Romeoville, Lemont, Lockport Sign Off on Quiet Zone Study
The study, which should be completed by spring or summer, will determine the costs and challenges for creating quiet zones in areas along the Heritage Corridor.
In response to a growing number of concerns about train noise along the Heritage Corridor line, three southwest suburban municipalities are joining together this winter to study the feasibility of creating a quiet zone.
Officials in Romeoville, Lemont and Lockport have all signed on to participate in a quiet zone study, which will be completed by spring or summer. Establishing a designated quiet zone would require trains to use either a softer horn or none at all.
Lemont officials announced the study during a village board meeting Jan. 9.
"The goal of the study is to determine which improvements are necessary to achieve a quiet zone designation, and the costs associated with these required improvements," Lemont Assistant Village Administrator George Schafer said.
The idea for the study began with Romeoville officials, who recently approached Lemont and Lockport to sign on as well. Due to the proximity of the crossings in all three communities, Romeoville Mayor John Noak said it made more sense to pursue the quiet zone as a group.
"In order for it to be an effective quiet zone, you have to do it as a corridor," Noak said. "Otherwise, by the time [the train] would hit the next intersection, it would have to blow the horn."
In Romeoville, the quiet zone would primarily affect the crossing at 135th Street and New Avenue, near the Citgo Refinery. In Lemont and Lockport, the zone would impact the downtown areas, where each town currently has a Metra station, as well as the crossings down Main and State streets.
The Federal Railroad Administration must sign off on all quiet zones, meaning detailed analysis is required of all intersections to determine traffic counts and accident rates, as well as the condition of each crossing and potential improvements, Noak said.
“It’s a fairly complex formula,” he said. “Safety is ultimately the most important [factor],” Noak added, noting the fewer the accidents, the more likely the FRA is to approve the quiet zone.
Lemont officials said each municipality will pay about $2,500, plus the cost of traffic studies.
"It's more cost effective if we all go together, and it'll give the maximum relief to residents," Noak said.
With construction on a Romeoville Metra station scheduled to begin in 2014 and an East Side development plan in the works, Noak said it was a good time to revisit the quiet zone issue.
"Residents have been asking more [about a quiet zone] in the last few months," he said. "We thought it was a fitting time with all the work we're doing with the corridor."
In April 2011, Congressman Dan Lipinski (IL-3) announced that the Illinois Department of Transportation agreed to pay for a study of increasing Metra service on the Heritage Corridor line. Currently, Metra provides only three morning trains downtown and three trains to the suburbs during evening rush hour. There is no midday or weekend service.
Lemont Village Administrator Ben Wehmeier told Patch this week that the study is ongoing. However, village officials have been informed that final determinations could be impacted by the construction of the Illinois High-Speed Rail, Wehmeier said.
According to the project's website, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood awarded IDOT more than $186 million for the project earlier this month. Construction is already underway, and work on the extension to Joliet is expected to begin this spring.
Romeoville Patch Editor Shannon Antinori contributed to this report.
In This article
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Village of Lemont
418 Main St, Lemont, IL -
Citgo Lemont Refinery
New Avenue & 135th Street, Lemont, IL -
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John Quinn
10:05 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
I live a block up the hill from the tracks and I would like to hear more commuter train noise on those tracks. Mid-day and weekend routes is the only way the downtown will survive. Look at Downers Grove and all the other towns on the Burlington Line. There are no empty store fronts, condos are full, and the downtowns have tons of people traffic. I think noise studies are a waste of time and money. More options for commuter trains is the key to make Lemont successful and a place where people want to live and spend money. Tired of seeing good businesses and people investing their lives and not making it.
Edward Andrysiak
10:13 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
We have at least one unguarded crossing here in Lemont. No gates and no horns and someone will get killed! As an aside, we have gates, bells and lites at guarded intersections so you might wonder why we need the horn blowing at all. It may be laughable but it seems the horns just give those that are inclinbed to go around the gates some idea how far away the train is. I wonder, with the tech advances we have today, why a laser lite warning system couldn't be developed. I'm thinking of a forward laser on the train which activates a digital sign at the crossing that indicates in seconds exactly when the train will arrive. Quiet and effective. Distance measuring devices are not new and have been used in planes for years (DME). In short, we might rethink the entire system of warning...who are we warning and why and what , if anything has changed over the years.
Roseann
10:20 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
There is something missing from this story. Why wasn't this issue addressed when the increase in cargo train traffic for the suburbs was passed not too long ago? I could be confusing this with another train issue, so please clairfy, if you would. Nonetheless, stupid people, do stupid things and no matter the technology. It does get obnoxious when they blast the horn in the middle of the night. That could give someone a heart attack, followed perhaps, by a lawsuit!
Edward Andrysiak
10:48 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
Ya know Roseann...there is a bit more missing. I've been around for a long time and remember this being a problem (noise) in the past. It was taken care of as well. In one instance it seemed the RR people agreed to limit or not blow the horns. Later, after the blowing started up again, the RR people were paid money to quiet down. That lasted for a while. We are now back at the table looking at the same problem. But then, the trains were here first wern't they. Maybe we just need to get used to it!
Roseann
11:06 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
Your story rings a bell. I grew up around the sound of obnoxious train horns, so I'm no stranger to it and granted you kind of get "used" to it. HOWEVER....you say ". Maybe we just need to get used to it!" I say...maybe we just need to get rid of "it" (politicians, deep pockets, corruption, bribes, pay to play! ;)
Tim Wall
11:34 am on Thursday, January 26, 2012
This would be great - It's not just in the immediate downtown area where the horns are loud. I live in McCarthy Pointe & like to work from my deck in the summer. When trains go through town & I am on the phone, I have to tell the people to hold on & it is so loud they think I am parked at a rail crossing.
I used to live on Division St. & it was the same thing - very loud!
Tom Wencl
1:24 pm on Thursday, January 26, 2012
What a colossal waste of my tax money. This is just one more example of our government agencies unable to control their frivolous spending and further wasting our tax money on items of non-necessity. Generations of Lemont citizens have managed just fine listening to trains pass through town for well over 150 years; is this really a problem? Furthermore, the timing of this wasteful spending couldn't be worse. Our government agencies from the top down are bankrupt and their only answer is to keep stiffing the working man with higher taxes to pay for their inability to control spending? I'd like to retire someday, not keep handing over an ever increasing portion of my personal income and seeing it blown on ridiculous ideas such as this.
Secondly, I do not like public safety compromised. Removing the human element of a locomotive engineer sounding a horn and replacing it with solely a mechanical system to insure my safety is not without concern. Even the best mechanical devices fail. Do you want to be the person crossing the track when that eventually happens?
Finally, for the record, I very much enjoy listening to the trains pass through town, even at night, but especially when I'm at home enjoying time in my yard, while at a local football game, or while in a downtown restaurant or business. Both the air horns and the rumbling sound of thousands of tons of steel rolling on steel is truly a wonderful sound to enjoy in my world.
Tom Wencl
Lemont, IL
Tim Wall
1:37 pm on Thursday, January 26, 2012
I have been listing to the trains pass through town my entire life & I enjoy the rumble as well - it sounds like Lemont to me, but it wasn't until 1994 that they were required to blow their horns at every crossing.
Its the blowing of the horns at Talcott, then Holmes, then Stephen, then Lemont St., then Industrial Drive that amounts to one long blast of horns through town.
Tom Klimczak
10:48 am on Friday, January 27, 2012
Don't forget that there is a blind curve right in downtown Lemont. Ride along up front with the engineer as you come east or west through downtown Lemont and you can understand the need for copious quantities of horn as you pass through the downtown area.
Let's not forget the legal implications. Too many times, juries have sided with the stupid and rewarded their stupidity (look up Rachel Barton and her violin...sharp as a bowling ball, that one). Far too often, those who have challenged physics and either tangled their Toyota on the coupler of a train, or had their skull smashed on the snow plow of a locomotive (yep, just get a hose, no need for paramedics), have been awarded massive sums of money from the railroad (or worse Metra or Amtrak - that's your pocketbook getting picked directly).
I agree with the concept of more service. Metra is a little cash short right now. T'wouldn't cost Amtrak much to stop right in town though.
After 150+ years of whistles and horns, I vote for safety.
Edward Andrysiak
2:32 pm on Friday, January 27, 2012
This brings to mind another question. Trains on their property can go as fast as they want. On Village property however we may have some say as to their speed. Village property being those places where tracks cross a roadway. If we have any power over that we could insist they go 20 mph over our crossings. A slower train may not have to blow the horn but then, carefull what you wish for...a long slow freight could be a poor trade off. I'm begining to think we just eliminate the horn blowing! Idiots who go around down gates will do so anyway and maybe they would be inclined to do it less if they had no idea how far away that train really was.
Spencer D. Smith
4:03 pm on Monday, January 30, 2012
Just an FYI, it's not the freight train rumble or even the freight trains whistle that everyone is complaining about. It's Amtrak. They lay on the horn as though they think it's hilarious to wake up everyone in the neighborhood.
Other communities with flourishing downtown areas have quiet zones. We should too. Every person I know who lives downtown (myself included) brings this up as our number one gripe in regards to living downtown.
To call this a waste of taxpayer money is not seeing the forest for the trees. With the kind of noise being produced and sheer number of it at all hours of the day and night, Lemont is losing losing potential residents and business.