RTD cuts down GLine horns

Sonic relief is coming to residents of Arvada and Wheat Ridge who have become fed up with latenight train horns: The Regional Transportation District has announced that it is curtailing the testing of GLine trains to 12 hours aday.

The change — from the 22 hours a day they’re currently testing — goes into effect Friday.

The agency said “testing … has progressed well enough” to scale it back from the 3 a.m. to 1 a.m. window they operate in now to a 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. window.

“The simulated schedule testing has progressed well to date, so we are pleased to be able to trim back the number of daily hours of testing,” RTD’s general manager and CEO, Dave Genova, said in a Friday news release.

RTD has gotten an earful from residents along both the yettoopen 11mile GLine, which will connect downtown Denver to Arvada and Wheat Ridge, and the University of Colorado ALine, which provides service along a 23mile stretch between Union Station and Denver International Airport. Residents have complained of having to keep windows closed during the summer and earplugs in at night to drown out horns that are required by federal safety regulations to be sounded at crossings along both lines.

Lengthy delays in resolving crossing gate technology issues on both lines have in turn prevented communities through which the tracks run from applying to the Federal Railroad Administration for quiet zones, which would obviate the need for the horns. Horns have been blasting along the ALine since it opened in April 2016, while GLine trains have been sounding their horns since testing resumed on the line in January.

The total cessation of trackside noise on RTD’s new commuter rail system was put into further question earlier this month when The Denver Post reported that crossing attendants had been put back into place on three crossings on the ALine and on the sole crossing on the BLine to Westminster just a month after they had been relieved of duty, following state and federal regulators signing off on the safety of the crossing gates.

RTD said the flaggers were reinstated after it was discovered that a single test train on the GLine had entered a crossing before it should have. No explanation was given as to why the incident triggered reinstatement of flaggers on the ALine, except for the fact that both commuter rail lines use the same crossinggate technology.

RTD said Friday that “significant testing and regulatory approvals still remain to be completed” before the GLine will start carrying passengers, something it was projected to do nearly two years ago. The agency also had no date by which the flaggers on the ALine and BLine might be removed.

Train horns will continue to sound for 21 hours a day on the ALine for the foreseeable future.