Salt Lake City hits snag with temporary road closure in race to restore lost ‘quiet zones’

For Madeline West, her husband and others who live in her neighborhood, peace lasts from about 12:30 a.m. to 3:30 a.m. every day.
It’s the only time they can rest without constant interruptions coming from nearby railroad crossings.
“That’s on a typical night. Some nights there are more train horns than others; some nights there are fewer,” she told members of the Salt Lake City Council Tuesday night, as she described her living experience the last two months.
She lives by a federally approved pocket where train operators don’t have to automatically blare horns as long as cities and counties maintain safe enough crossings, called a “quiet zone.” However, all quiet zones from Ogden to Provo were abruptly suspended in late September.
“The noise level, consistency and frequency of the train horns make it very difficult for us,” she said. “After six weeks, we are starting to feel the impact of that, as are many of our neighbors.”
That’s why she pleaded to the City Council to pass a temporary road closure that could expedite the process needed to reestablish a quiet zone from Salt Lake City to Ogden, but the plan hit a small snag on Tuesday. It comes as the city is close to solving another issue that would reestablish a similar zone to Provo in the coming weeks.
Salt Lake City is nearing a plan to close 1000 West between South Temple and 15 South, where there is a railroad crossing next to Madsen Park. The city is working with Patriot Rail to help Rocky Mountain Power employees reach a substation in the area, while drivers would be able to detour around the closure using either South Temple or Folsom Avenue.
The closure would only be enacted if the Federal Railroad Administration determines it’s an appropriate measure to reinstate the Woods Cross quiet zone — an area from Salt Lake City to Ogden — while the city works on improvements to the crossing to get it back to federal code. Per federal law, every crossing must comply within a zone before the whole zone is reestablished.
Salt Lake City engineer Mark Stephens said it appears to be the fastest way to address the situation after the city was caught off guard by the Federal Railroad Administration’s decision to suspend both of its quiet zones in late September, while the city was in the middle of planning the needed repairs.
Other Wasatch Front cities reported similar experiences at the time the region’s quiet zones were suspended.
“What the ordinance does is preemptively help us have the ability to close the roadway if (the railroad administration) says it’s OK,” Stephens explained, in a meeting with city leaders last week.
Salt Lake City Council members were ready to adopt the emergency ordinance Tuesday night, but a “noticing error” stopped that from happening. Nick Tarbet, deputy director of legislative and policy for the Salt Lake City Council, said the city didn’t properly alert the Utah Department of Transportation and thus didn’t give it enough time to review the proposal.
Staff noticed the issue earlier Tuesday, prompting the city to continue the hearing to Dec. 3 so that the agency has time to weigh in on the plan.
Tarbert doesn’t believe the issue will delay the Woods Cross quiet zone from being reinstated because issues in other cities within the zone still need to be sorted out before train operators don’t automatically sound their horns at every crossing.
Stephens said a similar issue was detected in North Salt Lake, which is also being addressed. Both cities filed waivers to the federal government on the issue this month as they seek to get the zone reinstated.
Salt Lake City is the only city caught between two zones, as it also serves as the northern end of a quiet zone Lehi oversees.
Lehi officials reported Wednesday that all but one crossing in its zone passed a federal inspection. The lone exception is a crossing by a commercial driveway at 1700 South in Salt Lake City, but that issue is close to being resolved.
The property owners are expected to pick an option to remedy the problem “within the next week” followed by construction immediately after, Lehi officials said. A final inspection could come shortly after that.
“Once the final inspection is complete, the train horns will be silenced,” the city wrote in an update.
It’s unclear when a similar decision will be handed down on the Woods Cross zone. However, residents near the tracks are eagerly awaiting that moment.
“Anything we can do to restore the quiet zones as quickly as possible will positively impact the health, well-being and safety our these affected communities,” she said.