Agree it is complicated design decisions and cost benefit analysis that includes the cost of lives (deaths) and injuries, as well as increased safety from other incidents (such as crime) given particular designs.
I do think something could be done about the gates. My understanding is a lot of the "non-suicide" train-pedestrain accidents are just like this Chinook one: people waiting at the crossing for the first train to go by, and they don't realize another train is coming into the station or leaving the station as well, so after the first goes by they assume it's clear and starting heading across.
Even if you can't or won't have empathy for the individual who was hit - a lot of presumably "non-idiot" people are impacted by these incidents. The driver, the first responders, the witnesses at the scene all have some level of trauma from seeing a presumably gruesome and accidental death. And the inconvenience to all the other commuters does have a cost as well.
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