As one of the comments to last week’s post noted, a Brightline train killed a pedestrian on the first day of service to Orlando. To be fair, the train that was involved in the accident wasn’t going to Orlando and the accident took place on the old part of the rail line, not the newly built line from Cocoa to Orlando.
But why should we be fair? Brightline has killed around 70 people so far, including 28 in Palm Beach County alone. I don’t have exact month-by-month data, but my sense is that the fatality rate has not been declining. The company says it plans to use government funds to make its line safer, but why should taxpayers have to pay for a supposedly private rail operation?
When automobiles kill pedestrians, we hear cries of “streets should be for people not cars.” When light rail or Brightline kills pedestrians, the same people say, “It was the pedestrians’ fault for walking on or across the tracks.” This double-standard is favored because cars are supposedly polluters while trains are supposedly sustainable.
I’m not so willing to forgive Brightline for these fatalities. Brightline took a Miami-West Palm Beach rail line that had a few slow freight trains each day (and probably mostly at night) and added numerous fast passenger trains without adding any new safety precautions. The line between Miami and West Palm Beach is unfenced and crossing gates at grade crossings do not completely block the crossings (as they are required to do for faster trains).
Sixteen new trains a day are going about 130 miles on existing track from West Palm Beach to Cocoa and then about 40 miles of new track to Orlando Airport. The new line to Orlando is mostly through rural areas and because the trains are to go faster than 79 miles per hour stricter standards for crossing gates apply. However, I suspect the 130 miles of existing track will have some of the same safety issues as the segment from Miami to West Palm Beach. We’ll know in a few months if the new line is actually safer than the old one.
More pedestrians are killed every month (68) in Florida by cars than the number of pedestrians killed by Brightline in its entire existence (“the deadliest train per mile in America”).
Walkable communities even in US Suburbia, weren’t “transformative plans” they were common for much century.
Tee cul-de-sac and the stroad, were it’s two worst additions and fairly recent. “Suburbs” have been around since 1300s. Modern “Suburbs” since 1880s with the advent of the electric streetcar.
Stroads are bad. Even the Federal Highway Administration knows it. So now what? Now we look at our local stroads and decide: Should this be a street, or should it be a road? To Auto drivers, it’s a Autobahn.
West of Tampa, Florida, US-19 runs along the Gulf of Mexico, eight or nine lanes of pure American stroad. Thou far from the desert of SouthWest, it’s nick name is “Death Valley”
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XW4wGg1kbKObrD4J1Lx-CTLioyo=/0x0:4400×2924/3820×2149/filters:focal(1829×1325:2533×2029):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/71148825/US_19_031.0.jpg
Non-freeway arterial roads, stroads, which typically carry large volumes of traffic at high speeds, are the most dangerous for people on foot, accounting for 60% of all fatalities in US. But as the Antiplanner aruged 6. in his Mobility principles. Segregation of use.
Segregation of Use is the problem. Without sidewalks/crosswalks and contemporary zoning practices that segregate retail from housing, it’s extremely dangerous to leave suburban enclaves just for a gallon of milk.
To compare the number of pedestrians killed in a month on roads statewide to the number of pedestrians killed on a single rail line ignores exposure and is a meaningless comparison.
True, but Antiplanner is ignoring exposure in all these rants of his too. He’s usually better about that, but this is apparently a real bee in his bonnet.
@antiplanner, maybe I’m seeing this wrong, but this looks like Federal safety regulations have failed to keep people safe.
We don’t have this level of problem on the Acela because the safety’s been addressed over generations. Like I popped open a sat view and right away started measuring in CT. I got to 9 miles with no at-grade xings and stopped. It’s far more, maybe a 30 mile stretch. And the tracks are often elevated, making cutting across the tracks impractical. And they’ve been adding fence in other areas already.
But with Brightline, not much had been done on that corridor. Some at-grade xings have been removed. Some have been turned into grade separated xings. But the removals nudge people to cross at old grade xings. That’s where fencing helps nudge them away.
So why didn’t the regulations require a median and gates on all 4 quadrants? 79 mph is fast. Let’s face it, the regulations around what Brightline & FEC would need to do were never right. They just lucked out that the Northeast corridor had largely done when should’ve been required.
Brightline comes along and splat. We can see the regulations failed.
According to Highway Statistics, Floridians drive about 215 billion vehicle-miles per year. At 1.7 passengers per vehicle, that’s 375 billion passenger-miles. About 3330 people died in Florida traffic accidents, which works out to less than 9 fatalities per billion passenger-miles.
Brightline offers about 16 trains a day each way over the 72 miles from Miami to West Palm Beach. Assuming an average of 200 passengers per train, that’s about 168 million passenger-miles per year. If there are just 10 fatalities per year, that’s almost 60 per billion passenger-miles. We know there have been more than 10 per year, which makes Brightline a lot more dangerous than highways.
We can and should do more to make highways safer but Brightline can and should do more to make its trains safer as well.
The NE Corridor has trains going faster than 79 mph. The Federal Railroad Administration has stricter rules for grade crossings and other safety protections when trains go over 79. Brightline trains between Miami and West Palm don’t go over 79, so it was following the rules, but still not doing enough.
Per capita statistics are a con-man rube.
Floridans drive 215 billion miles. I’ll stop to admire the odometer turning over while pedestrian dies. Tell victims families their value was 147,000 miles…
When a plane crashes everyone on board dies. If a plane crashes…into a school, it’ll kill hundreds.
This catastrophic risk assessment is why air industry has vastly improved safety even since the 80s.
The point is.
– Florida has not done enough to deter driving fatalities.
– strict zoning makes bicycle and pedestrian lovers of society.
– Stroads are a terrible urban design choice for living communities and are a nightmare for children and seniors.
– despite advocacy of Alternative remedies for pedestrians and bikers go unfulfilled even thou compared to continued highway expansion, cost virtually nothing.
Brightline skirted safety regulations to avoid spending a bit more, as private companies are known to do. Perhaps the company should operate the trains themselves, and the government should operate the rails, like how we do with highways and airports.
Exactly which ones were ignored?
they didnt “ignore” them, they edged just barely under a regulation that requires a rail line to be separated from a road if the line going down it is 80 mph or above. So to skirt this reg, they ran trains at 79 mph down it, which is scummy asf. They also dont have fencing down the line but that isnt required
So Brightline followed the rules that have been in place since the FRA imposed speed limits over six decades ago and this upsets you. Got it.
I have to admit that I have zero sympathy for a pedestrian or vehicle operator that gets plastered at a level crossing with a train. FAFO rules apply here.
they might be dumbasses but safety regulations exist in the first place to protect the dumbasses of society. They might be dumb but they’re still people
The second these people decide to contest the right of way with a train, they tend to suddenly cease being people. Their choice. I feel worse for the crews who witness these peoples’ finding out and first responders who have to hose the remains off the equipment.
Interesting that the antiplanner deleted my comments regarding all the Floridans killed by cars in the same couple of days that the Brightline extension opened. I wonder why?
“Floridans drive 215 billion miles. I’ll stop to admire the odometer turning over while pedestrian dies. Tell victims families their value was 147,000 miles…”
Exactly, Lazy Reader. Antiplanner thinks miles traveled justifies any amount of death. As if the point of human life was to move as fast and as far as possible.
Oh wait, he didn’t delete my replies; they were to earlier post. My mistake.
Antiplanner: ” I don’t have exact month-by-month data,”
Here’s some data for you, Antiplanner: so far, in 2023, more pedestrians (100) were killed in one Florida city (Jacksonville) alone than Brightline in its entire existence in the entire state of Florida.
https://www.pajcic.com/posts/jacksonville-fl-records-100th-traffic-fatality-of-2023/