Strong editorial stance by the Palm Beach Post on the benefits of All Aboard Florida and the potential to move more freight traffic to the western CSX tracks. That is where the current Tri-Rail and Amtrak operate. Being farther from population centers, the impact of freight on this corridor would be less. I'm not sure about the likeliness of the possibility. Kim Delaney of Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council, in her presentation to our City Commission thought it would be a fight. Click title for link.
Freight trains are longer, noisier and heavier than passenger trains, and they already run every day along the Florida East Coast Railway tracks where the All Aboard Florida service is envisioned. No one in South Florida is a stranger to their hassles. Yet even though passenger trains have far fewer negative effects, it’s the plan for passenger trains that is facing intense opposition from residents in northern Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast.
This has it exactly backward. If regional planners and some state officials get their way, the All Aboard Florida project could prove the best bet for reducing the number of freight trains along the FEC tracks, which is a much better way to improve quality of life along the corridor. With freight traffic expected to increase as the Panama Canal is widened and the Port of Miami deepened, it’s a good time to devise better plans for controlling that impact on the hundreds of communities that grew up around the FEC tracks.
![Dr. W. H. Cotton’s ode: “Oh, My Lake Worth, Florida!” [circa 1920].](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yhHyCn84ZIQ/WezjlEL-0tI/AAAAAAAAPZ4/CzkhriK6zpEJJ3d9Je1495d49gIhnMlxACK4BGAYYCw/s1600/LakeWorthPioneers.JPG)
