as the grieving family and friends.
Indirectly, why I posted this is any fatality involving transit, police chases or police/fire being in fatal accidents always make headlines, some more than others. Other fatal traffic accidents normally don't make the headlines here in Los Angeles. I know, small town papers even print the police blotters and Aunt Jane's apple pie being stolen from her window.
Another point is, the fact that it is a bus, it was a short and to the point news report. We don't know how many bus fatalities there have been in Los Angeles in the past 13 years.
The next fatality, and we all pray that their will never be any more, on the Blue Line will make headlines again, stating that THE DEADLIEST LIGHT RAIL LINE IN THE UNITED STATES STRIKES AGAIN. Give a history of all fatalities, and state that this is number 62 since the Gold Line started service. Not that this is the third fatality in the last couple of years, with one of them being a suicide.
Bob
PaulC
User ID: 0206274 Jun 1st 1:29 PM
The buses probably have a record worse then the blue line. The last bus accident I heard and read about was in Pasadena when a bus I think was hit buy a car and lost control and ran over an older lady standing at the bus stop. Plus buses are mixed with auto traffic, so this makes their risk of accidents higher. I've been in one bus accident myself in Hollywood.
Paul
John
User ID: 9510053 Jun 1st 1:52 PM
Having been involved in only one bus accident in 24 years of bus-riding, it seems to me that the Metro Buses have an extremely good safety record.
Cliffj
User ID: 0812164 Jun 2nd 2:31 AM
Sorry John you are WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!
Before all the hubbub about the Blue Line, all we heard and saw down here in S.D. on the news was Metro bus accidents left and right! As a matter-of-fact, I'm quite surprised that so much attention have been taken off the L.A. bus system and replaced by the negative attention put on the city's rail system. So, you can save that one for one of your D. Shapiro replies Big Man!
And please...don't bother to reply to this as I know you won't! (Tee Hee)
Daniel Schwartz
User ID: 9488873 Jun 4th 6:34 PM
From the Daily Trojan
www.dailytrojan.com/article.do?issue=/V149/N03&id=01-bus.03c.html
Bus accident kills recent graduate
An ‘extraordinary’ future in filmmaking awaited School of Cinema-Television grad Tania Trepanier, colleagues say
By ANNIE MUSKE-DUKES
Staff Writer
A recent graduate of the USC School of Cinema-Television was killed after being hit by a bus Saturday.
Tania Trepanier graduated this May with a Master of Fine Arts in film and television production, said Jacqueline Angiuli, director of communications at the School of Cinema-Television.
Trepanier was walking her bike on the way to visit a friend at approximately 4:40 p.m. She stepped off the curb at the corner of Adams Boulevard and Figueroa Street and into the path of a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus that was turning right, according to a Los Angeles Times report.
Police said she died at the scene. The family is not pressing charges, said Heidi Woods, an MTA representative.
Trepanier was Canadian by birth, and lived in Africa, the Caribbean and India until her late teens.
In her director's notes for her 2002 documentary, "Dance Can Do All That," Trepanier said that when her family moved back to Canada, she "felt cut off from her childhood experiences." She used the film as "a way to express her hibridity."
According to her Web site, Trepanier began her filmmaking career after receiving a number of grants from the Canadian government. Her experiences included writing, directing, producing, editing and working as a cinematographer.
She entered the cinema school's graduate program in the spring of 1999 to study production. In 2000, she received a scholarship from USC's Lambda Alumni Association.
For four semesters, she was a graduate teaching assistant for Pablo Frasconi, a senior lecturer at the School of Cinema-Television.
She had teaching experience from several institutions, including USC, the University of British Columbia and the Young Filmmaker's Academy in Los Angeles.
"The TA's role is critical, she was the connection between the students and faculty, and was extraordinary at pulling people together," he said. "She was as dedicated to her own work as she was to the work of the people she was supporting."
Trepanier had received numerous awards for her films. These included first prize at the Nova Southeastern University Common Ground Student Short Film Competition and honors as an International Baccalaureate scholar. She was a finalist for the 2003 Dore Schary awards and a finalist for the Multicultural Motion Picture Association's Diversity Award scholarship.
Trepanier was traveling to film festivals across the country this summer to show her graduate thesis film, "Seahorses." She had just returned from a film festival in Toronto and was planning on attending a film festival in San Francisco this week, said Becca Doten, a friend and USC alumna.
According to Trepanier's Web site, "Seahorses" is about a woman named Lily who wakes up in the hospital with no memory. Two people are with her — a man who claims he is her husband and a woman who claims she is her wife. Lily spends the rest of the film trying to regain her memory.
"(Trepanier) was in a category of students trying to expand the language of film, and as such she was in a category with very few peers," Frasconi said. "The path of her future filmmaking seemed quite clear and extraordinary."
Trepanier also had a BA in international literature from the University of British Columbia and an MA in Women's Studies from Dalhousie University.
Copyright 2003 by the Daily Trojan. All rights reserved.
This article was published in Vol. 149, No. 03 (Wednesday, June 4, 2003), beginning on page 1 and ending on page 10.
Andrew S
User ID: 0269124 Jun 4th 6:59 PM
Very, very sad - to happen at that time of her life too.
Roberto
User ID: 1223124 Oct 22nd 2:39 AM
From Daily News
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
MTA alters stop policy
Taft High drive-by fuels 12-point plan
By Lisa Mascaro
Staff Writer
MTA officials announced sweeping changes Tuesday in response to a drive-by at a bus stop near Taft High School minutes after a bus driver had passed up a crowd of students because he believed they were being unruly.
As part of a 12-point action plan, drivers will be required to notify authorities when they encounter trouble on the streets and fail to make a stop.
The plan includes opening new lines of communication between the Los Angeles Unified School District and Metropolitan Transportation Authority -- which had no direct telephone line between their respective law enforcement agencies and are now setting one up on speed dial, officials said.
Under the changes, if bus drivers pass up youths at bus stops they must notify the MTA operations center and school police will be called.
"Communication and accountability is the linchpin in this from this day forward," said MTA Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky.
"That's what I'm looking for. That's what the schools are looking for. That's what the students are looking for," said Yaroslavsky, also a county supervisor.
"If there's a problem, the driver should be in communication with the appropriate authorities. There's been a lack of accountability and lack of communication. This sets it up so there won't be any more excuses."
The MTA-led panel of about 20 transit, school and law enforcement officials hammered out the recommendations over the past month since the tragic Sept. 9 drive-by shooting, when police said a car of apparent gang members fired into a crowd at a bus stop after school, wounding three students who had no gang ties.
In the aftermath of the shooting, parents and community leaders protested MTA policies that allowed the driver to pass up what he considered an unruly crowd without having to notify authorities of the problem.
One of those injured, 17-year-old Lisbeth Santana, said Tuesday that she doubted the new policy would do any good.
But her mother, Estela, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter, said the new policy might help and is worth a try.
"The most important thing is it's really opened up lines of communication between MTA and ourselves," said LAUSD spokeswoman Stephanie Brady.
"There's going to be a direct phone line between the MTA and ourselves ... Everything that's in here is all to implement better control and safety for the students."
The MTA's new policies will take effect as soon as buses are rolling again with the end of the current transit strike, which was in its eighth day Tuesday.
Some 21,000 LAUSD students depend on public transit to get to school.
The changes include:
Bus drivers who pass up any waiting passengers must now notify the MTA operations center. Before, drivers only had to report a pass-up if the passenger was disabled or if a crime was being committed.
Depending on the nature of the pass-up, the operations center will call the MTA's law enforcement agency, which is now the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. If those passed up are under 18, sheriff's officials must contact the Los Angeles School Police Department. If the young people were passed up for unruly behavior, the school police must respond and restore order.
Bus drivers must notify the MTA operations center and request a supervisor or police officer if young passengers are kicked off the bus for improper behavior.
MTA general managers will inspect bus stops near schools to see whether they should be relocated. At Taft, the Ventura Boulevard bus stop where the students were shot at will be moved west of Winnetka Avenue, closer to the campus where school supervisors are already out in the afternoon managing traffic and students, officials said.
A new bus safety program will be launched as a pilot program in San Fernando Valley schools, and expanded later throughout the county. Bus drivers will receive additional training in handling young passengers.
Schools will take steps to better organize students at drop-off points, and school officials will notify the MTA of school schedule changes as well as of new schools being opened.
On the afternoon of the shooting, just after the start of the school year, the bus driver said he saw a crowd of unruly students gathered at the bus stop, some spilling out into the street, when he decided to pass them up.
Minutes later, police said, the trio of suspected gang members pulled up to the bus stop, shouted a gang slogan and fired a semiautomatic handgun into the crowd of about 40 people.
Santana and Augstin Galindo, 16, were wounded, as was 15-year-old Paul Herzlich, who suffered critical injuries. None had gang ties.
More than two weeks later, one suspect was arrested and two others then gave themselves up. Two of the 20-year-olds pleaded not guilty to charges that could leave them facing life in prison if convicted, while the third suspect was released without charges being filed.
City Councilman Dennis Zine, who was among those calling for answers from school and transit officials after the shooting, said it's about time the changes were made.
"You'd think in this day and age they would have already done that and we wouldn't need a tragedy of three kids being shot," Zine said.
Zine noted that the problem of pass-ups has been noted citywide, and he hopes the new policies will change that.
"I'm glad this was a swift move to make this happen," Zine said. "It's just common sense; you see an incident, call the police."
Taft High School Principal Sharon Thomas also welcomed the new rules, as well as plans to relocate the bus stop closer to campus.
"That'd be a win-win for both of us," she said, explaining that her staff is already on hand at the closer location to help supervise students and traffic.
However, Brady said there are no formal plans for the district to start having other schools change their supervision policies near bus stops.
Yaroslavsky, whose office was flooded with mail and calls on the issue, said the new policies are straight forward.
"When a bus passes somebody by, there ought to be a good reason for it," he said.
"This is a road map to our bus drivers ... There needs to be a good reason for it, and the reason that you need to call downtown," he said. "We should not let that incident have taken place in vain."
Robert
User ID: 2037954 Oct 22nd 2:33 PM
October 21, 2003
CONTACT:
Ed Scannell/Marc Littman
MTA MEDIA RELATIONS
(213) 922-2703/922-2700 www.metro.net/press/pressroom
E-mail: mediarelations@metro.net
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MTA-Led Panel Makes Recommendations in
Wake of September Bus Stop Wounding of
Three Taft High School Students
(Los Angeles) - A multi-agency task force formed by MTA to review bus-operating procedures following a Sept. 9 shooting of three students at a bus stop near Taft High School in Woodland Hills has recommended a broad series of steps to improve the safety of LAUSD students. Task force members including MTA, the Los Angeles Unified School District, the district's police department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will carry out the 12-step action plan.
"I want to commend the MTA and the other participating agencies for addressing this very serious issue with the urgency it deserves," said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Chairman of the MTA Board, who requested that MTA convene the independent panel. "These recommendations should go a long way toward helping to ensure that we can avoid any repeat of this tragic incident in the future."
The Sept. 9 shooting, believed to be gang-related, occurred a few minutes after the operator of a Metro Rapid Line 720 bus chose not to pick up students at a bus stop at Ventura Boulevard and Winnetka Avenue because he believed some of the students waiting at the stop were unruly and posed a safety risk. Three Taft High School students were wounded in the shooting, one of them critically. Three suspects were arrested and remain in custody.
"The actions the task force members have chosen to pursue go well beyond the panel's initial focus," said John Catoe, MTA deputy chief executive officer. "While not every incident can be anticipated or prevented, this tragedy has spawned changes that will create a safer climate at bus stops located near LAUSD schools served by the Metro Bus system."
The plan includes several key actions:
MTA will modify its current policy that requires bus operators to notify MTA's Bus Operations Control Center (BOCC) of a pass-up only if it involves a wheelchair bound or otherwise disabled customer. The new policy will require immediate notification upon passing up a bus stop, regardless of the situation.
Depending on the nature of the pass-up, MTA will contact its law enforcement provider, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. If the pass-up involves students under the age of 18 or unruly students, MTA's law enforcement will contact the LAUSD police department for follow up and/or intervention.
MTA will create a bus safety-training program for schools similar to its rail safety-training program and will initially test it in schools in the San Fernando Valley. The program will be expanded later throughout MTA's service area. In addition, MTA and LAUSD will determine if LAUSD training programs related to situations involving adolescent behavior might be incorporated into MTA training programs.
Whenever an MTA bus operator has requested an unruly passenger under the age of 18 to vacate a bus, the operator must request a supervisor or police officer to respond. The LAUSD's police department will be notified when a student is put off the bus during school pick-up or drop-off hours.
MTA's Chief of Police, Captain Dan Finkelstein, and LAUSD Police Department Commander Steven LaRoche will develop procedures for contact and coordination between the two agencies.
Other steps identified by the task force include:
Notification to MTA of new school openings and coordinate location of bus stops and changes to service new schools
Notification to MTA of school schedule changes
Inspections of bus stops at or near schools to determine whether the stops should be relocated to provide maximum space
Familiarize LAUSD personnel with MTA's Bus Operations Control Center, incident reporting system and new technology
MTA Deputy CEO John Catoe will report to the Board in 120 days and in 6 months on the progress of the task force in implementing the 12 recommendations.
MTA-161
Pressroom | www.metro.net
Dane
User ID: 1473814 Jun 29th [2004] 5:28 PM
Los Angeles Times 6/29/04:
BEHIND THE WHEEL
For Better Safety, MTA Takes a Virtual Reality Check
A $400,000 bus simulator is a new tool to help the L.A. County transit agency test and train its drivers and reduce accidents.
By Caitlin Liu, Times Staff Writer
Soon, MTA bus drivers might be careening down the wrong side of a street, running red lights, knocking out pedestrians and smashing into tall buildings. And Angelenos will be better off for it.
The accidents are part of a video game-like world generated by a new virtual reality bus at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's training center.
The $400,000 bus simulator became part of the agency's training program this week and is being used to improve defensive driving skills for both new and experienced operators.
"It's similar to an aircraft simulator," said Mark Anderson, director of operations training for the transit agency. "We can actually practice things in a safe environment, a controlled environment, that we can't do on city streets."
The MTA employs about 4,300 drivers. During morning and afternoon peak hours, about 2,000 Metro buses are crisscrossing Los Angeles County.
Last year, the agency logged 3,751 bus accidents, 145 of which resulted in injury or death. Most of the rest were minor incidents, such as fender-benders or clipped side mirrors. The figures don't reflect who was at fault, and the overall accident rate is comparable to that of other large transit agencies, according to the MTA.
But accidents cost the agency more than $28.5 million annually in personal injuries and property damage liability.
"We're constantly looking at new ways to reduce our accidents — first and foremost is training," said John Catoe, the agency's deputy chief executive. "If you [prevent] one or two accidents, that can more than pay for the simulator."
The new device is not the MTA's first venture into virtual reality. Two years ago, the agency bought a $400,000 trailer containing a theater to present 3-D movies to raise public awareness on light-rail safety.
Audience members are strapped into seats that move to simulate the rumbling of a rolling train, and giant industrial-size fans create the feeling of acceleration. When a pedestrian stops on the tracks, the train makes an emergency stop and the theater's seats lurch.
The virtual reality bus replicates the interior of a standard Metro coach. Equipped with a bucket seat, a large steering wheel and an instrument panel, it also has pedals for accelerating and braking. Surrounding the bus cab are five 60-inch projection screens and three 42-inch plasma screens offering drivers a 325-degree view.
Through the windshield, a driver sees animation images of a city street, with stop signs, traffic signals and oncoming cars. Side-view mirrors reflect the traffic behind the driver, minus blind spots.
Sitting a few feet away from the cab and screens, instructor Carlos Baez is at a computer, clicking a mouse to create conditions that drivers encounter. He selects "rain," and the screens display a downpour, reducing visibility. "Wind" makes steering jerky and difficult.
Baez can make dashboard indicators light up to see if the trainee is paying attention to emergency alerts of engine failure, a flat tire or a fire in the passenger compartment. He can program pedestrians darting into the street or a car cutting into the path of the bus.
"You can set up scenarios, try to replicate dangerous situations," Baez said.
First-time drivers who take the virtual bus for a spin learn the following: Just as in real life, the virtual bus won't go anywhere — no matter how insistently the accelerator pedal is pressed — unless the parking brake is released.
A 40-foot bus has a turning radius much larger than that of a small Volvo, and failing to apply brakes in time can result in a cyber fender-bender.
The peaceful panorama jostles suddenly, and the computerized system belches out a "thump-thump" sound, when uneven steering causes the virtual bus to vault a curb, narrowly missing a man on a sidewalk.
The bus simulator could be used to weed out trainees who shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of a real bus, instructors say. Currently, about 25% of trainees flunk out because they fail a written test, lack customer service skills or can't handle the actual driving.
New drivers marvel at the bus simulator. "It was amazing … how realistic it was," said Timothy Laprade, 22, a bus operator who just completed training. "It'll give drivers more confidence …, give them a pretty good feel for the bus before getting in one."