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Residents came out in droves at Tuesday’s Menlo Park City Council meeting to support a quiet zone along the train tracks, sharing stories of incessant horn noise disrupting their quality of life.
People speaking at the May 9 meeting asked the council to add funding for a citywide quiet zone to city’s capital improvement plan, an element of Menlo Park’s current budget planning for the coming fiscal year. Seventeen residents spoke about the city’s need for quiet zones, along with 15 residents on Zoom who used the name “Quiet Zone supporter.” Other meeting attendees stood up to show their support but didn’t speak.
We now virtually have no waking hours without excessively loud, nearly constant horns going off.
Carrie, Menlo Park resident
Resident Alex Johnson said that he was supposed to host a guest from Germany last summer for a month, but after the first night his guest said he couldn’t stay due to train horns that woke him in the middle of the night. The guest measured the decibels of the train horn on the porch and said that the levels were higher than what is legally allowed in Germany.
Johnson also said that he’d attempted to rent the extra bedroom in his home but wasn’t able to due to train horns.
“(Potential renters) left before even entering my home because they were so disturbed by the horns while they were parking,” Johnson said. “This is upsetting for me because I’d love the extra income a renter would provide and should disappoint you as well because I know this city desperately needs all the affordable housing options that it can get.”
Carrie, who did not provide a last name, said that she has lived in Menlo Park for 16 years and has never gotten used to the train horns. Carrie listed several ways the noise has negatively impacted her life, from an inability to host events in her backyard to needing to pause work meetings when horns interrupt her.
“We now virtually have no waking hours without excessively loud, nearly constant horns going off,” Carrie said.
Transportation Director Hugh Louch said that the city would only need to construct improvements to two of the railroad crossings at Ravenswood and Oak Grove avenues in order to meet Federal Railroad Administration standards and establish a quiet zone throughout the city. The railroad crossings at Encinal and Glenwood avenues have lower traffic volumes and fewer collisions, so the city does not have to make modifications.
“In the time that we have been on this call … about three hours, I have heard the trains pass by and the horns ring about 19 times,” resident Jeff Jacks said. “It is a pervasive part of daily living.“
The city is considering establishing an assessment district to generate the estimated $4 million needed to build the quiet zone, and city staff is conducting an analysis to see if the district would be valuable. The quiet zone was ranked as a “Tier I” priority among capital improvements. The city added $150,000 from the downtown public amenity fund toward the project for a total of $450,000 toward the project.
In capital improvement plan discussions, the city also added purchasing electric leaf blower equipment to the operating budget.
I urged the Council to proceed now with the Quiet Zone Study.
As for funding the actual installation this is a perfect example of a public project that would provide disproportionate benefits to residents depending on their proximity to the train tracks. The train noise distribution pattern is also well defined.
The residents of Sharon Heights and Ravenswood, for example, should not be burdened with the cost of this project.
The simple and equitable answer is to create a Train Noise Abatement Assessment District comprised of all the properties within a certain decibel level of the train tracks and have all of those properties pay the full cost of the proposed noise abatement.
I would be in that assessment district – as would the city itself and the Stanford properties. – each of which should help pay the full cost including reimbursing the city for the initial study cost.
When we lived in Palo Alto the train noise was significant and troubling both in volume and frequency. It has been great to move to a quieter area, but what amazes me is that even in Portola Valley, weather depending, I can often hear those same train horns in the distance even from Portola Valley. Surely Caltrain could could achieve its purposes at a lower volume, and perhaps with more discrimination through directional audio? Would be great to solve this problem!
Those of us with lives disrupted by relentless train horn noise are deeply grateful to all five Councilmembers for their thoughtful consideration and questions that ran late into the evening, and for arriving at the Tier 1 priority for the Quiet Zone study completion among the many capital improvements.
We are also grateful to the owners and operators of the Stanford Park Hotel, Best Western Riviera, Hotel Lucent, Marriott Residence Inn, and Park James, along with the chef-owner of Camper and Canteen restaurants, who all voiced the significant negative impact of the train horns on their businesses and on the hospitality experience in the City.
There is still much work to do, but we are confident that Menlo Park can follow in the successful footsteps of Atherton in quieting the horns and improving the quality of life in homes, businesses, and public spaces.
If MP had not dragged its feet on grade separation, we won’t have to spend millions on this endeavor.
Agree that a Train Noise Abatement Assessment District would be the most equitable solution. Instead of a specific decibel level, is it feasible to base it on sliding scale to higher decibel paying more and lower decibel paying less as decibel is a logarithmic scale?
What about those of us that live close to the tracks that it doesn’t bother? Should we have to pay to fix a “problem” we don’t consider a problem?
“Surely Caltrain could could achieve its purposes at a lower volume, and perhaps with more discrimination through directional audio?”
What you’re describing is called a WaySide Horn, though it’s installed at the crossing itself. It’s still a horn, but the ‘blast radius’ is smaller since it’s targeted ONLY at the area needed: where the tracks and road intersect.
“The simple and equitable answer is to create a Train Noise Abatement Assessment District”
This is overly simplistic. I don’t agree with this approach (and I have no skin in the game).
There ARE benefits to upgrading the crossings that potentially affect EVERYONE that uses those crossings, not just nearby neighbors.
Specifically, the only reason SSMs (Supplemental Safety Measures) can allow for a Quiet Zone is because…wait for it…it makes the crossings SAFER. And EVERYONE that uses those crossings benefits from a safer crossing.
An assessment district requires a vote by all of the proposed property owners.
Although we invested heavily in sound reduction improvements when we remodel our townhouse such that we hardly hear the trains I would still vote to establish a train noise abatement district.
Reducing train noise is a collective good to which I am willing to contribute.
“There ARE benefits to upgrading the crossings that potentially affect EVERYONE that uses those crossings, not just nearby neighbors.”
If the crossings are being upgraded for safety reasons then I agree that it should be a community wide expense.
The crossings have not been upgraded for decades so if they are upgraded now because of noise concerns then those impacted by the noise should pay for the upgrading,
The grade crossings have needed to be changed for safety for decades. Noise reduction would be a side benefit, but a benefit just the same. If the grade crossings are just to make them “quiet zones”, while technically a safety improvement, it’s not much of one, like elevating the grades would be.
Among the more persuasive voices at the Council meetings were the owners/managers of downtown and El Camino hotels and restaurants, pointing out that the incessant horn-blasting drives away customers. Anyone who ever comes downtown, who goes to a soccer or baseball game at Burgess, who tries to carry on a conversation while sitting outdoors at Borrone or Philz or St Franks will benefit from the decreased cacophony.
Note also that the city is planning to build affordable housing along the tracks. Why burden these new residents with a tax that others in the city don’t have to pay?
If all capital expenditures were to be borne solely by the neighborhoods in closest proximity, our city’s financing situation would quickly become complicated to the point of absurdity. Why should anyone east of El Camino pay for improvements to parks in Sharon Heights? And should people in Sharon Heights have to chip in for landscaping that shields Suburban Park from 101? Paying taxes to a city isn’t that dissimilar to paying homeowner fees. You won’t benefit from every project, but when work needs to be done on your place, the money will be there.
Can we assess people for the of educating their children in Menlo Park Schools, while exempting everyone else from that tax?
What if my neighborhood almost never requires any police presence?
Maybe people whose houses are on fire should negotiate with the fire department while their home is burning down?
Why is Quiet Zone funding in a special category?