Fence, shrubs along tracks aim to discourage crossings

Woman’s death last year prompts city officials to take action.

DELRAY BEACH — Those who are tempted to dart across the train tracks that cut through Delray Beach’s downtown soon may find obstacles in their way, including a fence and shrubbery.

City staff is working on a plan to place mechanical railings girded with landscaping along the Florida East Coast Railway tracks that cut through Atlantic Avenue, prompted by the death of a 62-year-old woman hit by a train while crossing the tracks while bar-hopping in August.

“Somebody else is going to get killed. It’s just a matter of time …” Mayor Cary Glickstein said at a city meeting Tuesday. “We have to do something.”

The metal fencing and landscaping would be placed along both sides of the tracks north of Atlantic Avenue, where there is a pedestrian crossing, to Northeast First Street — with popular bars Johnnie Brown’s to the east and Bru’s Room to the west.

Employees of Atlantic Avenue businesses said in August that patrons often dart across the tracks, rather than walk south to the pedestrian crossing, to get from bar to bar.

Robi n L a n d e s was h e a d e d toward Bru’s Room from Johnnie Brown’s when she tripped north of the pedestrian crossing, police said. Her husband tried to pull her from the tracks, but couldn’t before an oncoming train struck and killed Landes.

Safety is a priority, city leaders agreed, but the barriers also should be appealing to the eye.

It should be “functional and attractive,” said Vice-Mayor Jordana Jarjura, who suggested a fence rather than a wall so downtown vi sitors could still peer across the tracks.

“You want to be able to look through, you just want to prevent people from walking through,” Jarjura said.

The city’s planning and zoning staff pitched a paved promenade along the metal railing, making the streets along the tracks walkable.

The projec t may cost up to $200,000, depending on the amenities the city plans to place along the tracks, although the cit y is seeking partial funding from Florida East Coast Railway.

The goal is to place barriers along the tracks ahead of the completion of All Aboard Florida’s Brightline high-speed train service, which plans to run 32 trains a day along the FEC tracks with stops in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Orlando.

The company aims to launch service between Miami and West Palm Beach by midyear.

The second set of tracks being built for Brightline’s passenger service adjacent to the FEC tracks will force the city to close a handful of parking spots near the railway.

Cit y staff is also working on replacing lost parking with more golf cart and motorcycle parking spots downtown.