I'm an engineer. When a system is failing, I don't reach for a slogan — I pull the data, find the failure point, and fix it. Our roads, rails, and crossings are a system. Here is what the data says about ours, and what I'd do about it in Tallahassee.
Start with the hardest number of all. From January 1 through October 30, 2025, Palm Beach County recorded 1,441 pedestrian and bicyclist collisions — 131 serious-injury crashes and 39 fatal ones. Among Florida counties with more than 300,000 people, we rank 5th for deadly pedestrian and bicyclist injuries (Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office figures, reported by CBS12, Dec. 31, 2025; the state's own 2025 crash report is not published until 2027, so these are the sheriff's counts, not FLHSMV's).
Zoom out and the picture doesn't improve. The 2026 Dangerous by Design report from Smart Growth America found that 9 of the 27 deadliest metro areas for pedestrians in America are in Florida — and our own Miami–Fort Lauderdale–West Palm Beach metro ranks #17 nationally. Florida recorded 3,726 pedestrian deaths from 2020 to 2024, third most in the country, with a five-year average fatality rate of 3.32 per 100,000 — the fifth-highest of any state, behind only New Mexico, Louisiana, Arizona and South Carolina (Smart Growth America, Dangerous by Design 2026 rankings; reported by WLRN, June 11, 2026). Federal FARS data puts the same five-year total at 3,736, within 0.3% of the report's figure.
The trend line points the wrong way. The state's own count — FLHSMV's Traffic Crash Facts annual reports — shows Palm Beach County pedestrian crashes rising from 646 in 2022 to 807 in 2024, up about 25% in two years, and pedestrian deaths rising from 42 in 2019 to 61 in 2024 — up 45% (FLHSMV, Traffic Crash Facts 2024, county tables; 2019 figure from the 2019 report). Two honest notes, because this campaign labels its numbers. Measured from 2019 rather than 2022, crashes are up 27.5%, not 25% in two years — 2020 was an artificially quiet year and part of the recent rise is a rebound from it. And FLHSMV's 2024 figures closed out in January 2026 and remain formally subject to revision, though the 2022 and 2023 counts have not moved across three successive annual reports.
Then there's the rail corridor that runs straight through Boynton Beach and Delray Beach. Since Brightline began service in 2018, about 195 people have been killed by its trains — roughly one death every 13 days — including 32 deaths in 2025 alone. Some of those deaths happened here: a driver killed trying to beat a train in Boynton Beach, a pedestrian killed on the tracks in Delray (WLRN/Miami Herald "Killer Train" investigation, Dec. 18, 2025).
In a district with a median age of 47.1 — older than Florida and the nation — this is a seniors' issue. And it's an affordability issue: a serious crash is a financial catastrophe for any family it touches.
None of this is a mystery, and an engineer would tell you it's not bad luck either. It's design and follow-through.
The fixes are known — they just haven't been applied where we live. New FDOT design rules that took effect January 1, 2026 made 123 formerly optional rail-crossing safety measures mandatory — but only for future projects, not the existing corridor through our cities (WLRN, Dec. 18, 2025). Meanwhile, the evidence that retrofits work is sitting in plain sight: after SunRail installed fencing in Sanford, track trespassing dropped 91%. On the Brightline corridor itself, a nearly $19 million federal grant — approved in 2022 but not released until the fall of 2025 — is funding 33 miles of fencing and vegetation clearing. USDOT reports that on the 195-mile Miami-to-Cocoa corridor, trespassing incidents and train-vehicle collisions fell about 30% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, following a $25 million package of federal safety upgrades at grade crossings (Metro Magazine). Proven engineering, delayed funding. That's a process failure, not a knowledge gap.
Transit that works nearly got unplugged. Tri-Rail — with stations in Boynton Beach and Delray Beach — carried commuters at record levels while the state cut its roughly $42 million annual contribution to $15 million in 2025, forcing the agency to burn reserves and warn that service could end (CBS12, May 27, 2026; CBS News Miami). Officials warned service could stop as soon as July 2026. The final state budget restored $60 million for rail — about $42 million to Tri-Rail — and prevented it (WFLX, June 29, 2026). Good — but a one-year rescue is not a plan. For context: in 2022 Tri-Rail carried 3.4 million riders to Brightline's 1.2 million, at roughly a quarter of the fare for local trips (The Coastal Star). It's the workhorse our district's commuters actually ride.
And who's in the room matters. In the same 2026 budget, Palm Beach County won $3 million for Okeechobee Boulevard traffic safety and $2 million for Australian Avenue drainage — but the Governor's veto pen struck about $1.6 billion statewide, including county items like $900,000 for South Bay road improvements (WFLX, June 29, 2026). Budget lines live or die on advocacy from inside the process.
A state House member doesn't pave roads. But the state writes the budget, sets FDOT's rules, and decides whether Tri-Rail runs. Here's my checklist — specific, measurable, and mine to be held to:
1. Retrofit the FEC corridor we have, not just the ones we'll build. Push to extend the January 2026 crossing-safety standards — and budget dollars — to the existing corridor through Boynton and Delray: fencing (91% drop in track trespassing at SunRail's Sanford segment), quad gates, and grade separation at the worst crossings. One death every 13 days is a solvable engineering problem.
2. Make Tri-Rail funding recurring, not an annual cliffhanger. The state's ~$42 million share should be a stable budget line, defended every year by a member sitting in the majority that writes the budget — so thousands of District 90 commuters never again spend a spring wondering if their train survives July.
3. Track the I-95 projects like an engineer. FDOT is studying fixes to the I-95/Woolbright Road interchange to stop traffic backing up onto the highway (FDOT study), and rebuilding the Boynton Beach Boulevard and Gateway interchanges (FDOT District 4). I'll publish on-time, on-budget status for every district project — outcomes measured, not press releases.
4. Back the county's Vision Zero work with state dollars. The Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency adopted Vision Zero in 2018 and is pursuing federal Safe Streets and Roads for All funding (Palm Beach TPA). The state should be a partner in that math, not a bystander — starting with the corridors where seniors walk and bike.
5. Fight for our line items — and against the veto pen. South Bay's roads lost $900,000 this year. When the list is written and when it's defended, District 90 needs a member in the room.
District 90's current representative, Democrat Rob Long, serves in a 120-seat chamber where Republicans hold a supermajority of 83 seats to Democrats' 34, with three seats vacant. That's not a knock on him personally — it's arithmetic. Every item above runs through the state budget, and the budget is written by the majority. Send an engineer to sit in that room: someone who reads the crash data, checks the contract milestones, and treats "one death every 13 days" as a deadline, not a statistic.
Every number here is sourced below. Check my math — and hold me to it.
Every figure on this page is sourced. Find an error? Send me the source and I will fix it.
Updated: 2026-09-04