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Safety measures added to deadly Tacoma train tracks

Two deadly pedestrian train accidents in Tacoma forced city officials to step up their safety plan, adding new signage, railroad crossing gates and fencing to the McCarver Street tracks.

“It’s pretty obvious, so it’s obviously effective. If someone’s going to miss that, there’s a big problem, right?” said Neil Lopez.

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The McCarver Street tracks have been the scene of two terrible tragedies in recent years.

In Nov. 2015, Cale Tyler, 31, died after being hit and killed by an Amtrak train. He was trying to run across the tracks.

"The freight train had passed and he was kind of in the back of the group and the Amtrak hit him coming from the other direction,” said a witness at the time of the accident.

A year later, a similar scene occurred. Alexandria Lewis, 28, was hit and killed while walking to work.

“I actually saw a lady get hit by the Amtrak,” said Katrina Blankmeyer. “It really could’ve been something that was avoided if they waited.”

Before the remodel, there wasn’t protection between pedestrians and the Old Town tracks.

“It’s definitely a very heavily populated area and I thought maybe it would be better to put a bridge over the train, so pedestrians could walk over it,” said Blankmeyer.

The City of Tacoma said it spent $280,000 in planning, design and construction at the McCarver Street crossing with $200,000 more potentially on the way. A $50,000 grant from the state Utilities and Transportation Commission has helped.

Some of the work, like the pedestrian crossing arms, fencing, and signage, has now been completed. Other improvements, like additional fencing and potentially a “Second Train Coming” sign, might still be added.