BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council has decided to install new gates at three Caltrain crossings so that the trains will stop sounding their horns.
Council and residents wanted the new “quiet zone” to be established as soon as possible, but city Senior Engineer Ripon Bhatia said the project will take at least 32 months.
Unanimous decision
Council on Monday unanimously abandoned the idea of installing wayside horns that blare outwards from each crossing before trains go by.
Council members Pat Burt and Julie Lythcott-Haims defended their position on the Rail Committee to spend time investigating horns placed on the side of crossings that direct a loud warning sound at the roadway to alert drivers and pedestrians. Wayside horns would be faster and cheaper to install, but they’d still make noise.
Instead, council voted 5-0 to pursue “quad gates” that block off the entire crossing as trains pass at Churchill Avenue, Meadow Drive and Charleston Road. The crossings currently have gates that go down only on the right side of the road, but the Federal Railroad Administration requires a safety upgrade to establish the quiet zone.
Residents weigh in
Resident Rachel Croft, who lives on Mariposa Avenue, said she has a new neighbor whose 5-year-old wakes up every time the freight train goes by.
“They’re really blasting until 1 a.m., which interrupts sleeping,” Croft said.
John and Melinda Melnychuk, who live on Alma Street, said they’ve been waiting for relief from the train noise for a decade.
Up next
The quad gates are expected to cost $4.1 to $5.6 million and take 32 to 50 months to complete, Bhatia told council.
The city needs to come up with the funding, work with Caltrain and get approval from the California Public Utilities Commission and Federal Railroad Administration.
The city is also working on establishing a quiet zone at Palo Alto Avenue by next summer. There, the city has to raise and extend the median, and the gates don’t need to be replaced to meet the Federal Railroad Administration’s requirements.
As a formerly trained freight conductor, noise decibel output for any train horn, by Federal Railroad Administration guidelines, start at a mandated minimum of 96 decibels, to 110 decibels maximum. From what I’ve read so far, no municipality on the SF Peninsula has ever measured or reported the decibel range of the passenger-carrying electric Caltrain locomotives, or the Union Pacific freight locomotives. There is a huge audible difference between the two. And I know with some certainty, as compared to the quieter Caltrain horn, the UP freight locomotive horn can wake the dead when sounded.