By Jane Smith
The contractor has begun installing a fence to block people from taking a short cut across the FEC Railway tracks in downtown Delray Beach.
The work started on Oct. 3. It will take about two weeks for the aluminum rail fence to be finished along both sides of the tracks between Atlantic Avenue and Northeast First Street, said Joe Frantz, deputy director of public works. The fence will have pink bougainvillea planted at both ends and other native plants in between.
The trespassing problem became a Delray Beach focus after the August 2016 death of Robin Landes, of Boca Raton. She was killed by a passing southbound freight train when she used a well-traveled path to cut across the tracks. Landes and her husband had left Johnny Brown’s on Atlantic.
“On any given day or night, I can see multiple people, including adults with children, trespassing across the tracks between designated crossings,” said Mayor Cary Glickstein.
“It may seem easy to cross the tracks, which is a trespass, with slower-moving freight trains using very loud horn blasts,” he said. “It’s quite another with high-speed trains that will eventually pass through Delray 32 times daily without any audible warning horns.”
Brightline, the new name for All Aboard Florida, plans to start its express passenger rail service on the FEC tracks by the end of the year. In South Florida, Brightline will make three stops — West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
The county’s Metropolitan Planning Organization paid to install quiet zones at most intersections, allowing the Brightline trains to zip without horn blasts through the southern part of the county. The quiet zones can include such items as dual gates on the travel lanes and a concrete median between the travel lanes.
Delray Beach resident Patrick Halliday, vice chairman of Human Powered Delray, brought up pedestrian-safety concerns to the City Commission following the death of Landes.
“I’m pleased to see this day coming,” Halliday said. “I got involved because of my concerns for pedestrian safety in my city of Delray Beach.”
He thanked the mayor and City Commission for their efforts to push for a pedestrian barrier.
FEC will have a worker present during the fence installation, Frantz said. The fence sits on FEC-owned land and the company wants to make sure that its signals and other electronics are not disturbed during the fence installation process, he said.
Bill Wilsher, the city’s landscape planner, helped to select the plants.
The bougainvillea at both ends will be the dwarf variety, he said. “The FEC people didn’t want anything growing over the top of the fence line,” Wilsher said.
“The safety barrier is very much needed to push people down to desig-nated crossings,” Glickstein said.
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