STUART, Fla. — People living near the Florida East Coast Railway can tell the type of train passing by their house for one reason: the horns, including ones from Brightline.
Federal law requires train engineers to sound a horn at least 15 seconds in advance of all public crossings, according to the Department of Transportation. If the train is moving faster than 60 mph, then the horn will go off within a quarter-mile of the crossing.
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Rick Walker, who lives near the tracks in Stuart, said he's gotten used to the sound while watching the sunset near his apartment on the water. He said he’s looking forward to riding a Brightline train.
"I’m kind of excited cause one of these days I'd like to ride the train to here and Orlando and back," Walker said. "And you get to see part of the country you never get to see."
He said the train will occasionally wake him up in the middle of the night, but he's more concerned about traffic than noise.
Terri Dolski, who lives in Stuart for a few months a year, said she was frustrated initially with the added noise from Brightline trains during the day and cargo trains during the night. She said she's now used to the noise.
"They're going to blow the horns no matter how many trains there are," Dolski said.
Emails, which WPTV found through a public records request, show multiple people complaining to Martin County about the amount of noise within Stuart and across the county, including Hope Sound and Jensen Beach.
Lindie and Al Pulvirenti, who live in Stuart, are one of those families asking for help from the noise. They told WPTV in November they struggle to spend time outside because the trains are too loud.
"We'd like to be outside, might be sitting around a fire pit, enjoying time with friends. Our children want to be outside playing," Lindie Pulvirenti said. "But because of those train horns nobody wants to go outside, so we're forced to be indoors."
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The Department of Transportation allows cities and counties to apply for a special designation called "quiet zones," which makes it optional for trains to use their horns.
Stuart City Manager Mike Martell said the city would struggle to gain approval for quiet zones because of Confusion Corner and Sailfish Circle. He also said the city believes it could qualify if it was included in Martin County's application for "quiet zones" in a written statement.
"If the county does apply for quiet zones, the city is hopeful that its intersections will be included, but the city does not have any plans to apply for quiet zones separately from the County,” Martell wrote.
WPTV contacted Martin County late Monday and hasn't heard back. However, as previously reported in November, emails show Martin County Administrator Don Donaldson plans on requesting "quiet zones" for at least a year to perform a safety review, an email to the village of Tequesta said. He said if no review occurred, it would be a disservice to people in Martin County.
"Our intent for the crossings under our jurisdiction is to monitor the safety of our public for one year (until September 2024) and track any issues that may occur, of which we hope there are none," Donaldson wrote in an email. "We then will evaluate which crossings should be converted to quiet zones based on the data that we capture during the one-year period."
He said the county has worked with Brightline to upgrade the safety features at crossings to make them eligible for quiet zones in the future. Donaldson said he also believes people need to get used to high-speed trains before requesting quiet zones.
"Sounding of horns is an important safety measure to make residents crossing the FEC right of way be aware of an incoming train," he said. "We realize that this safety measure can be a nuisance to the residents who purchased homes or choose to recreate near the tracks, but initially the value of the safety measure outweighs the inconvenience until we see how our public handles the faster and more frequent trains."