To the relief of Downtown residents, the City Council has approved the final design of improvements to the city’s 13 rail crossings — from Laurel Street to the intersection of Park Boulevard and Harbor Drive. The changes are necessary to qualify for a Quiet Zone designation to stop train whistles throughout the night. “We are ecstatic,” says Gary Smith, president of the Downtown residents group.

The nightly disturbances have become “a significant quality-of-life and safety issue,” says CCDC President Peter Hall. Current law requires engineers to sound their horns at all hours to alert pedestrians and vehicles when passing Downtown intersections.

The proposed improvements will meet guidelines recently set out by the Federal Railroad Administration for the designation of a quiet zone. The engineer will still have authority to use the whistle in an emergency, “but it would no longer be necessary to use it at every intersection,” says Donna Alm, CCDC’s v.p. of marketing and communications.

Officials from the FRA, the railroads, trolley, the city of San Diego, the state Public Utilities Commission and CCDC evaluated the physical factors at each Downtown rail crossing, noting the existing gates, number of lanes, traffic patterns, driveway locations, adjacent roads and pedestrian behavior.

As part of the program, CCDC will upgrade to quadrant gates that will cover all four lanes at one time to prevent people from going around them, convert G Street to one way between Pacific Highway and Front Street, add pre-signals on the approach crossings, improve warning signage, add safety striping and median islands.

Completion of the project and FRA approval is targeted for June 2006.

— Sandy Pasqua