I also grew up in a small Florida East Coast town, which Brightline will eventually pass through on its way to Orlando. My parents, who still live in Florida,

I also grew up in a small Florida East Coast town, which Brightline will eventually pass through on its way to Orlando. My parents, who still live in Florida, regularly give me an earful about the train. To an extent, I can see where they're coming from: there has been some controversy over who will pay for crossing upgrades to handle these faster trains, and increased train traffic will mean increased crossing delays in these smaller towns. There have also been some well-publicized pedestrian deaths (https://bit.ly/2GA0QN2 https://bit.ly/2GA0QN2) along Brightline's existing route. But I'm in favor of these trains, and I think most of the opposition amounts to classic NIMBYism. Transportation in Florida is a nightmare, and passenger rail is the obvious solution. And I find it inconceivable that any accidental deaths due to the additional train traffic won't be offset by even fewer deaths on the highways. Florida has a proud history of rail transportation (there's a reason Florida has an entire county named after Henry Flagler), and Brightline could be a return to some of those past glories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Railroad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_Railroad