City and federal officials met Friday to detail what San Diego must do to fix safety problems at railroad crossings, two days after the issues prompted the temporary suspension of a designated train “quiet zone” downtown.
In the meantime, residents of Little Italy and downtown may be hearing more loud train noises than usual.
The Federal Railroad Administration confirmed Friday that it had paused San Diego’s quiet zones between the Laurel Street and Fifth Avenue crossings following a Wednesday inspection that found safety violations that needed to be fixed. That lets trains passing through the area sound their horns in the meantime.
Mayor Todd Gloria said city crews were working Friday on replacing signage, pavement markings and flex posts that were identified as deficient by inspectors and would work through the weekend if necessary.
“The city is working with urgency to correct deficiencies and bring the quiet zone into compliance,” Gloria said.
The suspension comes after a rash of fatal train strikes in the region, with four people hit and killed on the coastal train tracks in the span of five days this month. And a number of people have been struck by trains downtown, where there are many grade crossings, in recent years.
The agency issued the suspension after railroad safety specialists “found a pattern of non-compliance with federal quiet zone safety rules over the past year,” said FRA spokesperson William Wong. It will remain in place until the city remedies the safety violations.
Among the issues identified: Not every public crossing within the quiet zone had the required supplementary safety measures or complied with state requirements, and paperwork documenting crossing inventories and safety devices was incomplete, Wong said.
The quiet zone will be restored once the city has adequately implemented and documented those safety measures. “FRA is working closely with city officials to facilitate this process,” Wong added.
In the meantime, train horns will help keep people safe, Wong said.
To silence the sound of train horns, federal railroad rules let cities seek to designate certain areas “quiet zones” — provided they meet certain safety requirements “to mitigate the increased risk caused by the absence of a horn.”
Designed to reduce the decibel level of train horns at grade-level intersections, San Diego’s $21 million quiet-zone safety system downtown was approved by the City Council in 2010. Because of the sophisticated warning systems, trains were no longer required to sound their horns for 15-20 seconds upon approach.
On Thursday, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, the North County Transit District apologized for the additional noise downtown and asked residents to “hear horns, think safety.”
Although the rail agency recognizes that train noise can be disruptive and inconvenient, Wong said the measure aimed to prevent avoidable injuries and deaths.
Remaining traffic counts that are required in order to have the suspension lifted will be completed by the end of January to submit for the federal agency to evaluate.
