(The Chicago Tribute posted the following article by Virginia Groark and Jon Hilkevitch on its website on January 9.)
CHICAGO — Officials from across northeastern Illinois want the federal government to extend the public comment period on a new federal train horn rule that they say could cost them thousands of dollars if they want to keep their whistle bans in place.
Arguing that they need more time to decipher the complex rule announced last month, several local officials said they want the Feb. 17 deadline extended by 60 days.
“At first glance, it looked like some of our concerns had been addressed,” said Laura Guillot Wilkison, project coordinator for policy and legislation for the Chicago Department of Transportation, which has more than 100 whistle bans in place. “As we started looking through the details, it’s a lot more complex than we had originally thought.”
Wilkison said the policy committee of the Chicago Area Transportation Study endorsed the extension at a meeting Thursday. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. William Lipinski (D-Ill.) said he and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) intend to contact the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to ask for a longer comment period and for the agency to hold a public meeting in Chicago.
“Mayors and village managers are complaining that it’s hard to decipher the rules,” Lipinski said. “Communities are worried that train whistles will be blowing nonstop from Hinsdale to Cicero.”
Warren Flatau, an FRA spokesman, said the agency has not yet received a request from the congressmen but is committed to working with communities to help them understand the rule, which he acknowledged is “complex.”
“This is not exactly simple stuff,” he added.
Concerns about the proposal mark the latest twist in a lengthy debate over the use of train whistles at grade crossings. The latest rule was crafted in the wake of the outcry over a 2000 proposal that would have required locomotives to sound warnings at all railroad crossings except where there are specific high-tech devices.
Under the new rule, communities with whistle bans could keep them if they meet certain safety criteria. If they don’t, they would have five to eight years to upgrade crossings by doing things like installing more gates.
But several officials said they are having difficulty determining whether the crossings in their communities meet the standards. Specifically, they are having problems accessing a FRA Web-site tool designed to make the calculations.
“We’ve tried to use it even on weekends and evenings and still have had difficulty getting on,” said Larry Bury, transportation director of the Northwest Municipal Conference, which represents 45 municipalities and five townships. “There’s a lot of questions that we don’t have answers to at this time.”
Officials from west suburban La Grange were unaware their crossings didn’t meet the standards until they were included in a case study presented at a meeting in Union Station on Wednesday, said Robert Pilipiszyn, assistant village manager.
Flatau said the agency is fixing the computer bugs. In the meantime, the agency is compiling a list, which it intends to release in coming months, that will outline which communities will have to make safety improvements if they want to keep whistle bans.
Arlington Heights Mayor Arlene Mulder said, “There’s a lot of little details and questions that need to be answered.”