The last blog post I wrote about a Brightline Railway Station being built in Stuart, newly elected anti-growth city commissioners had voted to rescind the agreement they made with that company (which operates a high-speed train between Miami and the Orlando airport), throwing the project into doubt. However, Martin County commissioners recently unanimously voted to go forward with that station, committing $15 million of the $45 million needed to build it at the same spot in downtown Stuart as originally planned, a site owned by the county. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? In my opinion, neither. And will it even really happen? If the train stops in Stuart, people will use it, but not in any great numbers. It won't be like Manhattan whenever it arrives or departs. I doubt people will even notice any increase in traffic. And if no station is built, people will get here the same way they always have. The main issue will still be the same - keeping people from trying to beat the train at railroad crossings. Brightline trains travel at 80 miles per hour between Miami and West Palm Beach and can go up to 125 miles per hour further north. And many people do not seem to realize just how fast that is, with fatal consequences. In any case, the station will be built in Stuart, Fort Pierce, or Vero Beach no matter what, and so it is not the area's most dramatic news story of all time. That one is certainly what happened to all those peacocks that used to wander around Rio and Jensen Beach. What really did happen to them, anyway? If they do still exist, hopefully they will stay away from those damn railroad tracks.
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