In May, the higher-speed passenger train service Brightline silenced its horns at West Palm Beach railroad crossings and is expected to go quiet at other crossings across the tri-county area as infrastructure improvements finish this summer. The decision to stop the warnings comes at a time when safety is a significant problem for the fledgling company. In the last year, as many as six individuals have been either hit or killed by Brightline trains, as I discussed in a previous post.

The safety measure that the owner of the tracks, Florida East Coast Railway (FEC), is pursuing in lieu of a horn sounding is the establishment of Quiet Zones (QZ). Typically, horns are sounded within one-fourth mile of a crossing, giving drivers and pedestrians about a 15-second warning of an oncoming train. The new zones are equipped with extra gates, raised medians and curbs, and lights and bells to warn of a train’s approach without the noise. Eventually, these QZ’s will extend through Broward County and Miami Dade county at specific crossing locations. Creating these upgraded railroad crossing require cooperation between city governments and railroad company. The local agency applies to the Federal Railroad Administration for QZ at railway crossings and, in this case, Brightline pays for construction upgrades.

Unfortunately, only time will tell as to whether these upgrades will be safer than horn blasts. Even the vice president for FEC, Bob Ledoux, acknowledges the challenges with crossings and higher-speed trains in Florida: “FEC goes through the most crossings per mile than any other railroad of equal distance in the United States...the large number of crossings per mile coupled with Florida’s high population density have created safety problems that the FEC has not been able to resolve.”

Ultimately, there is the question as to whether or not such a change is in the best interest for the majority of the community and not just those living in close proximity to the horn-sounding crossings. While the new safety measures make sense, there will obviously be an adjustment period where drivers and pedestrians will need to learn what to watch for rather than what to listen for. West Palm Beach Mayor Jeri Muoio, outlines the best plan of action,  “...without the horns, we are urging everybody to be safe. Things will be different, and we cannot emphasize enough the importance of making wise decisions around railroad tracks.”