Re: Health, Safety and Welfare

Hon. Mayor and Council Members, et al:

The primary role of government is to provide essential services that protect the health, safety and welfare of its citizens.

Quiet Zones: In the absence of grade separations the new Horn Rule allows the elimination of HORN BLASTS on a ROUTINE basis. Mayor Andy Cohen requested that this issue be placed on a previous agenda. His request was ignored. Now the Transportation Commission recommendations has eliminated this serious health issue despite petitions and pleading before the commission who had previously included quiet zones on its list.

The Federal Railroad Administration warned that the Health and Safety of its citizens would be dependent upon the choices the cities make for added safety measures at its railroad crossings. 250 cities with over 2,500 crossings already had banned these injurious horn blasts. The FRA's own environmental impact report states, with a chart, that 660' has a "severe" impact and 1000'+ has a "serious" impact of horn blasts upon residents. (see.www.fra.dot.gov).

Ten (10) years of efforts on the part of many, including doctors lawyers and legislators, went into efforts to mandate lowering of the blasts from the 145+ decibels to a maximum of 110 dBAs and the lessening of the distance before crossings at which the horns blast. More expensive grade separations were recommended as a number one criterion for eliminating horn blasts thereby lowering the injuries to the unprotected residents, including the railroad's own customers who are now wearing ear plugs and defeating the purpose for warning pedestrians.

Blasts of this magnitude over a thousand times a day, intended to penetrate closed vehicles, are capable of freezing people in their tracks, causing shock and damage to the nervous system, acoustic trauma with buckling of the knees, instant deafness, positional paroxysmal vertigo and balance problems, rise in blood pressure leading to strokes and heart attacks (which requires the rr personnel to wear hearing attenuators) learning disabilities and damage to children, among other things, see League for the Hard of Hearing/Noise (www.lhh.org/noise.)

In he 3/5/08 Almanac article Working on the Railroad p.12, an engineer states that the horn is not what it once was. Responding to noise complaints from residents living near the tracks, Caltrain limits air flow to the horns..."It doesn't give you the authoritative sound to get people's attention" "You've got to have the authoritative sound"...= SHOCK!! Never mind that the blasts are terrorizing, torturing and injuring nearby residents. Sonar noise blasts are beaching whales and our soldiers are being disabled from bomb blasts.(see attached.) With all sympathy for all others concerned, the price of the constant new diesel airhorn blasts that can still be heard from 101 to 280 is too high for the protection of a few careless, risk-taking people who do not STOP, LOOK, LISTEN and LIVE!

We urge the council to put this issue at the top of its priority list once and for all.
Whether or not electric and high speed rail traverses this corridor, it will be many years before routine horns are stopped as in Belmont, San Carlos and other places.

The California state law says "within a city a bell may be rung" Supplementary safety measures, at whatever cost, with the cities as the lead agencies, will accomplish this noble goal. Without "quiet zones" there will be no sustainability to business or housing or health and safety of all residents. (see Sleepless in San Diego (www.ccdc.com)

Margaret Petitjean, Menlo Park
H.A.L.T (Homeowners Against Loud Trains) H.O.R.N. (Halt Outrageous Railroad Noise).Citizens for Noise Abatement - Peninsula.

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http://news.mobile.msn.com/en-us/articles.aspx?afid=1&aid=23523729 Received on Tue Mar 11 11:51:29 2008