Petaluma starts quiet zone process

Railroad crossings in Petaluma are on track to become significantly quieter after the Petaluma City Council voted Monday to establish so-called quiet zones in the city that would spare neighbors from eardrum-rattling train horn noise.

The unanimous vote starts a process that could take three to six months as state and federal regulators and railroad operators, including Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit officials, comment on the quiet zone that would span between Corona Road and Caulfield Lane.

The time frame could coincide with the launch of SMART commuter service from Santa Rosa to San Rafael next year. Last week, the rail agency revised its launch plans, pushing back the start date from December to spring of next year due to complications with train engines.

“We expect to get this going by the time SMART is up and running,” said Dan St. John, director of pubic works. “To be safe, the whole process should be wrapped up in three months.”

Bob Ulmer, who lives near the rail crossing at North McDowell Boulevard, told the council that many residents are irked by the 100-decible horn that will blare up to 30 times per day during service.

“Petaluma residents want a quiet zone to spare us from the extremely annoying and physiologically damaging effects of train horn noise pollution,” he said.

In a quiet zone, train engineers will not be required to sound the horn at each crossing, but will do so if there is an obstruction on the tracks, St. John said. SMART installed extra safety measures, including added crossing arms and median barriers, to make the crossings in Sonoma and Marin counties quiet zone-ready.

Eric Danly, the city attorney, said that SMART has sought to indemnify other jurisdictions, including San Rafael and Novato, in order to shift liability in quiet zones. But, since the quiet zones come with additional safety measures, he said that Petaluma should not assume increased risk.

“It doesn’t make sense from a public policy standpoint for us to have an agreement structure to shift risk that doesn’t seem to exist and to increase the public’s cost of dealing with claims,” he said. “My recommendation is that we not sign an agreement.”

City Manager John Brown said that the quiet zone process could take up to six months. During that time, SMART will continue testing trains along the corridor and blowing their horns. Councilman Chris Albertson said that, perhaps the city could communicate with SMART to go easy on the horns in city limits.

“The neighbors feel, and probably justifiably so, that maybe the engineers were coming through and were maybe a little overzealous with the horns,” he said. “Maybe they could comply with the rules but maybe not exceed those rules, at least in the short term.”

(Contact Matt Brown at matt.brown@arguscourier.com.)