It’s a bright, clear morning and you’re on your way to school. “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj is blasting through your earbuds. You walk across the train tracks and head into the station. Your safety, at this moment, might be called into question.

On the morning of August 31st, on University Ave, a woman was struck and killed by a train while crossing the tracks of the new Green Line trains, which run from downtown Minneapolis to St. Paul.

The Green Line recently began operating on June 15th. Since then, there has been one injury and one death involving the new trains, which run up and down busy streets full of pedestrians. University Avenue is one of such streets, and much of the Green Line runs right down its middle.

This means that people are constantly crossing the train tracks, even those who are not intending to ride the train. The Blue Line has been running successfully in downtown Minneapolis in such settings. However, the Green Line does this on a much larger scale, running through both downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. Most of it, though, is on the busy University Ave, which includes the University of Minnesota’s East Bank campus.

“The Blue Line runs along Hiawatha, it goes to the mall, it doesn’t go through the city except for downtown. It usually doesn’t interfere with pedestrians. The Green Line is definitely placed in the middle of the street,” noted Helen Walz, a senior who takes the Green Line for PSEO classes.

When some people cross the street, they aren’t always aware of what’s going on around them, including oncoming trains. Walz observed: “[people] will be like, ‘there’s nothing coming, I’m just going to walk across,’ or maybe they have headphones in or a phone out … I’m guessing that’s when something would go wrong.”

Walz also recently spoke to a train conductor, who is usually the first person to see when someone is in danger, about the issue of careless pedestrians. “He said that bikers and people with headphones in scare him. And now that the train’s on University, there are just so many more people interfering.”

Metro Transit obviously takes great care to try to keep people safe around the trains. People crossing the train tracks need to stay alert, but the implemented measures can help to prevent accidents.

Metropolitan Council spokesperson John Welbes explained that “the Green Line was designed with pedestrian safety as a paramount concern. Along the entire alignment, there are designated crossings with signals that operate specifically for pedestrians, and fences or links that prevent people from crossing in non-designated areas… There are also bells that warn pedestrians that a train is coming into a station, and the trains use whistles as well.”

If you want to stay safe while on or around the Green Line trains, it’s very important to be aware of your surroundings. Take out your headphones briefly (don’t worry, they can go back on when you get on the train), and keep your eyes open for surprises. “Stopping and looking both ways – knowing that a train can come at anytime in either direction on either track – will help keep you safe,” said Welbes.

“It’s just better to wait than to get hit by a train,” added Walz.

By taking simple precautions, Walz says that she feels very safe taking the Green Line. “I feel like they promote safety really well, and it’s just a matter of people not listening [to warnings],” she concluded.

Just like driving a car, the Green Line trains are only unsafe if you let them be. So let Nicki pause for a minute— after all, as the song goes, “my anaconda don’t want” to get hit by a train.