HOUSTON – Houston residents living in the East End were already privy to the railroad track’s dangers, but a tragic death involving a student walking to school has people grieving and heightened safety calls.
BACKGROUND: Milby High School student hit and killed by train while walking to school
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Todd Romero, a University of Houston history professor, whose research focuses on work involving communities impacted by intense transportation infrastructure, and who has lived in the East End for nearly 20 years, is among those voices.
“I can say that the rail lines condition a lot of your experience in the neighborhood and it can vary from annoyance...to being downright dangerous,” Dr. Romero said. “I think it’s well past time for city, state, and federal government to invest in a solution.”
Even KPRC 2 reporter Bill Barajas admitted his father and fiance, who graduated Milby High School, faced the treacherous train tracks because it was part of their daily commute. Standing on the tracks, Barajas began his live report Monday evening, saying, “If you live along the tracks like this, you simply get used to them or learn to maneuver around them.”
“The dangers associated with train tracks have always been there,” he continued. “But they are made worse when you’re a young student rushing to get to school and not wanting to be late; we heard that a lot from parents and students [at the] scene.”
So how did we get here? According to Dr. Romero, the City of Houston was essentially designed this way to help it grow.
“The city rose on transportation infrastructure. It was the bayous that were important to the city developing,” he said. “By the late 19th and especially the 20th century, the development of rail lines first locally, but then tied to things like the Sunset Line that would connect Houston to New Orleans and from New Orleans all the way to the intermountain west in California, opened new markets for all manner of things that came through Houston and came into Houston.”
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“And so a lot of that infrastructure is intensely concentrated on the east side of the city where the ports are located,” Dr. Romero continued. “And because of the existence of that industry that lots of people made their lives and homes in the east side of the city.”
Houston also saw a similar trend in other neighborhoods like Fifth Ward that were paramount to its development.
“If you look at places like the Fifth Ward development of parts of the neighborhood like Frenchtown, those folks came to work in the Southern Pacific Railroad, work in those rail yards.” Dr. Romero explained. “And so it’s been intrinsically tied to the fortunes of the city, the growth of the economy, but it also presents all kinds of dangers for people who live in those communities, whether we’re talking about, the debate over Cancer Clusters in places like Kashmere Gardens or the tragedy at Milby that could have happened at any number of schools that are adjacent to railyard.”
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Fast forward to now, Dr. Romero says it still seems unreasonable that lawmakers couldn’t have the city flourish while also keeping residents in nearby areas safe. Especially when residents in predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods have known about these health risks for years, but it will require more pressure from residents to lawmakers for things to get resolved.
“I think people have been complaining about this for a long time,” he admitted. “I’m sure that elected officials have gotten an earful and they’ve pushed forward initiatives, but I think they have to keep on pressing to get support to help resolve the issue because it’s become incredibly dangerous.”
“Being a little bit late to work or school is one thing,” Dr. Romero concluded. “But having to take your bike underneath the train, as I saw some kids in a story on McReynolds Middle School have to do, with the people who are crossing underneath or in between train cars to get to school or work, that is not acceptable.”