Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Monday that four rail safety grants supporting new fencing, upgrades to grade crossings, and a trespassing alert system would finally be coming to the deadliest major passenger railroad in the United States after former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg left them in limbo.
“The Biden-Buttigieg Administration pledged to address safety in the Sunshine state years ago but never moved these essential infrastructure dollars out the door,” a DOT press release stated.
Included in the new safety projects is $24.9 million for the East Coast Corridor Trespassing and Intrusion Mitigation Project, $15.4 million for a Broward County Sealed Corridor Project, $1.6 million for a Trespassing Identification and Classification System, and a $150,000 grant for Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office to “support overtime costs for targeted enforcement of pedestrian trespassing at identified hot spots.”
The Brightline, which stretches up the state’s eastern shore from Miami to Space Coast before crossing into central Florida’s Orlando and the Gulf Coast’s Tampa, has fatally struck 182 people since 2017, according to a recent investigation by the Miami Herald and WLRN.
Brightline vice president of operations Michael Lefevre said in a statement that over half of those incidents “have been confirmed or suspected suicide – intentional acts of self-harm.”
“All have been the result of illegal, deliberate and oftentimes reckless behavior by people putting themselves in harm’s way,” he said, before adding that the company “has invested hundreds of millions into modernizing the tracks and crossing systems” and welcoming “the media, the community leaders, and the public to be a part of the solution and amplify the message of responsible behavior around railroad tracks.”
However, only about 41 percent of the 182 deaths were ruled suicides by local medical examiners, the Herald reported. In Broward County, where 61 deaths occurred, just 30 percent were ruled suicide.
The latest four grants obligated by Duffy are part of a trove of more than 3,200 unobligated grants that Buttigieg and former President Joe Biden left the Trump administration to deal with, current DOT officials said.
“This unprecedented backlog of unobligated grants delayed critical investments in communities across the country,” officials noted.
“After much fanfare, [Biden’s and Buttigieg’s] administration failed to do any of the work to actually process and deliver these funds to Brightline or project sponsors in Florida.”
Duffy blasted his predecessor for leaving an unprecedented number of backlogged grants in a June statement to Breitbart News.
“While cynics in the press hysterically warned of doomsday delays, USDOT has been hard at work to get America building again,” he said. “We’ve done this by refocusing the department on core infrastructure – not enacting a radical political agenda.”
At the time, the new DOT leader had approved 1,065 grants worth roughly $10 billion since the Trump administration took over in January, after removing all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and “environmental justice” stipulations.
Following his latest round of approvals aimed at securing the Brightline, Duffy blasted the “Biden-Buttigieg backlog” in a statement.
“The latest consequence of the unprecedented Biden-Buttigieg backlog? Safety grants sat in limbo for years. Their failure to execute on these rail grants – some of which stretch back years — put Brightline’s three million annual passengers and Florida communities in unnecessary danger,” the secretary said. “Under President Trump’s leadership, America is building again. We are delivering critical resources in record time to enhance safety on our railways, roads, and bridges.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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