03-05-2023, 04:32 PM
(03-05-2023, 02:36 PM)Acitta Wrote:(03-05-2023, 02:16 PM)ac3r Wrote: Off topic somewhat, but Brightline might not be the best example. They're infamous for getting into train wrecks lol. 60+ people have died and collisions with cars are soooo frequent. It's basically a weekly thing now, even multiple times a week. It has the most incidents per mile in the entirety of the United States. Most are reportedly suicides or just morons who think they can beat the train before it gets to a crossing.
YouTube has a ton of videos: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_q...line+crash
They built a high speed rail line with level crossings. What did they expect?
Reminds me of a certain LRT.
Also yeah, copying British crossings is a good idea. Those steel gates are way better than the flexible arms we use in North America. I know we designed our flexible arms to be fragile to permit someone who may be on the tracks after they go down the ability to drive through to safety, but then that doesn't really solve the issue of them offering an opportune chance to try and zig zag around them to attempt to beat the train. British style gates seem like they'd be much better and preventing such attempts and it's not as if a car couldn't drive through them if needed. The average car has about 200 horsepower which is more than sufficient to smash through such a gate if needed.
I wonder if the use of quiet zones also contributes to crashes, though. Trains travelling in urban areas between 130-180 km/h, crossing countless level crossings but not using horns to warn people just seems like a bad idea. Gates aren't a solution on their own. While horns are certainly very loud and I imagine the constant blaring of them in residential areas would become quite a nuisance and potential health issue, they give vehicles and pedestrians an additional safety warning: the louder the horn is, the closer the train is to the crossing and that should help tell people to GTFO the way.
They are attempting to improve crossings, at least, although the solutions proposed hardly seem adequate. I mean, flexible bollard poles and bright yellow strips? How about a gate people can't drive through?
None of this is surprising, though. It's a private company, it's the USA and it's situated in Florida, no less. Any HSR in Canada I would hope will be fully grade separated and operated as a crown agency (I'd hope). If we're to invest in this, then we need to do it right in the first place.