By Jane Smith
As Brightline runs its express passenger rail service between West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, safety problems recur at grade crossings.
To improve safety, coastal South County cities continue to add quad-crossing gates that meet in the middle to most of the train crossings along the FEC tracks. Once that work is complete, elected bodies could petition the Federal Railroad Administration to have FEC and Brightline trains not blow horns in their cities, creating quiet zones.
In Delray Beach, eight of 11 crossings will get that treatment by the end of April, City Manager Mark Lauzier said. Those crossings are: Northeast Eighth, Second and First streets; Atlantic Avenue; Southeast Second, Fourth and 10th streets; and Linton Boulevard.
The county Transportation Planning Agency (formerly called the Metropolitan Planning Organization) is paying for the upgrades.
In addition to the crossing gates, Delray Beach installed a 4-foot-high aluminum rail fence between Atlantic Avenue and Northeast First Street. The installation followed the August 2016 death of a woman who cut across the tracks and was hit by a freight train.
City Commissioner Shelly Petrolia has asked Lauzier to let the commission know of any other areas where people are cutting across the tracks and a fence is needed.
The $30,644 fence cost could be reimbursed by the agency through its annual grant process, Nick Uhren, its executive director, said at the Feb. 6 Delray Beach commission meeting.
He also asked the commissioners to remind pedestrians and bicyclists to obey the crossing arms when they are down.
“Before the commission meeting, I was at the Northeast Second Street crossing,” Uhren said. “A Brightline train was approaching from the north and another Brightline train was coming from the south. The crossing arms were down and a bicyclist rode around them. Please don’t go around them and try to beat the train.”
Brightline safety issues were raised at a roundtable of mayors and their representatives hosted by U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel in late January. Mayors asked for a meeting with federal officials on the technicalities of quiet zones.
Frankel contacted the Federal Railroad Administration and followed with a reminder letter in mid-February. She was seeking a meeting in the next few weeks.
In mid-February, a Highland Beach man was injured when he stopped his vehicle on the FEC tracks for a red light at Camino Real in Boca Raton when the crossing gates came down. Benjamin Morelli, 90, was unable to get out of his car before it was struck by a northbound Brightline train, said Jessica Desir, spokeswoman for the Boca Raton police.
In Boynton Beach, which had two fatalities involving Brightline trains in January, four more intersections will be getting the quad-crossing gates, said Jeff Livergood, public works director.
The additional intersections are: Boynton Beach Boulevard and East Ocean, Southeast Fifth and Southeast 12th avenues.
The upgrades should be finished in April, he said, and will be paid for by the Transportation Planning Agency using state Department of Transportation money.
Martin Luther King Boulevard, Woolbright Road and Southeast 36th Avenue already have the quad gates, he said.
“I wish that motorists and pedestrians would use good judgment when using our roadways and crosswalks,” Livergood said.
Two lawmakers have submitted bills in the state Legislature that would require train lines that operate at speeds over 80 mph to pay to install fencing along both sides of the track, install crossing arms and pay to maintain what was installed.
Brightline argues that more regulations are unnecessary.
“Brightline has been running PSAs [public service announcements] on local radio and broadcast stations since early last year reminding the public that when you see tracks, think train! And to stay off train tracks,” its spokeswoman said.
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