This could set a bad precedent. An FRA train horn tax does not encourage people to live near rail lines:
The city of Vancouver is asking residents of its east end if they support paying to silence train horns in their neighborhood.
City officials, working with neighborhood leaders, floated the proposal as a way to pay for the required railroad crossing improvements that come with a “quiet zone.” It would create a Local Improvement District, in which each household would pay based on how close it sits to the railroad crossings between Southeast 139th Avenue and Southeast 164th Avenue.
The proposed district includes 467 properties in the East Old Evergreen Highway neighborhood, between the Columbia River and state Highway 14. Households would contribute based on a three-tiered system. Tier 1 homes — those closest to the tracks — would pay $177 per year; Tier 2 homes would pay $124 per year; and Tier 3 homes would chip in $53 annually for 20 years.
[…] unwilling to ban cell phone use by drivers, even as the death toll reaches staggering heights. And Systemic Failure says the Federal Railroad Administration continues to operate as if blissfully unaware that many of […]
[…] unwilling to ban cell phone use by drivers, even as the death toll reaches staggering heights. And Systemic Failure says the Federal Railroad Administration continues to operate as if blissfully unaware that many of […]
Seems like an excellent idea to me. Let those who complain about the noise/those who would benefit from the improvement be the ones to pay for it.
Seriously, nb? If you walk by my house banging a drum and 3 am, I should pay you to stop? Suppose I drive my truck by your house at 3am. How much would you pay me to stop?
If I move into a house, knowing full well that that you have been walking by this house banging a drum at 3 am since before the house was built, then I paid less money for the house than I would in a quieter neighborhood. If I really want a quiet house at this point, I should be willing to pay…
Did you move into that house after 2005? That is when the FRA train-horn mandate went into effect.
Sorry, but trains have been blowing horns/whistles at grade crossings since well before you or I were born. The FRA rule was a response to local efforts to ban horn use at crossings as “noise pollution”, which resulted in an increase in grade crossing accidents. The rule preempts such local efforts, but allows communities to create “Quiet Zones” by upgrading the crossings. There is plenty of information on why this happened here:
http://www.fra.dot.gov/eLib/Details/L02573
Dear Marc,
We are all aware of the history of the FRA horn-blowing rule. That rule had nothing to do with safety.
And yes, many crossing already had horns and whistles at grade crossings. But those horns got significantly louder, mainly as a result of the FRA rulemaking.
“But those horns got significantly louder, mainly as a result of the FRA rulemaking.”
No, they didn’t. I know the volume of the horns at the (ungated! unprotected!) private crossings in my town, and they haven’t really changed since I was a kid.
Were there some areas where the horns were extra-quiet before? I suppose it would have been a matter of railroad corporate policy. Conrail was pretty aggressive about such things, and perhaps had louder horns than some of your railroads out west?
Don’t be ridiculous. It’s always the menace’s responsibility to cease being a menace.
Isn’t this somewhat analogous to, say, having Berkeley pay to put Bart underground? Seems fairly reasonable to me.
No, it isn’t analogous. For one thing, the entire city paid for the subway bond — not just homeowners living near the line.
And, there is a clear benefit to BART of being above ground (i.e. saving money), while the benefits of the FRA horn rule are dubious at best.
This would be like asking property owners next to freeways pay for soundwalls, which as far as I know has never been done. (In fact, people who buy houses next to freeways that have existed for 60 years seem to view having those walls built as a birthright.)
This is Clark County, WA, who hate trains, hate taxes, and live there so that they can work in Portland Oregon without contributing to Portland society.
Accordingly, they won’t agree to it. Don’t worry about it.