What the Brightline is best known for is not that it reflects the gleam of the future but the fact that it keeps hitting people. According to Federal Railroad Administration data, the Brightline has been involved in at least 185 fatalities, 148 of which were believed not to be suicides, since it began operating, in December 2017. Last year, the train hit and killed 41 people—none of whom, as best as authorities could determine, was attempting to harm themselves. By comparison, the Long Island Rail Road, the busiest commuter line in the country, hit and killed six people last year while running 947 trains a day. Brightline was running 32.
In January 2023, the National Transportation Safety Board found that the Brightline’s accident rate per million miles operated from 2018 to 2021 was more than double that of the next-highest—43.8 for the Brightline and 18.4 for the Metra commuter train in Chicago. This summer, the Miami Herald and a Florida NPR station published an investigation showing that someone is killed by the train, on average, once every 13 days.
Floridians have started calling it the “Death Train” and maintain a sense of gallows humor about it, saying that it must be “fed” regularly to keep hurricanes away. Train attendants told me that Brightline engineers and conductors sometimes darkly joke about earning a “golden ticket”—which is when the train hits someone at the right time so that the three paid days off a worker gets for emotional distress are rolled into a weekend that takes up most of the week.
...
Federal agencies have investigated the Brightline incidents and produced no firm conclusions about why they have happened so often. The company, sometimes called “Frightline” on the local news, has not been found responsible for any of the deaths. How could it be responsible for people driving around lowered gates or walking into the clearly delineated path of a train? Yet there must be some explanation for the unusual number of fatalities.
...
The Brightline runs on the route of the original Florida East Coast Railway, which was built in the late 1800s by Henry Flagler, a Standard Oil tycoon. Flagler is popularly credited with “inventing” modern Florida: His railroad allowed for the development of swampland into a series of luxury resorts dotting the coast. Everything grew up around this track—it’s the vein running through all of the oldest cities and most densely populated areas of South Florida.
...
As a result, once-familiar environments have been transformed. Take, for example, the story of Joann DePina, a 49-year-old mother of two who was killed by a Brightline train in January. DePina was walking over the tracks that cut through her neighborhood, but she was doing so on a well-worn footpath. She was technically trespassing, but there weren’t any fences or no trespassing signs, and it was a logical thing to do. DePina rented a room in a sober-living house on one side of the tracks and was crossing to get to a group meeting on the other side. She had been in recovery since 2017 and was saving money to move into her own apartment.
I walked along the tracks with her aunt Maria Furtado in May. Furtado showed me the footpath, next to the white cross she’d put up in her niece’s memory. In person, it was clear why people would walk there: The tracks split the neighborhood in half, with tightly packed houses on one side and a row of businesses on the other. To get around the tracks legally would require walking down to an intersection to cross, then walking back, adding at least 10 minutes. Taking a shortcut over the tracks looks easy enough, and it was probably easy to do so safely during the decades when freight trains were the only traffic. Hence the worn path.
...
Many train tracks are elevated to cross above roadways. Others are sunken down to cross beneath them. But the Brightline’s track intersects flatly, or “at grade,” with the roads on much of its route, including the part that runs through central Miami.
Many states have undertaken grade-crossing-elimination projects over the past half century because they make train routes dramatically safer. On the Amtrak route between Washington, D.C., and New York City, the highest-trafficked stretch of train track in the country, there are no grade crossings. The last one was eliminated in the 1980s.
There are 331 grade crossings along the Brightline route in South Florida. James Hopkins, a former Brightline conductor, cited this when explaining to me why he no longer works for the company. He mostly enjoyed his time at Brightline, he said—the company was a good employer—but he didn’t want to work on that route anymore in large part because of how often the train would hit people. At his previous job operating a freight train in the 200-mile stretch between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, he said there were 40 to 50 grade crossings. In the 65 miles between West Palm Beach and Miami, there are 174. “It’s just real busy,” he told me. “The fatalities—this was just something I didn’t want to continue doing.”
When I visited the West Palm Beach area to look at the crossings and roads in person, I drove over the tracks dozens of times. They cut through the landscape at strange angles and in unexpected places—behind the downtown courthouse, alongside a Little League field in Delray Beach. People have been struck and killed by Brightline trains at both of these locations.
...
Brightline says that it is an advocate for closing certain crossings on its route, but that this rarely happens “without local support.” Because of all the elements at any intersection, the process of closing even one crossing can be convoluted and expensive. Sealing off the entire Brightline route or elevating the entire track would simply not be economically feasible for a private company.
Still, over a period of months, I spoke with several experts who had different opinions on many of the technical details but who all agreed that there’s no real mystery behind the Brightline deaths. “Fast trains and grade crossings are always a deadly combination,” the historian Richard White, whose 2011 book about American railroads was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, told me. He put it the most succinctly, but I did not talk with anybody who disagreed with that conclusion.
Comment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: cynical/jaded but optimistic that change remains possible Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none It's nice for popular media coverage to...
Exemplary
Comment box
Scope: comment response, information, opinion
Tone: cynical/jaded but optimistic that change remains possible
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
It's nice for popular media coverage to correctly place the blame on the lack of investment in infrastructure. As the article notes, this is not unique to Brightline at all. They have more grade crossings than some comparable routes... the problem isn't unusual though.
Sealing off the entire Brightline route or elevating the entire track would simply not be economically feasible for a private company.
Yes it would. Being "a private company" does not make visionary projects impossible. Just not feasible for Brightline, whose lack of grade separation forces lower maximum speeds which forces longer travel times which lowers demand which lowers ticket revenue which lowers income. Their "B" bond rating is so poor because they're locked into a difficult right of way. That hurts their credit, which makes it harder to get loans to pair with already insufficient grants to improve the ROW. And so on. Same old same old! Chicken and egg!
Capital projects almost always happen with government funding anyway. Brightline West is being built because of a multi-billion dollar federal grant. Brightline Florida's grade separation would be no different. If we want to get real.....freight railroads often grade-separate urban and suburban tracks to improve throughput/reliability and reduce crashes. Flyovers are common on high-capacity lines. Freight isn't likely to grade separate 250 miles of track at a time, but they've collectively done well more than that.
We grade separated every interstate highway. Almost 50k miles of grade separation. We can do the same for the remainder of our passenger rail network. It's not too hard and it's not too expensive.
Because of all the elements at any intersection, the process of closing even one crossing can be convoluted and expensive.
There are technical challenges with grade separation in tight physical areas. It is also expensive. Could be $4m or $40m for a typical intersection, $292m+ for a uniquely nasty complicated one (rare). $40m is a lot. Can't deny it. But it's not... too much. $12 billion for the whole route? Ok, fairly big project at a DOT, but not that big for a 250-mile corridor. Not unprecedented at all. My state DOT is spending half that much to rebuild like 3 highway exits on I-95 for marginal improvements to congestion. If we're seriously worried about cost, one of these is clearly a better choice of funds than the other, but we're choosing not to do it.
Brightline says that it is an advocate for closing certain crossings on its route, but that this rarely happens “without local support.”
Emphasis on this coded speech about NIMBYism. It's difficult to make safety improvements because without fail, small groups of local residents find ways to oppose literally all infrastructure projects, no matter how beneficial, including those which would save lives. They're not centralized, it's just a theme. Sometimes this is justified! For public safety projects, usually the outcry is an overreaction. In either case, this country defers so heavily to local preferences in situations where they shouldn't (while selectively ignoring local opposition anytime they want to build another highway), like common sense grade separation, that nothing gets done. Whether or not a particular opposition position is narrowly justified is unimportant if it consistently stops anything from getting better. Sometimes we just have to accept that things change and no solution is perfect.
Local groups will always oppose closing a grade crossing because they want to maintain the convenience of crossing there, even if someone dies occasionally. Individualistically, I get it. No one likes a detour. Tragedy of the commons. But they will also rarely themselves voluntarily help pay for a grade separation because no one wants to pay higher taxes, especially those who can afford it. The only time widespread grade separation gets done consistently is when it has strong state and/or federal DOT support. It can mostly only be done with a dedicated body of technocrats pushing for it in a spreadsheet in the capital. Or by an extremely motivated set of public activists and a genuinely thoughtful sponsoring legislator. Not so common.
The current anti-intellectual administration has notably canceled grade separation projects in California as part of a vitriolic political revenge game against its perceived opponents. Administration has also indefinitely halted many Bipartisan Infrastructure Law grants, including numerous grade separations, for "reconsideration" merely because that law was championed by Joe Biden. Completely pointless.
The technical problem has been solved centuries ago. We've understood the concept of grade separation since the first time we ever built a bridge over a canal. The railroads have been doing it since the 1800s. The money exists in our economy and in our government budgets to do this. We collectively choose not to do it for a confluence of unrelated local and political reasons.
Ive said it before on tildes but I drive freight trains for a living. Before getting very far in the article I knew where this was going. Large population centers plus interactions with trains...
Ive said it before on tildes but I drive freight trains for a living. Before getting very far in the article I knew where this was going. Large population centers plus interactions with trains equals people getting hit.
Local groups will always oppose closing a grade crossing because they want to maintain the convenience of crossing there, even if someone dies occasionally. Individualistically, I get it. No one likes a detour. Tragedy of the commons. But they will also rarely themselves voluntarily help pay for a grade separation because no one wants to pay higher taxes, especially those who can afford it.
If a crossing gets closed without doing a grade seperation then often you'll have pedestrians still crossing there. You've reduced the risk... for cars.
Even some grade seperations don't eliminate risk. I was stoped once at a location with a major road underpass. Litterally as I was about to pull, a passing train warned me that a man with a bicycle was crossing over my train. People get killed doing this...
Another thing that I've seen that's less than ideal are pedestrian overpasses/bridges. People aren't going to climb that when they can just walk over the track so you're back to the same problem.
Elevating the rail is ideal for safety but you can't really just pop the tracks up and down, you need to have a long approach and descent, even longer for freight trains. As a result this makes the most sense in denser areas where you're eliminating multiple crossings in one shot.
It really is mainly an issue of money like you suggest.
I'm just glad that my terminal doesn't have too many incidents and the route I go REALLY doesnt. The only thing we regularly hit are animals. I don't like killing animals but it beats killing people. :-/
Comment box Scope: comment response, question Tone: neutral Opinion: none Sarcasm/humor: none Thanks for your perspective. Great point about pedestrian activity. Have you anecdotally noticed any...
Comment box
Scope: comment response, question
Tone: neutral
Opinion: none
Sarcasm/humor: none
Thanks for your perspective. Great point about pedestrian activity.
Have you anecdotally noticed any wildlife crossing pattern changes in areas where we’ve built grade-separated wildlife crossings?
I’ve read some studies suggesting that they reduce crashes, but I’d love to hear from an actual train operator.
I wonder if there is some relatively low-cost way to add a signal to an informal pedestrian crossing, such as the first example in the article, and add fencing next to it. Sure, grade separation...
I wonder if there is some relatively low-cost way to add a signal to an informal pedestrian crossing, such as the first example in the article, and add fencing next to it. Sure, grade separation is best, but if the money isn’t there, something could still be done.
Comment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none For sure physically possible. I live near a railroad abutting a riverside pedestrian trail....
Comment box
Scope: comment response, information, opinion
Tone: neutral
Opinion: yes
Sarcasm/humor: none
For sure physically possible. I live near a railroad abutting a riverside pedestrian trail. There are multiple at-grade pedestrian/bike crossings on this ACTIVE freight line in an urban area. The railroad is entirely fenced except for these ~3 crossing points. The intersections have crosswalk lights which are supposed to display a “Stop” walk signal when a train is approaching. In theory the intersections could be further upgraded to raise automatic barriers to physically block access (like for a rail/road crossing, but maybe more effective with sufficient pedestrian fencing). The walk signals could also be better placed for visibility, and an auditory signal could be added—this all might help, won’t hurt, and it’s not too expensive. It’s mostly a moot point because trains only occasionally run here during daytime.
The crossings are important for the trail and eliminating them outright would incentivize dangerous behavior as @mild_takes mentions. People would use a pedestrian bridge if forced, but there are space constraints and an ADA-compliant ramp may not fit; an elevator would be expensive and liable to break. Signalization and utility work is always complex, and the city would need to work with the railroad to do anything. It’s annoying to do - and it’s no one’s priority - so the city has just left it as-is. Imperfect without trenching the railroad. Statistically unlikely to lead to any fatalities (just not high enough traffic/speeds), but it could happen. If someone dies, the local activists will raise hell and maybe get a ped bridge.
No solution is perfect. These stop-gap solutions like signals are vulnerable to human error. People are irrational: they ignore direct warnings, they climb over fences, and they make mistakes (trip and fall, misjudge distance, etc…..). Sight/hearing impaired people might not comprehend the signals. Drunk people do drunk stuff. Teenagers intentionally evade fencing to go surfing. Movable barriers electronically or mechanically fail. People even walk long distances on grade-separated or fencing tracks from unfenced areas (for whatever reason) and then get stuck.
Grade separation is still the best solution though. The money exists in our tax base and economy. It’s a societal, philosophical decision—do we value Vision Zero more than equally expensive highway widening projects?
I’m not sure where you’re going with this “the money exists” stuff. Sure, there is money out there somewhere, in theory, and the Fed could create more money. But real projects operate under budget...
I’m not sure where you’re going with this “the money exists” stuff. Sure, there is money out there somewhere, in theory, and the Fed could create more money. But real projects operate under budget constraints.
Efficiency matters, particularly for expensive infrastructure projects. For the cost of one grade separation, what could you do to improve safety along the entire rest of the line?
From a broad historical perspective, today’s prosperity is built on yesterday’s efficiency improvements.
Throughout, when concrete points against Brightline are made in this article, they seem much more dubious when examined. The added photos, likewise, seem designed to push a 'scary' narrative...
Throughout, when concrete points against Brightline are made in this article, they seem much more dubious when examined. The added photos, likewise, seem designed to push a 'scary' narrative rather than honestly support the points. The overall conclusion – that level crossings and higher-speed trains are a bad combination – is reasonable, but the narrative sometimes ends up reading more as a hit piece against Brightline specifically. In some sense, it feels like exactly the sort of hypocritical NIMBYism that so often appears in the US: alternatives to cars should be lauded, except when there is any attempt to actually build one.
Consider the comparisons. The article argues that Brightline has particularly horrendous statistics for Florida. It points out that Brightline has almost seven times the number of fatalities as Amtrak, which "operates through many of the same urban areas as well as some additional ones", and merely "serves fewer passengers." Yet that number seems much less surprising when considering that it appears Amtrak's service in Florida consists of one daily train and one thrice-weekly train, while Brightline appears to run ten round trips per day now, and may have run more previously (Wikipedia lists 24 daily round trips in 2023). When comparing to SunRail, "another commuter train that operates around Orlando", the article uses the rate-per-million-miles that would have made the Amtrak comparison much less compelling to the narrative, but doesn't mention that SunRail, according to Wikipedia, has an average speed of 30 mph.
Or consider the argument that the track cuts "through the landscape at strange angles and in unexpected places". The accompanying photographs enhance this by using strange camera angles and crops, rather than showing the places the article describes. If they were to show a satellite image of one of those "unexpected" places they give as an example, the little league field in Delray Beach, you might be confused: it is a straight segment of track, parallel to a road, and appears to be fenced on the little league side. In what way is this "unexpected". Was it an example of a "strange angle"? All the nearby level crossings, while I might argue they should not be so near other intersections, are almost perpendicular.
Or the examples? A pedestrian walking on a spur path over an active train track, argued to be the 'logical' choice? A driver who pulled around a stopped car and closed gate, was high, and was directly told not to by a passenger, but is argued to be an example of a dangerous environment regardless of all those details? A couple who turned off their car and sat on an active train track with an active signal? One might suggest that an encouragement to not care about crossing tracks, whether on foot or by car, comes from an encouragement of car culture: "they're probably old tracks that aren't used much" is a common suggestion I've heard when seeing tracks.
Yes, level crossings are dangerous, especially at higher speeds. Yes, more fencing would be an improvement. But looking at the route, where the most dangerous segments seem to be along a previously-existing route, it seems clear that no amount of expenditure alone would allow for a major safety improvement, as any attempts would face an enormous NIMBY backlash. There's a certain argument that the encouragement of dense, especially residential development right next to historical rail routes was perhaps linked to a cynical attempt to make any future use of the right of ways difficult and unsafe, ensuring cars remained the only viable transport mechanism in the area. Adding fencing in many places seems like it would be an inconvenience to nearby houses. Elevating the rail in many places seems like it would significantly affect nearby houses, and potentially need land purchases, voluntary or otherwise. None of this is going to be acceptable to local property owners.
Those seem like good points about the statistics. I was with you until the end, where you seem to be arguing that nothing worthwhile can be done. This seems defeatist? What makes you so sure?
Those seem like good points about the statistics. I was with you until the end, where you seem to be arguing that nothing worthwhile can be done. This seems defeatist? What makes you so sure?
https://archive.is/WV0ud
From the article:
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Comment box
It's nice for popular media coverage to correctly place the blame on the lack of investment in infrastructure. As the article notes, this is not unique to Brightline at all. They have more grade crossings than some comparable routes... the problem isn't unusual though.
Yes it would. Being "a private company" does not make visionary projects impossible. Just not feasible for Brightline, whose lack of grade separation forces lower maximum speeds which forces longer travel times which lowers demand which lowers ticket revenue which lowers income. Their "B" bond rating is so poor because they're locked into a difficult right of way. That hurts their credit, which makes it harder to get loans to pair with already insufficient grants to improve the ROW. And so on. Same old same old! Chicken and egg!
Capital projects almost always happen with government funding anyway. Brightline West is being built because of a multi-billion dollar federal grant. Brightline Florida's grade separation would be no different. If we want to get real.....freight railroads often grade-separate urban and suburban tracks to improve throughput/reliability and reduce crashes. Flyovers are common on high-capacity lines. Freight isn't likely to grade separate 250 miles of track at a time, but they've collectively done well more than that.
We grade separated every interstate highway. Almost 50k miles of grade separation. We can do the same for the remainder of our passenger rail network. It's not too hard and it's not too expensive.
There are technical challenges with grade separation in tight physical areas. It is also expensive. Could be $4m or $40m for a typical intersection, $292m+ for a uniquely nasty complicated one (rare). $40m is a lot. Can't deny it. But it's not... too much. $12 billion for the whole route? Ok, fairly big project at a DOT, but not that big for a 250-mile corridor. Not unprecedented at all. My state DOT is spending half that much to rebuild like 3 highway exits on I-95 for marginal improvements to congestion. If we're seriously worried about cost, one of these is clearly a better choice of funds than the other, but we're choosing not to do it.
Emphasis on this coded speech about NIMBYism. It's difficult to make safety improvements because without fail, small groups of local residents find ways to oppose literally all infrastructure projects, no matter how beneficial, including those which would save lives. They're not centralized, it's just a theme. Sometimes this is justified! For public safety projects, usually the outcry is an overreaction. In either case, this country defers so heavily to local preferences in situations where they shouldn't (while selectively ignoring local opposition anytime they want to build another highway), like common sense grade separation, that nothing gets done. Whether or not a particular opposition position is narrowly justified is unimportant if it consistently stops anything from getting better. Sometimes we just have to accept that things change and no solution is perfect.
Local groups will always oppose closing a grade crossing because they want to maintain the convenience of crossing there, even if someone dies occasionally. Individualistically, I get it. No one likes a detour. Tragedy of the commons. But they will also rarely themselves voluntarily help pay for a grade separation because no one wants to pay higher taxes, especially those who can afford it. The only time widespread grade separation gets done consistently is when it has strong state and/or federal DOT support. It can mostly only be done with a dedicated body of technocrats pushing for it in a spreadsheet in the capital. Or by an extremely motivated set of public activists and a genuinely thoughtful sponsoring legislator. Not so common.
The current anti-intellectual administration has notably canceled grade separation projects in California as part of a vitriolic political revenge game against its perceived opponents. Administration has also indefinitely halted many Bipartisan Infrastructure Law grants, including numerous grade separations, for "reconsideration" merely because that law was championed by Joe Biden. Completely pointless.
The technical problem has been solved centuries ago. We've understood the concept of grade separation since the first time we ever built a bridge over a canal. The railroads have been doing it since the 1800s. The money exists in our economy and in our government budgets to do this. We collectively choose not to do it for a confluence of unrelated local and political reasons.
Ive said it before on tildes but I drive freight trains for a living. Before getting very far in the article I knew where this was going. Large population centers plus interactions with trains equals people getting hit.
If a crossing gets closed without doing a grade seperation then often you'll have pedestrians still crossing there. You've reduced the risk... for cars.
Even some grade seperations don't eliminate risk. I was stoped once at a location with a major road underpass. Litterally as I was about to pull, a passing train warned me that a man with a bicycle was crossing over my train. People get killed doing this...
Another thing that I've seen that's less than ideal are pedestrian overpasses/bridges. People aren't going to climb that when they can just walk over the track so you're back to the same problem.
Elevating the rail is ideal for safety but you can't really just pop the tracks up and down, you need to have a long approach and descent, even longer for freight trains. As a result this makes the most sense in denser areas where you're eliminating multiple crossings in one shot.
It really is mainly an issue of money like you suggest.
I'm just glad that my terminal doesn't have too many incidents and the route I go REALLY doesnt. The only thing we regularly hit are animals. I don't like killing animals but it beats killing people. :-/
Comment box
Thanks for your perspective. Great point about pedestrian activity.
Have you anecdotally noticed any wildlife crossing pattern changes in areas where we’ve built grade-separated wildlife crossings?
I’ve read some studies suggesting that they reduce crashes, but I’d love to hear from an actual train operator.
I wonder if there is some relatively low-cost way to add a signal to an informal pedestrian crossing, such as the first example in the article, and add fencing next to it. Sure, grade separation is best, but if the money isn’t there, something could still be done.
Comment box
For sure physically possible. I live near a railroad abutting a riverside pedestrian trail. There are multiple at-grade pedestrian/bike crossings on this ACTIVE freight line in an urban area. The railroad is entirely fenced except for these ~3 crossing points. The intersections have crosswalk lights which are supposed to display a “Stop” walk signal when a train is approaching. In theory the intersections could be further upgraded to raise automatic barriers to physically block access (like for a rail/road crossing, but maybe more effective with sufficient pedestrian fencing). The walk signals could also be better placed for visibility, and an auditory signal could be added—this all might help, won’t hurt, and it’s not too expensive. It’s mostly a moot point because trains only occasionally run here during daytime.
The crossings are important for the trail and eliminating them outright would incentivize dangerous behavior as @mild_takes mentions. People would use a pedestrian bridge if forced, but there are space constraints and an ADA-compliant ramp may not fit; an elevator would be expensive and liable to break. Signalization and utility work is always complex, and the city would need to work with the railroad to do anything. It’s annoying to do - and it’s no one’s priority - so the city has just left it as-is. Imperfect without trenching the railroad. Statistically unlikely to lead to any fatalities (just not high enough traffic/speeds), but it could happen. If someone dies, the local activists will raise hell and maybe get a ped bridge.
No solution is perfect. These stop-gap solutions like signals are vulnerable to human error. People are irrational: they ignore direct warnings, they climb over fences, and they make mistakes (trip and fall, misjudge distance, etc…..). Sight/hearing impaired people might not comprehend the signals. Drunk people do drunk stuff. Teenagers intentionally evade fencing to go surfing. Movable barriers electronically or mechanically fail. People even walk long distances on grade-separated or fencing tracks from unfenced areas (for whatever reason) and then get stuck.
Grade separation is still the best solution though. The money exists in our tax base and economy. It’s a societal, philosophical decision—do we value Vision Zero more than equally expensive highway widening projects?
I’m not sure where you’re going with this “the money exists” stuff. Sure, there is money out there somewhere, in theory, and the Fed could create more money. But real projects operate under budget constraints.
Efficiency matters, particularly for expensive infrastructure projects. For the cost of one grade separation, what could you do to improve safety along the entire rest of the line?
From a broad historical perspective, today’s prosperity is built on yesterday’s efficiency improvements.
Throughout, when concrete points against Brightline are made in this article, they seem much more dubious when examined. The added photos, likewise, seem designed to push a 'scary' narrative rather than honestly support the points. The overall conclusion – that level crossings and higher-speed trains are a bad combination – is reasonable, but the narrative sometimes ends up reading more as a hit piece against Brightline specifically. In some sense, it feels like exactly the sort of hypocritical NIMBYism that so often appears in the US: alternatives to cars should be lauded, except when there is any attempt to actually build one.
Consider the comparisons. The article argues that Brightline has particularly horrendous statistics for Florida. It points out that Brightline has almost seven times the number of fatalities as Amtrak, which "operates through many of the same urban areas as well as some additional ones", and merely "serves fewer passengers." Yet that number seems much less surprising when considering that it appears Amtrak's service in Florida consists of one daily train and one thrice-weekly train, while Brightline appears to run ten round trips per day now, and may have run more previously (Wikipedia lists 24 daily round trips in 2023). When comparing to SunRail, "another commuter train that operates around Orlando", the article uses the rate-per-million-miles that would have made the Amtrak comparison much less compelling to the narrative, but doesn't mention that SunRail, according to Wikipedia, has an average speed of 30 mph.
Or consider the argument that the track cuts "through the landscape at strange angles and in unexpected places". The accompanying photographs enhance this by using strange camera angles and crops, rather than showing the places the article describes. If they were to show a satellite image of one of those "unexpected" places they give as an example, the little league field in Delray Beach, you might be confused: it is a straight segment of track, parallel to a road, and appears to be fenced on the little league side. In what way is this "unexpected". Was it an example of a "strange angle"? All the nearby level crossings, while I might argue they should not be so near other intersections, are almost perpendicular.
Or the examples? A pedestrian walking on a spur path over an active train track, argued to be the 'logical' choice? A driver who pulled around a stopped car and closed gate, was high, and was directly told not to by a passenger, but is argued to be an example of a dangerous environment regardless of all those details? A couple who turned off their car and sat on an active train track with an active signal? One might suggest that an encouragement to not care about crossing tracks, whether on foot or by car, comes from an encouragement of car culture: "they're probably old tracks that aren't used much" is a common suggestion I've heard when seeing tracks.
Yes, level crossings are dangerous, especially at higher speeds. Yes, more fencing would be an improvement. But looking at the route, where the most dangerous segments seem to be along a previously-existing route, it seems clear that no amount of expenditure alone would allow for a major safety improvement, as any attempts would face an enormous NIMBY backlash. There's a certain argument that the encouragement of dense, especially residential development right next to historical rail routes was perhaps linked to a cynical attempt to make any future use of the right of ways difficult and unsafe, ensuring cars remained the only viable transport mechanism in the area. Adding fencing in many places seems like it would be an inconvenience to nearby houses. Elevating the rail in many places seems like it would significantly affect nearby houses, and potentially need land purchases, voluntary or otherwise. None of this is going to be acceptable to local property owners.
Those seem like good points about the statistics. I was with you until the end, where you seem to be arguing that nothing worthwhile can be done. This seems defeatist? What makes you so sure?