A light-rail train collided with a Tempe Orbit bus at the intersection of East Lemon Street and South Terrace Road early Tuesday afternoon, leaving four injured.
Tempe Fire Department spokesman Mike Reichling reported only minor injuries to four of the 13 people on the bus, including the driver, who was taken to the hospital for a head laceration. None of the light-rail passengers were injured, he said.
“The nature of the injuries [were] just bumps and bruises,” Reichling said. “We had one laceration to the driver that we treated at the scene, and he was transported [to the hospital].”
Police closed off the intersection for about 15 minutes to clean debris from the front end of the train off the tracks.
Tempe Police spokeswoman Katie McDevitt said it was too early to determine who is at fault.
“The cause of the collision is still under investigation,” she said. “We’re still trying to determine exactly what occurred.”
Tempe resident Kristian Joseph said he was riding the Mercury Orbit bus going east on Lemon Street when it collided with the train and spiraled out of control. After the bus came to a stop, one passenger evacuated the other riders off of the bus, he said.
“One of the passengers was telling everyone to get off the bus,” Joseph said. “And he was comforting the bus driver, because the bus driver had a bad head injury.”
Fifteen-year-old Brandon Dilworth, who was also riding the Orbit, said the bus driver was not fully paying attention to the road because he was making a call to the Tempe Transit Center.
“[The bus driver] was trying to call into the bus station to get a new bus because his light wasn’t working,” Dilworth said. “He didn’t see the train … and it came up and hit the bus.”
Valley Metro spokeswoman Hilary Foose said the collision was the sixth or seventh of its kind this year.
Foose was unwilling to speculate about the cause of the crash but said one of the transit agency’s chief concerns is educating drivers and the general public about safety around light-rail trains.
“We’re all on a learning curve,” Foose said. “We need to get out there and make sure [drivers] are the best-educated that they can be to drive safely around the system.”
Reach the reporter at derek.quizon@asu.edu.