RTD SAYS A-LINE CROSSINGS WILL FALL SILENT SOON
RTD says the horns that have blared in the area will stop, effective March 1
Train horns that have blared along the University of Colorado A-Line tracks hundreds of times a day for more than 1,000 days will at long last fall silent at Denver’s nine rail crossings on March 1.
The two remaining A-Line crossings in Aurora have yet to receive a date for quiet-zone status, but during a press conference Friday, Regional Transportation District general manager Dave Genova said efforts to get the horns quieted there are “very close” to being realized.
“We are grateful for your patience to this point,” Genova said, standing inside Union Station with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and other RTD officials. “We know you’ve been waiting a long, long time.”
Genova said Denver submitted its application for quiet zones with the Federal Railroad Administration on Thursday, starting a 21-day clock for federal regulators to give final review to the application before permitting trains to whiz through crossings without sounding their horns.
Hancock said he had spent time on residents’ back patios listening to the horns “blow all day and night,” acknowledging that it was the “most frustrating” aspect of the various challenges that have faced the metro area’s 23-mile commuter rail line between downtown and Denver International Airport, which debuted in April 2016.
Friday’s announcement will no doubt come as a massive relief to thousands of residents who live near the A-Line tracks, some of whom have had to resort to closing windows during the summer and wearing earplugs at night for nearly three years. The Doubletree hotel on Quebec Street in Denver, directly north of the ALine tracks, has provided ear protection and white noise machines for guests who have trouble sleeping through the horns, which sound 21 hours a day.
For David Martin, a Park Hill resident who has frequently called attention to the nuisance of the horns as trains move through nearby Dahlia Street, Friday’s announcement was almost too hard to believe.
“For those of us who have been so negatively impacted for far too long by the near-nonstop A-Line blasts, today’s quiet-zone announcement is for now cautiously welcome news,” he said. “If it is true that the A-Line quiet zone train is on the last feet of track to its implementation destination, I think we’ll all be there to applaud that train’s extremely overdue arrival. And we will happily welcome the return of open windows, outdoor living and, most importantly, the much-needed peaceful
nights of sleep that await us.”
Asked if anything could go awry with impending quiet zone status between now and March 1, Genova said, “we really don’t anticipate hearing anything more from the FRA.”
Federal Railroad Administration rules require that trains blow their horns at crossings at a minimum volume of 96 decibels, which is equivalent to the noise generated by a motorcycle or gas lawnmower heard from just a few feet away. But the agency lifts that requirement if rail crossings are equipped with certain safety features — like flashers, sturdier gates, upgraded railroad circuitry and raised medians — to protect motorists waiting to cross the tracks.
While RTD long ago put the necessary safety equipment in place at crossings along the ALine, the quiet-zone process got held up as the agency struggled to refine the timing of its safety gates to satisfy federal and state standards. Precise gate timing has been a challenge for RTD and its design-build partner, Denver Transit Partners, because the wireless signaling technology for the gates has had trouble properly integrating with positive train control, a federally mandated safety system designed to reduce crashes and derailments on the nation’s railroads.
For more than two years after A-Line service launched, regulators required RTD to station flaggers — at a cost of tens of millions of dollars — at crossings as a safety back- stop while the gate-timing glitches were addressed. Flaggers were only relieved from duty at the end of December.
Friday’s quiet-zone announcement does not affect the G-Line, the yetto-open commuter rail service to Arvada and Wheat Ridge. That line is still in the testing phase, despite having been scheduled to start passenger service more than two years ago. It uses the same crossing gate technology as the A-Line, and regulators have not allowed it to start service until all issues with the airport line have been resolved.
For now, the 16 crossings on the G-Line are still being manned by human flaggers, and trains are required to sound their horns at each at-grade crossing as they complete their test runs.