Predictions about Brightline challenges come true: dangers, money problems

Susan Mehiel
| Guest columnist

The Past: All Aboard Florida, also known as Brightline, was predicted to be very dangerous, cost taxpayers a lot of money despite claiming to be a private company, and would not meet expectations for passenger numbers or income.

It all happened and more.

The Florida East Coast Railway’s freight route was the most dangerous in the nation in 2012, based on deaths per rail mile. The number of grade-separated crossings in densely populated areas was a major factor and “trespassing is epidemic,” to quote the Federal Railroad Administration engineer. It didn’t take much to figure out that if they increased the speed by 20 to 30 miles per hour and added 32 trains a day, more people would die.

Two previous studies of high-speed rail for Florida concluded that the FEC route was the worst route to use based on cost, safety and speed; the best was along Interstate 95 or Florida’s Turnpike. But FEC owned the coastal route, saw synergy with the widening of the Panama Canal and wanted double the freight capacity, as we said then: it’s all about freight.

A 2018 study of passenger rail in Florida confirmed that the Florida Department of Transportation had no regulations (still doesn’t) for trains traveling 75+ miles per hour. At a speed of more than 200 km/h, real high-speed rules come into effect: no grade-separated intersections and fully fenced. Brightline found unknown (and unregulated) territory between 125 and 200 km/h and the “Higher” Speed Rail was carried – on freight rails.

In just over 4.5 years, 113 people have died on the railways; that’s an average of more than 25 deaths per year. Any other mode of transport that causes so many deaths would have been drastically curtailed by now. That same 2018 study recommended more fencing, pedestrian channels and pedestrian bridges, but they were too expensive to install.

Privately owned, but we pay

An opposing opinion: Brightline will destroy Vero Beach, Stuart? Nine years later, the claims remain unfounded

As our board member recently told FDOT representatives, “I have worked in the Northeast for many years…with its heavy railroads and its share of mentally impaired and substance-addicted people. “But there are no so-called suicides on the tracks like Brightline does… the main difference: they are completely fenced and there is no pedestrian access to the tracks.”

As for “private railroad,” that is a misnomer. For starters, the system cost taxpayers by selling billions of tax-exempt construction bonds—the federal treasury receives no tax revenue from their sales. Add to that the doubling of annual crossing maintenance costs paid by each municipality — Indian River County’s was expected to go from $250,000 to $500,000 annually.

But that’s nothing compared to the state and federal dollars that will make the trains safer, including thousands of state and federal grants for the safety equipment everyone predicted would be needed, from quadruple barriers to fencing. Three deaths this year at one Melbourne intersection are an example of FDOT not requiring a quad-gate system there. It was too expensive for the company; now we pick up the tab.

Lagging passenger numbers, shortages

And the bridges! In 2014, the U.S. Coast Guard expanded its public meeting schedule following concerns raised about the Loxahatchee, New and St. Lucie railroad bridges. Now we’re all paying $200 million to replace the single-track St. Lucie Bridge for the benefit of the companies – both Grupo Mexico, owner of FEC, and SoftBank, the Japanese owner of Fortress Investment Group.

Finally, the financial matters. We have all read and anecdotally confirmed the low passenger numbers. The company is in a Catch-22 situation: the preconstruction report stated that every minute added to the length of a trip would reduce the number of passengers. People want speed.

To make residents happier, management is being pressured to add stops, which adds time and reduces ridership. No wonder they only select locations where the train needs to slow down to make a turn. Do you see how the PR team drives good publicity with promises?

Lagging passenger numbers and discounted tickets have led to major revenue shortfalls. Based on 2023 financials, Brightline will likely have to refinance billions of dollars in debt by rolling over those bonds. Based on the figures, the jury does not know whether that is possible. Happy talk about raising ticket prices (due to deep discounts) and increasing long-haul ridership (Miami-Orlando) to increase revenues has little supporting evidence.

In short: we all knew it would be dangerous and so did they, but they built it anyway. Now the Alliance for Safe Trains understands that “the train has left the station.”

We want what our name implies: a safe train made by the company, not the taxpayers. From the beginning, people envisioned the high-speed train of Japan or Europe; what they have is 113 dead and a glorified Amtrak that doesn’t even stop in our cities.

We told you that.

Susan Mehiel, Vero Beach, is the coordinator of the Alliance for Safe Trains. She has been opposing the Brightline project since 2014.

Privately owned, but we pay

Lagging passenger numbers, shortages

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