STUART, Fla. — For more than a year, boaters and elected officials have expressed concerns about Brightline running up to 32 trains there.

Sailors like Howard Mason, who lives on a boat docked just west of the bridge, say it’s a nuisance.

“It causes major obstructions to marine traffic because it opens and closes multiple times a day,” Mason said.

He hopes the bridge will be replaced with a taller, newer version.

“I heard they wanted to raise the bridge and I think that’s a good thing to do,” he said, “but I don’t think the taxpayers should be responsible for finding the money.”

Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) and the City of Stuart have been working on a project to make this happen.

If built, the proposed new bridge will have a clear height of 17 feet, which is much higher than its current height of 6 feet.

This week, the project hit a roadblock.

WPTV

The City of Stuart told WPTV that the FEC recently requested funding from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and did not receive it.

Our reporter Cassandra Garcia asked the FRA if it was denied the grant. They told him: “Projects are selected based on merit according to the evaluation criteria.”

“It frustrates me,” Mason said. “I would like something to be done, because it is very difficult for a sailor to cross this bridge.”

In total, the bridge will cost $218 million. Last December, Stuart received a grant of $130.5 million to finance it.

WPTV has reached out to the FEC and Brightline for comment on the FRA’s decision and whether there are plans to apply for next year’s funding cycle, but we are still awaiting a response.

In the meantime, Mason hopes the FEC won’t abandon construction of a new bridge.

“This bridge has been there for maybe 100 years, or so, and when it was just freight trains, there weren’t many openings per day,” Mason said.

More WPTV coverage of the St. Lucia Rail Bridge: