Third person hit by Brightline in Boynton
Death is fifth this year in Palm Beach County since the trains started running.
BOYNTON BEACH — One person was struck and killed by a Brightline train Friday morning in Boynton Beach, marking the fififth death involving the express rail service in Palm Beach County since it began operations in January.
Boynton Beach police said an unidentified man died shortly before 11:30 a.m. on the train tracks in the 1600 block of South Federal Highway, just south of Woolbright Road.
“Everyone on the train knew,” said Jeffrey Aronofsky, a flight attendant who was on the southbound train, commuting to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. “We felt it. We knew we hit someone. The whole train shuddered.”
Passengers were transferred to another train about an hour after the incident.
Brightline officials released a statement about the death Friday afternoon.
“We continue working with the Boynton Beach Police
Department,” spokeswoman Ali Soule said. “The only safe place to cross a railroad is at the designated crossing. Never try to beat a train.”
Police investigated for about two hours and were concentrating on an area several hundred feet from the pedestrian crossing at Woolbright. Trains were stopped on both tracks behind the Sunshine Square shopping
plaza as authorities investigated.
Passenger son board described a sudden jolt before the train came to a stop. They weren’t told what happened, but were told the train would be temporarily delayed, some passengers said.
Six people in Palm Beach County have been struck and killed by Brightline trains since last year, when the company began testing along the Florida East Coast Rail- way tracks. Three of those deaths, including Friday’s, occurred in Boynton Beach.
In July 2017, a woman was struck and killed as the train traveled through Boca Raton on the FEC tracks.
Three of the previous deaths were ruled accidental, and in each of those cases blood samples taken from the victims tested positive for drugs, death records showed.
The remaining two deaths were ruled suicides.
In the five previous cases, offifficials say victims were on the tracks despite lowered gates, warning lights and train horns.
Boynton Beach officials announced in January that more restrictive gates would be installed at four railroad crossings, including one at East Ocean Avenue, after a bicyclist died on Jan. 17. Jeffrey King, 51, was killed as he pedaled his bic ycle around the gates near the
FEC crossing.
Days earlier, on Jan. 12, Melissa Lavell, 32, died near the intersection of Northeast Sixth Avenue, also in Boynton Beach. Witnesses told police she attempted to beat the train.
Brightline trains run nonstop bet ween West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Miami and can reach speeds of 79 mph.
Brightline invested more than $60 million to complete safety upgrades along the FEC corridor from Miami to West Palm Beach, including installation of a signal system that communicates with approaching trains, triggers gate openings and closings
and regulates train-crossing times.
Those improvements were made at every crossing in
Palm Beach County.
While quiet zones have taken effect in West Palm Beach, Lake Worth and Boca Raton, and quiet zones will start in Delray Beach at midnight today, Brightline trains still sound their horns in Boynton Beach, said Malissa Booth, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency.
“That just points out the need for more education and more awareness,” Booth
said. “There are more and faster trains, so it’s more important than ever that we be respectful of those gates.”
Palm Beach Post staff writers Jeff Ostrowski and McKenna Ross contributed to this report.