This is what you get when you build light rail at street level without adequate crossing barriers.

Seattle’s Link light rail was built through the city’s south side through the middle of Martin Luther King Junior Way South (“MLK”) with street level crossings for cars and pedestrians, for miles and miles, without any physical barriers like bollards or traditional railroad crossing gates, just flashing lights. Trains are hitting cars all the time here, and it’s incredibly easy for a car to drive right onto the tracks.

There has long been a need for a major safety improvement project to correct this, but Sound Transit is having major project funding problems lately regarding a new line being built, so we’re basically stuck with this problem for at least 20 more years.

Update: Including a photo from the original thread. This is where the driver drove up. The photos from the original post were taken at the light rail station, which is up the rail ramp in this photo and to the left.

You can see concrete curbs here separating the at-grade rail from the street (which are easy enough to drive over), but even those curbs disappear at street crossings.