TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE

OPPOSING THE FEDERAL RAIL ADMINISTRATION’S PROPOSED RULE TO IMPLEMENT NATIONWIDE SOUNDING OF TRAIN HORNS

WHEREAS, local governments across the United States place great importance on improving railroad grade crossing safety; and

WHEREAS, nationwide, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually to improve the safety of dangerous crossings; and

WHEREAS, in 1994, Congress passed the Swift Rail Development Act (hereinafter "the Act") which targeted whistle ban crossings nationwide by requiring that whistles be sounded at every at-grade railroad crossing in the United States; and

WHEREAS, the Proposed Rules (hereinafter "Rule") to implement the Act were published by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) on January 13, 2000, and have been thoroughly reviewed by a host of local, regional and state agencies; and

WHEREAS, the Rule offers relief from whistles only if communities spend vast sums of money on supplemental safety upgrades (hereinafter "supplements") to crossings, without access to any new federal funding sources; and

WHEREAS, the Rule will compromise highly effective state-administered safety programs by diverting resources away from the most dangerous crossings, towards installation of supplements at relatively safe crossings, simply to avoid the sounding of whistles; and

WHEREAS, review of crossings by many state and local agencies have concluded that many of these supplements cannot be installed where whistles are blown; and

WHEREAS, the FRA’s Rule goes as far as to acknowledge that the benefits from and impacts of whistle blowing differ greatly amongst various states and municipalities; and

WHEREAS, the FRA estimates that nearly 400,000 citizens nationwide will be negatively impacted by the Rule,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that The U.S. Conference of Mayors concurs that the Federal Railroad Administration’s Rule to implement nationwide sounding of train whistles should be significantly modified, or should be amended through appropriate legislation; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that any legislative or regulatory changes to the Rule should preserve the ability of a community to establish an enforceable quiet zone where whistles are not sounded, and should add actual value to existing state and local grade crossing safety programs.