FDOT penalizes Brightline after near-miss crossing incident on planned Orlando route
The Florida Department of Transportation has penalized Brightline after a near-miss incident during the rail company’s multi-billion construction effort late last month.
In a later dated Oct. 2., FDOT District Four Secretary Gerry O’Reilly said safety equipment in Riviera Beach failed to properly activate as a train approached and traveled through a crossing Sept. 28, 2020 at about 10 a.m.
“A serious incident was only averted by the responses of drivers in the vicinity of the crossing,” O’Reilly wrote. “Based on the information available to the Department, it appears that Brightline contractors were performing work in the vicinity of the crossing.”
O’Reilly added that FDOT only learned of the incident through a third party.
As a result of the incident, FDOT said it was suspending Brightline’s authority to perform work on or in the vicinity of at-grade road crossings.
“The Department is very concerned over the apparent failure to ensure that rail work was performed in a manner that protected the traveling public on the State highway,” O’Reilly wrote. “Such failure is absolutely unacceptable.“
Brightline is a more than a year in to plans to connect its express service from South Florida to Orlando. The route is slated to open in 2022.
In a response letter Oct. 5, Brightline President Patrick Goddard said the company had temporarily suspended all work by the contractor, HSR Constructors, in the entire 128-mile corridor pending an investigation that ultimately found three contractors negligent. Two workers have been dismissed. A Brightline representative added that the incident involved a work train coming through the crossing that the contractors had failed to flag to nearby drivers and pedestrians.
A representative for HSR could not immediately be reached for comment.
Goddard said that the work activity underway at the time of the incident was not subject to FDOT permitting authority, but that the company would voluntarily commit to advise FDOT at the same time it gives any required notice to the Federal Railroad Administration should a similar event occur.
A Brightline spokesman said construction on the Orlando route remains largely unaffected and that the timetable for completing the route has not changed.
Last December, the Associated Press reported that Brightline had the highest death-rate per-mile of any U.S. railroad. Brightline suspended passenger service in March due to the coronavirus. It has not announced a resumption date.
