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CONSIDERATION OF THE INCLUSION OF FIVE (5) ADDITIONAL RAILROAD CROSSINGS ORIGINALLY INCLUDED AS AN OPTION IN CONTRACT K-1415-136 WITH JWEBB & ASSOCIATES, L.L.C., INCREASING THE CONTRACT BY $12,250 FOR A REVISED CONTRACT AMOUNT OF $54,031.25 EXTENDING THE RAILROAD QUIET ZONE FROM POST OAK ROAD TO THE NORTHERN CITY LIMIT.
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BACKGROUND: The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) owns and operates one of the busier rail lines in the State of Oklahoma. The line, which bisects the City of Norman with sixteen at-grade crossings and two grade separations, extends from Temple, Texas, to Kansas City, Kansas. Along with an average of forty daily freight trains, the line is also used by Amtrak for daily passenger rail service between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth, Texas.
Historically, railroads have sounded locomotive horns or whistles in advance of grade crossings and under other circumstances as a universal safety precaution. Some states allowed local communities to create whistle bans where the train horn was not routinely sounded. In other states, communities created whistle bans through informal agreements with railroads.
In the late 1980's, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) observed a significant increase in nighttime train-vehicle collisions at certain gated highway-rail grade crossings on the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) at which nighttime whistle bans had been established in accordance with State statute. In 1991, FRA issued Emergency Order #15 requiring trains on the FEC to sound their horns again. The number and rate of collisions at affected crossings returned to pre-whistle ban levels.
In 1994, Congress enacted a law that required FRA to issue a Federal regulation requiring the sounding of locomotive horns at public highway-rail grade crossings. It also gave FRA the ability to provide for exceptions to that requirement by allowing communities under some circumstances to establish "quiet zones."
The Train Horn...
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