News

By Jane Smith

    All Aboard Florida is continuing to add double tracks and quiet zone devices to South County coastal cities for its Brightline express rail that will link Miami to Orlando along the Florida East Coast tracks.
    While the double tracks are installed, the following roads will be closed 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.: Lantana Road, May 10-13, and Northeast 15th Avenue, Boynton Beach, May 1-5.
    Closings for Delray Beach:
    Southeast 10th Street, May 2-6; Northeast First Street, May 4-7; Southeast First Street, May 5-7; Southeast Fourth Street, June 10-13; Linton Boulevard, June 14-18, and Lindell Boulevard, June 25-27.
    The following roads had upgraded crossings installed in April: West Ocean Avenue and Pine Street in Lantana; Northeast Sixth Avenue, Gateway Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Boynton Beach; and George Bush Boulevard and Northeast Fourth Street in Delray Beach.
    For dates of other road closings, travelers are advised to check All Aboard’s website: www.allaboardflorida.com. The road closings are subject to change.
    No work was scheduled for Boca Raton crossings this spring, according to Ali Soule, All Aboard Florida spokeswoman. Boca Raton spokeswoman Chrissy Gibson said the city has 10 crossings that need to be upgraded. She said All Aboard Florida will set the schedule sometime in the fall.
    Between Miami and West Palm Beach, crossings will be improved with new steel rail, concrete ties, signals and crossing gates. Through a partnership with the county’s Metropolitan Planning Organization, quiet zones safety features will be paid for and will be installed at the same time that crossing upgrades are made. In quiet zones, neither freight nor passenger trains will blow their horns as they approach each crossing.
    Crossing upgrades are not affected by rain, Soule said. But because hurricane season begins June 1, All Aboard will monitor approaching storms and reschedule work if needed.
    Road closings last typically for 55 continuous hours to allow a second railroad track to be installed in the crossing next to the existing track, according to Soule. Short stubs of rail are left beyond the edge of each track panel to allow the second tracks to be laid between the crossings. That work will be done at a later date.
    More than 55 crossings have been upgraded — about 30 percent of the crossings between Miami and West Palm Beach, according to Soule.
    Brightline is expected to begin service between Miami and West Palm Beach in mid-2017.