(The following appeared on the Akron Beacon Journal website on April 4.)
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Trains rumble through Lorain County and Cleveland’s western suburbs more than 50 times a day, and their horns wake residents and stop business in downtowns across the region.
Brook Park has broken ground on special gates at three crossings to create the state’s first multicrossing railroad quiet zone and several other northeast Ohio cities are working to quiet the horns.
“It’s been a long road, but we are very pleased it’s becoming a reality,” Mayor Mark Elliott said. “It will restore the quality of life for a lot of those people. … They haven’t even been able to enjoy their back yards.”
Noisy trains have become such a common complaint that the Federal Railroad Administration has allowed cities to ban whistles as long as they add or improve safety devices at crossings.
A 2005 federal rule set the standard for quiet zones. The Federal Railroad Administration designated Ohio’s first quiet zone in Moraine, near Dayton, where barriers placed in the center of the road keep cars from going around a traditional crossing.
Brook Park will spend about $700,000 to replace three regular gates with gates that meet safety requirements by blocking lanes in both directions on both sides of the tracks.
Half of Ohio’s vehicle-train collisions are caused by people driving around barriers at traditional crossings, according to the Ohio Rail Development Commission.
Berea, Olmsted Falls, Rocky River and Vermilion are also taking measures to create quiet zones.
The Lorain County community of Vermilion will use $1 million in federal money to erect quadrant gates at four streets in the old Harbour Town area.
Colette Kubik, who lives seven houses away from the tracks, tackled the noise issue about five years ago, after CSX and Norfolk Southern divided up Conrail in 1999, more than quintupling train traffic through the small town. Sick of the noise and worried about dropping property values, she founded Concerned Citizens of Vermilion and researched what could be done.
“Imagine a train going 60 miles per hour past your house, 100 times a day, and they’re blasting their whistle all the way,” Kubik said. “Try sleeping through that, having a picnic with that, watching TV with that.”