Birch Point quiet zone effort revived

Whitefish City Council has renewed its commitment to help create a quiet zone at the Birch Point Drive railroad crossing.

Residents of the neighborhood have complained for years about trains blasting their horns when passing through town.

Doug Wise, who has been working on the issue for the last eight years, told the council there are about 160 train whistles every day.

“It’s a quality of life issue we’re talking about,” he said.

The city has long tried to work with BNSF Railway, the Montana Department of Transportation and neighbors in an attempt to create a railroad quiet zone at the crossing.

Council directed city staff to begin work on a special improvement district for the neighborhood that could help pay for the quiet crossing. Updated cost estimates indicate the total project at just under $800,000.

“I’d really like this project go forward,” councilor Pam Barberis said.

Public Works director John Wilson said the project lost traction over the years primarily because of the costs.

The state agreed to contribute about $200,000. While BNSF had previously committed to about $100,000 of the total. Wilson said representatives from the railway company now say they will not contribute any funds.

Cost estimates for the zone in 2011 were $377,000.

“Technology has changed, which has made the cost go up,” Wilson said. “The updated cost estimates also seem to be [BNSF’s] way to discourage it.”

An estimate from a third party may actually put the cost lower, Wilson noted. As it stands, the city and neighbors would need to find about $700,000 in funding.

Wise said the Birch Point residents are still willing to participate in an SID.

Based on the 2011 cost estimate, neighbors then were looking at funding about $220,000 of the total cost. With 44 properties in a potential SID, that broke down to about $5,000 per property spread over 20 years.

However, the new cost estimate for the entire project more than doubles the amount per property.

Council Frank Sweeney suggested expanding the SID to include 80 properties, noting that a quiet zone would impact those beyond the immediate neighborhood.

City Manager Chuck Stearns said the city may be able to contribute money for the larger community that would include residents outside the SID boundaries that would benefit from the quiet zone. He noted that residents in the City Beach and Wisconsin Avenue neighborhoods can often hear the train at the Birch Point.

“There is room for city participation beyond what we did for the other quiet zones,” Stearns said.

In 2008, the city installed equipment at the State Park Road and Second Street railroad crossings for less than $10,000 so locomotive engineers no longer had to blast their horns, but those sites already had crossing arms and signal equipment in place.

The city paid for signage and channelization devices installed in the center of the roadway for about 100 feet in either direction at the other two crossings, but the roadway at the Birch Point crossing must be widened.