City Council Tuesday night debated moving at least one area of Longmont slated for railroad “quiet zones” up on the city’s budget priority list.
Quiet zones allow trains to silence their horns as they enter at-grade street crossings if specific safety improvements are installed to limit access across the tracks, according to a city staff report.
Parent Cameron McKay asked the city council to start quiet zone improvements near Columbine Elementary as soon as possible. Trains thunder past the school daily and affects the learning of students.
“The preschool windows are less than 100 feet from the tracks,” McKay told the council. “As soon as we get rid of the train noise the better we will be.”
The city council’s discussion of quiet zones came during a work session to examine portions of Longmont’s proposed $359.55 million operating budget. A final council vote on the budget is scheduled for late October.
Train noise close to homes in the Historic East Side Neighborhood area have long drawn complaints from residents and especially from parents at Columbine, 111 Longs Peak Avenue, city officials said at Tuesday night’s city council work session.
The city has put crossing improvements at Fourth, Sixth and 21st avenues on its 2022 schedule; Main Street, Coffman Street, Terry Street and Mountain View Avenue are on the 2023 schedule and Colo. 66, Sunset and Hover streets and Fifth Avenue on its 2024 schedule, according to a city staff report.
Costs for implementing quiet zones vary according to each crossing but current estimates indicated that required improvements at each of Longmont’s 17 crossings could cost more than $800,000, according to the staff report. Longmont in 2020 received $4 million in federal funding towards the quiet zone projects, the staff report states.
Much of the work at the crossings must be done by Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad which runs through Longmont, the staff report states.
Council members Marcia Martin and Tim Waters pressed city officials on how soon the city can protect Columbine Elementary with a quiet zone, including not waiting until 2024 to create a quiet zone at the Fifth Avenue crossing.. The city also plans to close Fifth Avenue at the BNSF crossing.
City Manager Harold Dominguez said “a reordering is possible” depending on talks with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission and BNSF. The city aims to create a new BNSF crossing at Boston Avenue.
“This work is 90 percent done by the railroad,” added Dale Rademacher, Longmont’s deputy city manager. “We are not in control of everything.”
