EDITORIAL: Voters can sound off on why a quiet zone is wise

Published 2:00 pm Monday, April 18, 2022

The balance of power in the Baker City Council has tipped against the plan to establish a railroad quiet zone in the city, at least temporarily.

This is a pity.

But it’s also an opportunity for city voters to flip that balance back, to state with their ballots this fall that there is no legitimate reason not to pursue a quiet zone.

On Jan. 25 of this year, the City Council voted 4-3 to apply with the Federal Railroad Administration for a quiet zone designation. The agency has approved more than 900 of those in the past 15 years or so, including 13 in Oregon. Quiet zones aren’t completely quiet — train engineers can sound their blaring whistles at their discretion, such as if they see a person or vehicle on the tracks. But otherwise they wouldn’t sound the whistle as they approach each public crossing, as is the case now, even though in almost every situation there is no danger.

But several weeks later, Heather Sells, who cast one of the four votes in favor of the quiet zone, resigned from the Council because she was moving out of the city limits and was no longer eligible.

On April 12 Sells’ successor, Kenyon Damschen, appointed by councilors in late March, joined Mayor Kerry McQuisten and Councilors Johnny Waggoner Sr. and Joanna Dixon to pass Dixon’s motion to have city staff prepare a measure for the Nov. 8, 2022, election asking voters whether or not they support a quiet zone.

There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong about taking a matter of public interest to voters.

But there is also a reason we elect people — including city councilors — to represent us and to make decisions on our behalf. Indeed, we entrust city councilors to decide on many matters more consequential than train whistles — spending several million dollars from property taxes and water and sewer bills each year, for instance.

In the case of train whistles, the four councilors who voted to pursue a quiet zone made the logical choice, and one that, based on a considerable amount of evidence, would benefit Baker City.

Train whistles, obviously, are a safety measure, to warn people that a fast-moving mass of hundreds of tons is approaching.

Yet based on expansive studies by the Government Accountability Office in 2011 and 2013, which surveyed 562 quiet zones across the nation, there is no “statistically significant difference” in the number of accidents at train crossings before and after quiet zones were established.

This is not a coincidence. To qualify for a quiet zone, a city must make physical upgrades to each crossing, such as concrete medians that make it much more difficult for a vehicle to get to the tracks when a train is passing.

Those improvements in Baker City won’t cost the city budget anything. A private group has offered to raise the estimated $150,000 needed, and in less than three months since the Council’s Jan. 25 vote, the group has collected commitments for nearly half the amount.

It remains to be seen whether the Council’s vote last week to override that decision, and put the issue on the ballot, will hamstring the fundraising efforts while it’s uncertain, over the next six months, whether the city will proceed with its application.

That, too, would be a pity.

To be optimistic, that’s also a period when voters can contemplate the realities and, ideally, recognize that Baker City would be better off if train whistles are blown only when they could possibly be beneficial.

Because right now, almost every one of those noises serves no tangible purpose.

— Jayson Jacoby, Baker City Herald editor