Who’s responsible after four years of deaths on Brightline’s tracks
As South Florida’s higher speed rail operator prepares for new train stops in Aventura and Boca Raton while expanding as far north as Disney World with even faster trains, Brightline continues to struggle with mounting fatalities on its tracks and collisions with motorists.
That death toll means Brightline has caused more fatalities per mile traveled than any other major rail operator in the country, according to a Miami Herald analysis of Federal Railroad Administration data on deaths not involving rail employees or passengers.
Local, state and federal elected officials and regulators appear to be playing catch-up to the deadly rail dilemma and how to address it. A report from a consultant hired by state officials in 2018 recommended several key rail safety measures, yet to date despite the increasing number of train-related deaths, the Florida Department of Transportation has not implemented any of them. And in 2020, state legislation that would have bolstered public safety at rail crossings stalled.
Brightline officials, meanwhile, say they already take an aggressive public safety approach, and that the rail line has met all federal requirements. The rail operator expects to spend at least $10 million on safety improvements in South Florida.
Company officials contend the rail service has been plagued by suspected pedestrian suicides on the tracks and risk-taking motorists undaunted by the large mechanical guard arms blocking rail crossings.
Launched in 2018 as a for-profit passenger railroad with initial service between West Palm Beach and Miami, Brightline trains almost immediately began colliding with pedestrians and motorists, with two deadly crashes occurring in its first week of service.
Since restarting rail service in November 2021 after a year-and-a-half pandemic hiatus, Brightline trains, reaching a top speed of 79 mph, have struck and killed four pedestrians along with two motorists in South Florida. In addition, a train collided with a driver and her grandson on the day of Brightline’s pandemic relaunch Nov. 8. Neither were critically injured. And on Thursday, a train collided with a hatchback sport-utility vehicle in the heart of Wynwood, sending two victims to the hospital in stable condition.
In four years of operation, 49 people have died after being struck by Brightline trains in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
“Every day, our team strives to implement the most robust safety and incident prevention measures possible,” the rail operator, owned by private equity firm Fortress Investment Group, said in a prepared statement. Fortress is an affiliate of SoftBank, a Japanese global conglomerate with a significant presence in Miami. Fortress referred an inquiry for this story to Brightline.
Brightline said it has recently secured federal grant money to beef up safety at an additional 48 South Florida rail crossings. There are 178 street-level crossings along the nearly 70-mile Miami to West Palm Beach rail line.
Outside railroad experts say there’s one key reason for the high number of rail fatalities on Brightline’s tracks: An express train service runs through a dense urban area where the residents are not yet used to it and the potential fatal risks.
“This is no different than Amtrak trains passing through Chicago suburbs or ones that go from L.A. to San Diego,” said Ian Savage, a professor at Northwestern University and director of its transportation and logistics program. “But here, you’ve got passenger service where you haven’t had passenger service before.”
One train-related death every 600 trips
While other major U.S. railroad operators have seen significantly more deaths since 2018, Brightline holds the top slot when factoring in how often its trains run.
Brightline trains on average killed a pedestrian or motorist for roughly every 37,000 miles traveled in the past four years, according to the Miami Herald analysis of federal railroad data. The Herald used the same methodology as a 2019 investigation by The Associated Press on Brightline’s safety record. Law enforcement investigations in South Florida have determined most of the deaths on Brightline’s tracks are due to likely suicide or attempts to beat the train through a rail crossing. Similarly, the AP found that nationwide the majority of fatalities caused by the rail operator were suicides.
With 67 miles of privately owned railroad tracks connecting Brightline’s stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, one death for every 37,000 miles is the equivalent of one fatality for every 600 rail trips between West Palm and Miami. To avoid hitting a vehicle or person on the tracks, it takes the conductor about one-quarter of a mile to stop the train going at the top speed of 79 mph, a Brightline spokesperson said.
The U.S. railroad administration considers trains striking pedestrians, cyclists, and cars as “trespasser” incidents involving private property.
In non-fatal Brightline crashes, individuals can be cited for trespassing. Most recently, the Broward County Sheriff ticketed motorist Marie Mervil for failing to obey a traffic control device at a railroad-highway grade crossing. An investigation showed Mervil drove on to the tracks with her young grandson “for an unknown reason” and was hit by a Brightline train Nov. 8. in Pompano Beach, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s office.
The railroad administration data between 2018 and 2021 show a higher fatality rate for Brightline compared to other railroad operators with trains that traveled an average of 100,000 miles of track per year heading into 2021. There were 44 deaths connected to Brightline in those years involving people struck in automobiles or pedestrians on its tracks.
Caltrain, a commuter rail serving the San Francisco area, holds the second-place slot with one death roughly every 105,000 miles, compared to Brightline’s one fatality per 37,000 miles.
Deaths on Florida railroad tracks are not unique to Brightline. The 2018 study commissioned by the state Legislature’s Office of Policy Analysis found the Sunshine State had a fatality rate on its railroad tracks 3.5 times higher than the national average. The study linked the trend to tracks tending to run through more highly populated areas.
”While Florida passenger rail incident rates are higher than the rest of the country, rail operations take place in much more population-dense areas than the U.S. average,” according to the report from Ottawa-based CPCS, a consulting firm with a focus on infrastructure. “Furthermore, rail operations are concentrated in Central and South Florida where the majority of Florida’s population resides.”
Even so, other South Florida rail operators have a much lower fatality rate. One factor could be Brightline’s condensed service area, running along a rail line largely east of Interstate 95, connecting the region’s urban hubs.
Over the same four-year period of Brightline’s service, Florida East Coast Railway, the cargo freight company that shares Brightline’s South Florida tracks, recorded 41 deaths involving pedestrians and cars versus Brightline’s 44, according to federal data. The cargo trains run more than 300 miles north to Jacksonville, traversing areas that are far less densely populated than Brightline’s service area. Florida East Coast’s fatality rate is far lower than Brightline’s — about one death of a motorist or pedestrian for every 192,000 rail miles.
Faster trains lead to more fatal wrecks
Brightline’s public-transit competitor, Tri-Rail, runs a similar route between the Miami area and West Palm Beach, but on tracks that sit about five miles west of Brightline’s. Both trains are allowed to run up to 79 mph, but Tril-Rail trains don’t always travel nearly that fast. Tri-Rail recorded 26 deaths of pedestrians and motorists between 2018 and 2021, about half the fatalities from Brightline trains.
With 18 stations requiring stops, Tri-Rail, funded by a mix of federal, state and local taxpayer dollars, reported an average train speed of 29 mph last year. The Herald asked a Brightline spokesperson for the trains’ average speed running through South Florida but the rail operator didn’t provide it.
“Our trains are decelerating a lot more than theirs are,” Tri-Rail director Steven Abrams said of Brightline.
Viewed another way, deaths from Brightline train collisions are a small portion of the deaths on the road driving in South Florida in 2019. That year, Brightline-related deaths peaked at 29, according to federal railroad data. Meanwhile, in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, there were 748 deaths attributed to motor vehicle crashes in the same period, according to data from the Florida Department of Health.
Obviously, there are hundreds of thousands more vehicles on South Florida roads every week than there are passengers on Brightline trains. The 2019 motor vehicle crash figures are the latest available. That year, Florida ranked sixth among states nationwide for fatal motor vehicle crashes, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
As it makes its way to Orlando as early as next year, Brightline this week has begun testing passenger-less trains from West Palm to Cocoa Beach. Though the test trains will not exceed 60 mph during the trial runs, speeds beyond West Palm Beach will reach as much as 110 mph once passenger service begins. Brightline said it has upgraded 156 crossings during construction of its latest leg, with more to be upgraded throughout 2022.
Brightline warned about rail line trespassing
The Federal Railroad Administration had expressed concerns about trespassing along the privately owned Florida East Coast/Brightline rail corridor while Brightline’s South Florida rail network was being planned.
In 2014, the FRA issued a report to Brightline, then known as All Aboard Florida, stating concerns about trespassers.
“Trespassing is an epidemic along this corridor,” agency engineer Frank A. Frey wrote. He suggested Brightline come up with a way to provide safe passage to pedestrians crossing what he said would be “a very active rail line.” He suggested equipping sidewalk approaches with visual and gated barriers.
Initially, Frey also voiced worries about Brightline’s approach to addressing safety issues.
“There is a completely different philosophical view towards safety between the Project (All Aboard Florida) and I,” Frey said.
In response to the Herald’s questions about its public safety operations, Brightline said 48 crossings in the tri-county region are set to receive additional safety upgrades. Although a private operator, Brightline applied for taxpayer money for the improvements in 2017, before it began rail service. The funds were recently made available after delays involving federal approval and negotiations with the Florida East Coast railway.
Brightline said the scope of work at these crossings would include a combination of exit gates, flexible edge-of-roadway delineators and striping, center-line delineators, or active signs, depending on individual crossing needs. Rail officials said the improvements are expected to be constructed over 12 months.
FRA engineer Frey went on to say Brightline also needed to adopt what is known as a sealed-corridor approach to certain areas, a process that involves beefing up crossings with additional gates and signage, and in some cases closing crossings. Brightline said it met those requirements when it established “quiet zones” requested by municipalities that didn’t want to deal with loud horns sounding through residential areas.
“Horns are still used in quiet zones, at the discretion of the locomotive engineer,” Brightline spokesperson Ben Porritt said.
The U.S. rail agency declined to make Frey available for an interview for this story. In response to questions from the Herald, the agency indicated Brightline had met minimum requirements for safety along the first phase of its rail line, and that it did not have concerns with Brightline’s compliance. The rail agency’s highway-rail grade crossing team continues to work with the company.
Federal regulators have been under pressure from the start of Brightline’s service to address railroad deaths. In response to a Herald inquiry, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-West Miami, referred to his 2018 remarks asking the U.S. Department of Transportation to “assess safety measures with Brightline, while coordinating with local officials and members of the community to prevent future tragedies from occurring.”
Brightline has gone on to implement, and continues to test, a host of measures to try to address the ongoing fatalities on its tracks. It has invested in mental health programs. It is piloting a drone program to alert company officials to railway hazards. It has installed several red-light cameras that read drivers’ license plates and issue company citations when they run afoul of rail-crossing rules. At certain crossings, Brightline has improved what it calls channelization to direct pedestrians away from the tracks. And it employs off-duty police at key crossings to step up enforcement of trespassing laws.
“Brightline has taken a leadership role in raising awareness for rail safety as well as mental health issues in our community, as a majority of these incidents are related to suicide or drug abuse,” the company said in a statement. “Brightline has undertaken a number of initiatives related to education, enforcement, engineering and technology to help curb behavior and educate people on how to behave around the tracks.”
State, local officials fail to implement rail safety recommendations
The Florida-commissioned infrastructure consultant’s report in 2018 included additional recommendations for rail safety upgrades and regulatory steps Florida and local governments could implement. None have been taken.
One recommendation was for Florida to remove some rail safety oversight from Florida’s Department of Transportation and assign those duties to an independent regulatory agency with a dedicated funding source.
Another recommendation called for a state system of evaluating whether some problematic rail crossings should be closed. The report said Florida’s transportation department “lacks an analytical methodology for determining which crossings should be consolidated and where strategic investment should be made.”
A further suggestion: Upgrading technology at traffic lights around rail crossings to reduce the number of vehicles waiting for crossing guards to lift after a train passes.
In late 2019, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced a rail-safety measure called Operation Stride that included new requirements for pavement markings along railways to create a six-foot zone along the tracks aimed at keeping pedestrians and automobiles at safe distances. The transportation department initiative was tested in South Florida first, according to the state agency, and caused a 15% reduction in cars stopping too close to the railroad tracks.
State legislation in 2020 introduced by Sen. Debbie Mayfield, R-Melbourne, would have required Florida to adopt minimum standards for the sealed-corridor approach on railroads, a safety feature encouraged by federal regulations but not required. The bill failed to advance.
Overlapping local enforcement complicates regulation
Jurisdictional issues appear to further complicate resolving rail public safety issues. In response to an inquiry about whether it is concerned about rail trespassing, a Broward County Sheriff’s spokesman said enforcement falls to individual municipalities where rail crossings are located in incorporated areas.
Municipalities are also involved in decisions to close rail crossings. In the first part of his 2014 federal report, FRA engineer Frey recommended that at least 16 rail crossings along the Miami-to-West Palm high-speed rail line should be closed. Brightline said four crossings have been closed to automobile and foot traffic, and that the decision to close a rail crossing involves a multi-step process involving Brightline, municipalities and the Florida Department of Transportation.
Local elected officials interviewed by the Herald struck a renewed tone of resolution about the increasing number of deaths on Brightline’s South Florida rail line.
“One life lost is a tragedy and unacceptable, so the urgency for me is immediate and essential that we work even more collaboratively to prevent any further accidents,” said Ben Sorensen, a Fort Lauderdale city commissioner.
Josh Levy, the mayor of Hollywood, said Brightline appeared to be doing all it could to thwart crashes that in many cases were the fault of risky decisions.
“It’s a tragedy every time someone loses their life, but often times it’s because of negligent behavior of people who find themselves at the tracks,” Levy said. “And if God forbid sometimes it’s intentional, that’s a tragedy in itself, people choosing to end their life — but I cannot find any fault of the train system at all, it seems like they’ve done everything humanly possible.”
Along with adding markings for “safety envelopes” at more than 600 crossings last year, the state transportation department has a marketing campaign to warn motorists about the dangers of rail crossings.
“The department is working really hard to try and educate drivers,” state transportation agency spokesperson Tish Burgher said.
Christina Pushaw, press secretary in the governor’s office, also pointed to the state’s mental health spending as part of the response to deaths on railroad tracks.
“Over the past three years, the DeSantis administration has worked to prioritize mental health and taken significant steps to help Floridians in crisis,” Pushaw said. The governor “has proposed $188.6 million in funding for a comprehensive array of behavioral health treatment services that seek to provide Floridians the support they need to prevent ‘deaths of despair’ like overdoses and suicides.”
‘It’s your fault’
With its 20-month pandemic shutdown just two years after starting service in 2018, Brightline has twice brought modern and quieter higher-speed trains to railroad tracks that had previously been used only by freight trains.
Brightline’s quiet, smooth travel can be a risk if people are counting on the rumble of a locomotive to alert them about potential danger on the tracks. Local governments in South Florida established “quiet zones” for the Brightline corridor, which require safety upgrades in exchange for trains not having to blow horns as they approach crossings.
People can underestimate how fast modern trains go, and how quiet they can be, said Polly Hanson, director of security and risk at the American Public Transportation Association.
“You don’t hear the train, and all of a sudden the train is upon you,” she said. “And that train is moving really fast. And it takes football-field lengths for the train to stop.”
Outreach campaigns backed by the public transportation association and other groups, including Operation Lifesaver, focus on warnings against underestimating the risks of stepping onto railroad tracks. For example, there’s a video spot about three teenagers’ 2011 selfie with a backdrop of the headlight of the oncoming train in Utah that killed them seconds later.
In Palm Beach County in the town of Lantana, Amelia Sandoval thinks her 36-year-old son, Paul Sandoval, didn’t know a train was about to kill him when he died from a Brightline collision the night of Sept. 14, 2018.
The county medical examiner ruled the death a suicide. Video footage from the northbound Brightline train showed Sandoval, a landscaper who lived nearby, looking up from the tracks but not moving. The train blasted its horn, according to a Lantana Police report, and launched an emergency stop before striking Sandoval.
“We’re from New Mexico. We have freight trains. You can hear freight trains, you can feel the vibrations,” Amelia Sandoval said in a recent interview from her home in Clovis, New Mexico. “This kind of a passenger train is a Lexus. It’s made for passengers so they can’t feel a thing.”
She said more effort has to be directed to notifying people about approaching trains, even in areas of the track far from designated crossings. Her son had just leased a car the day before his death, and was on the phone with a friend from New Mexico when he mentioned he was sitting down. Then the line went dead, according to the woman’s account to Lantana police.
“He loved life,” Sandoval said of her son.
For Zedrick Barber, the toll of suicides along Brightline tracks represent a distraction from a lack of action on railway safety across Florida and nationwide. The Palm Beach Gardens lawyer represents Sandoval and relatives of another person killed on Brightline’s tracks in 2018, deaths that did not result in litigation.
“I don’t know of any law firms that have filed litigation against Brightline. … We’ve come to the conclusion that it is almost frivolous to file a suit,” Barber said, because it’s difficult to meet the legal burden required to prove a railroad’s negligence in collision deaths. “The presumption in general is: If you’re on the tracks, it’s your fault.”
Barber sees lawmakers at the state and federal level largely ignoring steps they could take to reduce the amount of fatalities by train collisions, such as requiring pedestrian crossings to follow zigzag patterns that make it more likely for a distracted person to be facing an oncoming train rather than having it approaching from the side.
“There are ways to design the gate to force people who are crossing to look in the direction where the train is coming,” the attorney said. “Imagine you’re listening to a headset and you’re riding your bicycle across the track. If you’re not paying close attention, you’re out of here.”
Barber said he’s been surprised how little political momentum there is in Florida for reducing railway deaths.
“You’d think there would be a lot more outcry,” he said, “and there’s not.”
Many rail experts said numerous safety measures appear to be taken by Brightline — and that the responsibility falls on individuals to obey traffic and railroad crossing laws.
“At a public rail highway crossing, the railroad has the right of way, and vehicles are supposed to yield to the train,” said David Clarke, a railroad safety expert with the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee. “And if there is active protection, lights and/or gates, it’s a violation to go around those when down and flashing.”
Some were even more blunt about the consequences of individuals putting their own safety at risk.
“How much are you willing to pay as a taxpayer to put up more fencing or improve a grade crossing for the small number of people too stupid to care about their own lives?” said Gus Ubaldi, an airport and railroad engineering expert at Pennsylvania-based Robson Forensic, an expert witness and technical consulting firm.
This story was originally published January 19, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
