Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) and U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Kew Gardens) announced a federal-city partnership Saturday that will seek to prevent railroad tragedies like the killing of 13-year-old Ari Kraft, who was struck by a train last month after he entered the tracks through a hole in the fence to illegally tag a LIRR structure with graffiti.
The MTA will be awarded $500,000 in federal funds to create a new task force within the agency, the MTA Interagency Fencing Task Force. The group will be dedicated to restricting access to active train lines. According to the MTA, the duties of the task force will include a survey of the current active MTA and LIRR rail lines, and a review of the policing and inspection process. As well, the task force will participate in patrols of commonly accessed areas with the MTA Police Department, and coordinate new fencing possibilities with local government.
According to a spokesman, the task force itself will be made up of senior officials from the MTA, as well as employees of the LIRR and MetroNorth.
In a statement, MTA Executive Director and CEO Eliot Sander said the task force “will not just study these issues, but take appropriate action to rectify any deficiencies in our right of way fencing.”
The LIRR has said previously that it believes education, not fencing, is the most important factor in keeping the public safe near railroad right-of-way. Feasibility issues also prevent fencing on all areas of track, as the entire rail system including MetroNorth would require nearly 3,000 miles of fencing.
We’ve got fences around the right of way in suburban Brisbane and it doesn’t stop the vandals and anyone who wants to get on to RR property from doing so. It isn’t terribly difficult to scale a six foot high fence or cut a whole through the wire.
Perhaps they should re-write ‘Ari’s law’ to re-iterate that tagging is illegal.
Are we to pass laws that protect criminals while trespassing and vandalizing? Perhaps a few more blue ribbon committees are needed (all federally funded, of course).
Well said Sol. Except let’s have the states that want to engage in this idiocy fund their own damn study committees and the inane “solutions” they come up with. I’d prefer my fed taxes go to the RRIF. The only fence I’m willing to pay for is one 50 ft high, embedded in the ground 20 ft deep and charged with 10,000 volts along the Mexican border.
Ya have to love it when common sense rears its head when someone tries to exploit another person’s misfortune for their political gain. But it’s how some of them get elected. So, I guess some of the shame must be placed upon ourselves. Mark and Sol, get high marks for seeing the real story here!
"Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) and U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Kew Gardens) announced a federal-city partnership Saturday that will seek to prevent railroad tragedies like the killing of 13-year-old Ari Kraft, who was struck by a train last month after he entered the tracks through a hole in the fence to illegally tag a LIRR structure with graffiti." (quote from original story)
Folks: I think we are missing the mark here. There was ALREADY a fence, this apple-headed Darwinian reject went through it to get himself killed. Ultimately reducing the gene pool by one. The failure, as I see it, was parental competence, an inability to inculcate any level of responsible thought into this 13 year old. I hate to break so bad on this family, and their loss; they should accept some level of responsibility for their child, and his failure to grasp and process the reality of the consequences of his act.
The situation: Society [through its political apparatus] can create laws, and more laws for specific situations, adding all kinds of penal consequences for their violation. Until, you create in the population a basic respe
Having failed at legislating morality, our wise solons are now trying to legislate a substitute for intelligence!
The really bad feature of this stupidity is that it perpetuates the mindset that, “Passing a new law will solve everything.”
Maybe my home town has a better answer. We recently sentenced a graffiti “artist” to five years, during which he’ll spend his daylight work periods painting over graffiti on highway walls and overpasses. Didn’t have to pass any new laws - just enforced one already on the books.
I still think the people traumatized by having to clean up the mess should sue the delinquent parent(s) for failing to educate Ari in basic survival.
One final note - “The LIRR maintains that the answer is education, not fences.” At least one organization has it right.
" Ari, who had celebrated his bar mitzvah last year, was hurrying to his Booth St. home in Rego Park because his worried mom was calling him to be on time for a Sabbath dinner, family friends said."
“HE was such a GOOD boy…” Man what a pantload!! I didn’t think “good boys” vandalized other people’s property?
I guess the fact that he was (allegedly) running home for sabbath dinner is what makes him a “good boy”?
AG, your comments lead me to believe that you have never been a parent, nor were you ever a child.
Never in your life have you ever known someone to present a particular persona to one person while living a completely different lifestyle in other areas of their life?
Yes, I did have a chuckle at that one. It isn’t surprising though. My brother, sister, mom, and dad are all teachers. Parents have gone from listening to teachers when they tell them about misdeeds their children have done to claiming that “Little Billy couldn’t possibly do that, he is such a good boy!”
Parents have a responsibility to their children that doesn’t end when they go to high school. I am sure that if the parents would have looked hard enough they would have discovered what Ari was up to on his way to his Sabbath dinner. I doubt this was the first time he tagged private property nor was it the first time he tresspassed, either.
For these two idiot congressmen to think that more fencing is the solution to the problem proves to me that either they have never had kids or their kids were probably out there with Ari painting away. As other posters have stated, no one can legislate good parenting.