Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosLisa Burley stands on the train tracks near her home in southeast Bend on Friday. Burley and her husband moved to the area to retire but have been bothered by the sound of trains passing through several times each evening. Burley has asked the city of Bend to look into creating a “quiet zone” where trains do not blow their horns when they approach road crossings.
Pete Erickson / The Bulletin
Seeking silent nights
Tired of being awakened by train horns, local woman hopes councilors will push to make Bend a ‘quiet zone’
By Erin Golden / The Bulletin
Published: September 08. 2009 4:00AM PSTWhen Lisa Burley moved into her new southeast Bend home in July, she thought she’d found a perfect, quiet spot to spend her retirement. Then she heard the blast of a train horn, warning drivers and passers-by that the train was approaching a rail crossing. Then she heard another one, and another — usually three or four every night.
“The first one, I’m far enough from China Hat that if windows are closed, it’s almost romantic — you know how a distant whistle sounds?” she said. “But by the time it gets to the Country Club crossing, two blocks from my house, it’s an alarm clock.”
Burley said the noise keeps her and her neighbors up at night, and now, she’s asked the city to do something about it. Last week, she went to the Bend City Council to ask councilors to push to make Bend a federally recognized “quiet zone” — a place where trains are not required to sound their horns at road crossings.
Some council members said they’re interested in the idea and want city staff to study it further. But because changing the rules for trains in Bend means the city would have to complete safety studies and install a variety of improvements, officials say the process of quieting the train horns could take some time — and could cost more than $1 million.
Quiet zones
Several decades ago, Bend prohibited the sounding of train whistles or horns, said City Recorder Patty Stell. But in 2005, the Federal Railroad Administration approved a new rule that requires all trains to blast their horns for 15 to 20 seconds before passing through crossings that do not involve an overpass or underpass.
Under the new rule, however, cities could apply for a quiet zone exemption — as long as they were willing to pay for safety studies, install a variety of improvements at crossings and submit to regular federal reviews. So far, just four Oregon cities — Columbia City, Pendleton, The Dalles and Westfir — have received exemptions.
Christine Adams, a regional grade crossing manager for the Federal Railroad Administration, said communities that have problems with the noise of trains and want to get an exemption have several options.
“They usually have a team of experts that go and look at the crossings, (and) come up with some (solutions),” she said. “The major thing to make it as safe as when the horns are blowing. ... You bring the risk down depending on what you decide to do, whether its quadrant gates or median strips or actual closures. One of the treatments is changing to a one-way street and putting up two gates.”
A railway accident can spur the Federal Railroad Administration to remove the quiet zone, but Adams said only one Northwest city with the zone — Pendleton — has had an accident on the tracks.
Pendleton City Attorney Pete Wells said his city’s situation is a bit different than others, because it was one of a few cities grandfathered in when the 2005 rule went into effect. As a result, the city only had to add a few signs, rather than make expensive safety improvements, to get its quiet zone designation.
Wells said the city’s only safety incident was an accident caused when a woman who lives near the train tracks let her car slip out of gear, and it rolled down her driveway and into the path of a train. He said no one was injured, but the incident led to a review of the city’s quiet zone.
The matter is still pending, and Wells said he’s hoping the designation won’t be removed because train noise is a big issue in Pendleton. “If I let that quiet zone fail in one way or another, I will have many unhappy constituents,” he said.
The rules about sounding train horns at crossings is meant to keep people safe, but Adams said she believes quiet zones don’t create any new problems.
“As far as I’m concerned, I think these crossings are definitely made safer, because they have so many supplemental safety measures,” she said.
Bend’s options
Stell said she’s been fielding calls about train noise in Bend for years. In 2007, Transportation Engineering Manager Nick Arnis was asked to look into the quiet zone issue.
At that time, Arnis did some research and found that Bend has nine railroad crossings that would require improvements if the city wanted to ban train horns. In a memo drafted for the city manager and public works director, Arnis wrote that two safety options would be feasible for Bend: a system of gates blocking each direction of traffic, or gates with medians that would prevent drivers from going around them.
Arnis estimated that the first option would cost between $150,000 to $200,000 for each crossing, or a total of $1.35 million to $1.8 million. The second option’s estimated cost was $35,000 per crossing or about $315,000 for the whole project.
Other alternatives open to cities include installing horns at intersections, which will sound when a train is approaching, rather than the louder sound of a horn from a moving train.
If the city decides to move forward on the quiet zone idea, it will have to work with officials from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, which runs about six to seven trains per day through Bend, according to BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas.
“Through the process, Burlington Northern Santa Fe does work with the Federal Railroad Administration and the community to look at engineering and other factors such as train speed, and the number of trains,” he said. “We are certainly willing to look into this further with the Federal Railroad Administration.”
Stell said she’s going to continue to research the issue and then bring back the information to the council at a future meeting.
Burley said she’s going to keep pushing for a quiet zone because she sees the noise as both a quality of life and economic issue for the city and its residents. She said the city needs to invest in its southern areas to increase property values and tax revenues, and keeping trains quiet could be a big step forward.
“If you look at the city of Bend, the whole east side is covered by railroad tracks,” she said. “Should the whole east side be divided off? I think the city has done an awesome job of making this an attractive place for tourists and retirees. And as a retiree, don’t make me move to the west side.”
Erin Golden can be reached at 541-617-7837 or at egolden@bendbulletin.com.
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