(The following story by Dianna M. Náñez appeared on The Arizona Republic website on August 17.)
TUCSON, Ariz. — Despite the spike in accidents and the hefty price tag associated with whistle bans, several Arizona municipalities are working to silence train horns.
Federal regulations require railway engineers to sound their horn before going through a public railroad crossing. But nationally, residents living near railroad lines are increasingly getting fed up with whistles blowing day and night and at levels legally allowed to reach 110 decibels – about as loud as a chainsaw.
Neighborhoods are pushing cities to take advantage of a 2005 federal law that makes it easier to adopt railroad quiet zones where engineers are banned from using horns except in emergencies.
There are an estimated 311 quiet-zone applications active or on file with the Federal Railroad Administration. No Arizona communities have established zones yet, railroad officials said. Tempe, Sun City, Maricopa, Phoenix, Flagstaff and Grand Canyon are among the Arizona municipalities working to implement quiet zones.
But the silence comes at a cost.
A 2000 federal study found collisions were 64 percent more likely to occur at gated crossings with bans than at similar crossings without bans. Maricopa County has three of the top seven crossings in the country with the most collisions since 2005, including the most dangerous crossing, according to statistics provided by FRA spokesman Rob Kulat.
To help prevent quiet-zone accidents, the FRA requires cities to work with its local railroad to implement safety measures. Such measures can include the installation of crossing gates, which cost $300,000 to $500,000, and a warning system that can cost as much as $400,000 and another $4,000 to $10,000 for annual maintenance, according to Union Pacific Railroad estimates. Cities can seek federal waivers to buffer safety costs, but according to some legal experts, in the event of an accident, fewer safeguards could increase a city’s risk of liability.
Tempe has set aside more than $500,000 for crossing improvements and is working with federal authorities and Union Pacific Railroad to design a plan for meeting quiet-zone safety guidelines.
Marc Pearsall, a Tempe transportation planner, said the city hopes to start work on the improvements before the end of the year. Maricopa County recently worked out an agreement with BNSF Railway to begin work on crossing improvements for a Sun City quiet zone. And Flagstaff has approved a plan to begin construction on several quiet zones.
“Neighborhoods that have been in Tempe for basically 130 years have become accustomed to the railroad horns,” he said. “It’s just in the last 10 years that there’s been an evolution. It’s a quality-of-life issue for the residents.”
After nearly 10 years of living near Tempe’s Union Pacific Railroad line, Dan Durrenberger said he thinks Tempe should invest in fighting noise pollution and not worry about the rare train accident.
“You move to where you want to live and then you change the world to conform to how you want to live,” Durrenberger said. “Just because there’s a train track and just because it’s been there for 100 years doesn’t mean it has to continue to blow its horn.”