When will the train horns stop? Utahns vent as cities race to reestablish 'quiet zones'

Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes

LEHI — Scott Murff remembers having reservations about the home he'd eventually move into nearly two years ago.

He loved the home and the Lehi neighborhood, but as a self-described light sleeper, he wasn't sure how he felt living about 100 yards from railroad tracks. However, he was reassured that he was in a "quiet zone" — an established area where train operators don't sound horns as long as safety measures are met — so he decided to follow through with it.

And everything was fine until that quiet zone designation abruptly ended in late September. The Federal Railroad Administration suspended the quiet zone by Murff's neighborhood — along with all the quiet zones between Provo and Ogden — because multiple crossings failed to meet federal standards.

Since then, train operators have blared their horns at all hours, including at night and in the early morning.

"The first night, I tossed and turned. It was either the first or second night that I was looking for a place to go avoid the noise to get back to sleep," Murff told KSL.com, explaining that he tried to find relief in his basement to no avail.

He is not alone in his experience. Many residents along the line from Provo to Ogden have fumed online over the past few weeks, hoping for a quick fix that hasn't happened yet.

Murff even launched an online petition hoping to correct the series of errors that led to the situation.

A not-so-quiet place

Quiet zones were created in 2006 through a federal train rule that also regulates when train horns are blown. As long as cities and counties maintain safe enough crossings, train operators don't have to automatically blare their horns.

But multiple Utah cities were informed between April and June that they had crossings that had fallen out of compliance since the last series of inspections, according to Lehi and Woods Cross officials, the cities that applied for these zones on behalf of others in the region.

Many of the problems are small, dealing with medians, curbing, striping and signage. The problem is that some projects "can take 18 months to design and construct due to the coordination and approval process" with local, state and federal agencies, Woods Cross city administrator Bryce Haderlie wrote in an email last week.

Cities out of compliance were working to make these adjustments when they were informed late last month that all of the zones would be suspended until those were fixed. All crossings within the zone must comply with regulations for a quiet zone to be reestablished.

Utah Transit Authority and Union Pacific are required to comply with the train horn rule until that happens.

"Nobody likes blowing those horns, but we've got to do it until the quiet zone is back in place," said UTA spokesman Gavin Gustafson.

Multiple deficiencies outlined by the federal government have already been corrected or are expected to be completed soon. Those will have to go through a Federal Railroad Administration inspection before the quiet zones return.

The timeline for that to happen remains a mystery because some cities hit a new snag. Inspectors found new median and signage issues in American Fork and Orem, as well as a commercial driveway issue in Salt Lake City, Lehi traffic engineer Luke Seegmiller told KSL.com on Tuesday.

That came as the southern leg of the zone was nearing a clearance inspection. Seegmiller said he's scheduled to meet with federal regulators later this week to request a review of the original issues and extra time to get the new issues fixed. He added that UTA offered its on-call contractor that can address the new issues faster.

It's unclear if that will lead to a small break in the excessive horns. Haderlie told KSL.com that Woods Cross has not been given any "firm dates" as to when the situation will be cleared up. He didn't know how many projects were left to be completed either, because that's up to each city within the zone.

Seeking relief

None of it is quick enough for residents like Murff or Jason Young, who lives within two blocks of a crossing in American Fork. He said his family with five children is routinely woken by freight trains in the early morning and then again by commuter trains about every 30 minutes during the day.

"It's not something you can stay asleep from. It's loud enough where you wake up two or three times a night," he said, adding that some operators are gentle with the horn, while others hold it down for longer periods.

My longer endgame is to encourage the cities to get their act more together and to make sure this never happens again.

– Scott Murff, Lehi resident

The noise isn't as cumbersome for residents farther from the tracks, but it's become a big problem for a growing number of residents because quiet zones opened the door for new development along the fast-growing Wasatch Front. Thousands of housing units, including where Murff lives, were constructed after the zones were created over a decade ago.

After reviewing multiple documents, he's not sure how this happened. He believes the cities were given ample time to make adjustments but weren't given a clear deadline before the zones were suspended, either. Seegmiller said the cities weren't provided a deadline when the issues were brought up in April.

Murff's online petition has now gathered a few hundred signatures, essentially asking the federal agency for a conditional reinstatement during normal sleep hours and long-term changes to prevent neighborhoods close to lines from paying the price during future squabbles.

Murff is cautiously optimistic about the former but passionate about the latter. He wants better coordination between the cities, as well as between local and federal governments so quiet zones are never suddenly stripped away.

"I think it's important to bring these issues to light for future reference," he said. "My longer endgame is to encourage the cities to get their act more together and to make sure this never happens again."