Burlington, Iowa, nears quiet zone plan

February 14, 2001 Burlington, Iowa, officials say they hope to have a plan in place near Christmas to silence the noise from passing trains, according to The Register-Mail in Galesburg, Ill. Many Galesburg residents would like a similar Christmas present, or such a gift any time of the year. 



City Manager Doug
Worden said safety modifications to seven downtown grade crossings and the
closure of three others are almost complete.

 Public Works Director Ron Knoke
told The Register-Mail that officials from the Federal Railroad Administration
and BNSF will inspect the work Dec. 2, then BNSF will have 20 days to comment
on the quiet zone design.

 If there are no objections, the FRA will award the
quiet zone status.

"We’ll be set to
go around Christmas," Knoke said.



Knoke said the total
cost for the quiet zones in Burlington will run about $500,000. That includes
about $310,000 for the main construction costs, the consultant’s fee and other
costs. He said no state or federal funds were used in Burlington. He said there
are safety improvement funds available in Iowa, but it takes three to four
years to get the money after the application is submitted. Knoke said the call
for quiet zones in Burlington was too strong to wait that long. He said Burlington
will get some money from the BNSF for closing the crossings.



"We were, I guess,
maybe more fortunate than some cities," he said. "The minimum requirement is
that all of your gate crossings have to meet minimum requirements."



He said most of Burlington’s
already did. He said medians are put in the middle and the gates must reach
within a foot of the medians. He said the newer version of the crossings is
known as "constant time gates," as opposed to "constant distance gates." He
said the new version takes into account the speed of the train as to when the
gates come down. The old version used distance, whether a train was traveling
at 15 or 60 mph, he said.

"

It adjusts to the
speed of the train," Knoke said.



Knoke said he
attended a workshop on quiet zones in September 2005, "but we didn’t start
doing anything until almost two years after that."



He said he goes
through or around Galesburg often.



"You have a much
more complicated rail system that goes through Galesburg," he said.

 "There’s
two main lines that go through (Burlington)," Knoke said. That compares to
seven BNSF lines that converge in Galesburg. He said the need to build two
overpasses and an underpass in Galesburg alone makes the project more
complicated here.

Plus, he said one of
the three crossings being closed in the southeastern Iowa city served as an
access road to just one business.

 City officials in Burlington have been
working on a noise-reduction plan for almost two years and hope it will lead to
more upper-story residential development downtown.