MELBOURNE, Fla. – Brightline and the City of Melbourne installed safety poles at a railway intersection that saw two fatal crashes earlier this month.
The poles are called delineators which were installed Monday morning. The goal of these bright yellow safety poles is to discourage and prevent drivers from crossing the railway at W.H. Jackson Street near Harbor City Boulevard as a train is coming.
The City of Melbourne says this is all an effort to get results for traffic safety by Brightline and the city after two fatal crashes happened earlier this month, just days apart.
News 6′s Brian Didlake spoke with the mayor of Melbourne, Paul Alfrey, and asked, “Do you think that will be enough?”
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“Definitely a start, and what I want to tell people is this is just a short-term solution,” Alfrey replied.
This past Friday, News 6 told you about the start of the city’s public safety campaign where volunteers could be seen passing out railway safety pamphlets.
Alfrey says he plans to add additional safety measures like red light cameras or quad gates that would block both intersections as an extra measure.
“We have five different intersections that don’t have quad gates, Melbourne has the most intersections in Brevard County,” Alfrey said.
Alfrey said the poles would be installed in this intersection, where two fatal crashes happened two weeks ago, just days apart.
Alfrey says it was Brightline who funded the delineators and will be working with the city with grant funding for future projects.
One railway safety volunteer-based organization says they hope people take these added measures seriously.
“If that is what people need, you know a fourth or fifth reminder if this is not what you should do then let’s go ahead and do it, but in the end, drivers have to be responsible, and they have to follow the rules,” said Jim Kovalsky with the Florida East Coast Railway Society.
Kovalsky goes on to say that no matter the train speed there is a small window, around 30 seconds from the time the crossing rails go down and the train passes through the intersection.
As a reminder, the city is having a city council meeting on Tuesday evening where they will discuss if more needs to be done at this intersection.
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