BOYNTON SETS DATE FOR QUIET ZONE ACTIVATION

City among last in Palm Beach County to create designation for trains.

BOYNTON BEACH — After a more than a two-year application process, Boynton Beach’s long-awaited Brightline quiet zone is expected to go into effect at the end of August, City Engineer Gary Dunmyer said.

The process, which started in April 2016, has involved nine state and federal agencies and millions of dollars in safety upgrades to the city’s 11 railroad crossings.

“This has been a long time coming, and I think it’s going to be great once the zone is finally enacted,” Dunmyer said. “People living near the tracks have been dealing with this for a long time. I’m grateful we were finally able to get this done for them.”

Boynton is one of the last cities in Palm Beach County to establish the quiet zones, a designation that allows train operators to pass through crossings without sounding their horns. The horn blasts became intolerable for some when Brightline began running its trains in January between downtown West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, sounding horns at every crossing.

Dunmyer said one of the perks, in addition to silencing the horns of the trains, is that the upgrades were paid for with state and federal money.

“We’ve had a couple million dollars’ worth of work done to keep our pedestrians safe,” he said. “It’s good to know that all of these supplemental safety measures are being installed at no cost to the city.”

These safety measures include updated signage, lighting and improved barriers. The goal is to get the safety rating at these crossings high enough to negate

the need for a train to blow its horn.

“As that intersection becomes less risky, you don’t have to blow the horn,” Dunmyer said.

He added that the new quiet zone regulations would make the train tracks in Boynton “like a library.”

“All trains using the tracks have to be quiet,” he said.

Boynton officials announced in January that more restrictive gates would be installed at four railroad crossings, including one at East Ocean Avenue after a bicyclist trying to beat a Brightline train was hit and killed.

Jeffrey King, 51, was killed on Jan. 17 when he was struck by a train as he pedaled his bicycle around the gates near the FEC crossing on Ocean Avenue.

Days earlier, on Jan. 12, 32-year-old Melissa Lavell was hit and killed near the intersection of Northeast Sixth Avenue, also in Boynton Beach. Witnesses told police she attempted to beat the train.

In June, a person was struck and killed on the tracks in the 1600 block of South Federal Highway, just south of Woolbright Road.

Brightline trains pass through Boynton at least 20 times a day on the Florida East Coast Railway tracks east of Interstate 95.

Despite the new regulations, train horns will still sound during emergencies and construction.

“The engineer still has the discretion to blow the horn,” Dunmyer said.

He added that the “only time they’ll blow the horn is if somebody is trespassing on the tracks.”

The final paperwork for Boynton Beach’s quiet zone is expected to be submitted by early August, and Dunmyer said the quiet zone should be in place within 21 days.