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- The "quiet zone" between Salt Lake City and Ogden remains suspended, pending a new waiver decision.
- The public comment period on the waive ends March 17.
- Federal officials say there is a solution to speed up the process, but cities say the option wasn't feasible.
SALT LAKE CITY — A "quiet zone" stretching from northern Salt Lake City to Ogden will remain suspended for at least another month, depending on the outcome of a new petition waiver tied to railroad crossings in Salt Lake City and North Salt Lake.
A Federal Railroad Administration spokesperson confirmed to KSL.com that the quiet zone overseen by Woods Cross cannot be reinstated until mid-March at the earliest, following public comment on the joint waiver seeking to reinstate the zone.
The agency contends that it could be reinstated faster if the affected cities limited train speeds to 15 mph and used flaggers at the impacted crossings, but that they have instead focused on the waiver. City officials, on the other hand, say that option just wasn't feasible.
"Flaggers had to be there 24/7 for the entire period until the replacement or remediation of the at-grade crossings," said David Jones, project program manager for Salt Lake City's engineering division, adding there were only a few companies qualified to handle the task to choose from for both crossings. "Suffice to say, it was cost prohibitive. ... It was super expensive."
Thus, the train horns will continue at crossings all across the northern Wasatch Front.
It's the latest development in the saga dating back to last year.
Quiet zones are pockets of railroad crossings considered safe enough for trains to cross without operators blowing horns unless there's an immediate threat on the tracks. Woods Cross and Lehi oversee two quiet zones that run from Ogden to Provo, but both were suspended in September 2024 over concerns about multiple crossings throughout the Wasatch Front.
All crossings within a zone must comply with regulations; otherwise, a zone is suspended until those are fixed. Residents near railroad crossings reported all sorts of issues tied to horn noise at all times of the day after the zones were suspended.
The Lehi zone, stretching from Provo to the southern half of Salt Lake City, was ultimately reinstated last month. However, a pair of crossings in the Woods Cross zone have held up its reinstatement.
Salt Lake City and Woods Cross had each submitted waivers tied to railroad crossings that had fallen out of compliance but weren't expected to be repaired anytime soon because of complexities in getting repairs made. In Salt Lake City's case, the city closed off a section of 1000 West to completely block off the crossing holding up the quiet zone.
A public comment period was slated to close on Jan. 21, but both waivers were essentially scrapped in favor of a waiver combining both crossings. Jones explained that, after consulting with a local Federal Railroad Administration representative, it was the best option to restore the quiet zone.
Government documents show that a new joint request was filed on Jan. 16, pushing the public comment deadline to March 17.
The new waiver already has the backing of one of the rail corridor's biggest operators. Utah Transit Authority director Jay Fox endorsed the new measure, writing a letter to the federal agency on Jan. 21 to ask it to approve the waiver.
"The proposed waiver ... aligns with the public interest by mitigating the negative impacts of train horn noise, without compromising safety at the crossings," he wrote. "There have been no reportable accidents, injuries or deaths at either industrial crossing since 2008, when the quiet zone was enacted, that are attributable to the lack of a gate arm on the industrial crossings."
The Railroad Safety Board will meet to vote on the request sometime after the public comment period ends. However, Jones told KSL.com on Wednesday that it's still unclear when the board will take up the issue.
He and North Salt Lake representatives both recommend that residents in impacted areas submit their experiences as public comment before the deadline, which they say could help bolster their case.
Impacted residents say they just want relief from all the sound.
Suzanne Liese, who lives by 500 West in Salt Lake City, called into Tuesday night's Salt Lake City City Council meeting to recommend that the situation be "handled as a public health emergency" as horns continue to blare at all hours of the day.
"This has been going on for four months; there is no end in sight," she said. "There is a lack of communication from the city about it, and it is seriously impacting tens of thousands of us."
