MELBOURNE, Fla. – On Friday, Gregg Stoll with the Florida East Coast Railway Society passed out safety brochures to pedestrians in downtown Melbourne.
The brochures read, “In the U.S., a person or vehicle is hit by a train every three hours. The average freight train traveling 55 miles per hour can take a mile to stop - the length of 18 football fields.”
Brightline trains go about 70 mph through Melbourne.
Last week, three people were killed in two separate vehicle collisions with Brightline trains at the same railroad crossing, two days apart.
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“Going through downtown Melbourne at 70 mph, to me, is dangerous,” downtown resident Steven Kent said. “You’ve got old people. You’ve got kids on bicycles.”
Kent received a safety brochure Friday.
He also said a lot of the fault in the crashes last week belongs to the drivers who died, and he would support installing cameras at rail crossings to deter drivers from driving around crossing arms.
“I think they’ve got to do whatever they’ve got to do,” Kent said. “It can’t go on like this.”
In addition to cameras, Mayor Paul Alfrey said the city council Tuesday will talk about adding bollards and quad gates to crossings.
Quad gates are crossing arms that block both sides of the road.
“And not only for Melbourne, but we’re looking at Brevard County and even going south,” the mayor said about safety improvements with Brightline.
The mayor said if approved Tuesday, bollards could be in place at the WH Jackson Street intersection where the two cars crashed into trains last week within the following week or two.
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