Establishing a Quiet Zone Chatham New York

1. Thank you for your recent news article on the option of
establishing a “Quiet Zone” within the village of Chatham.
I would like to comment on a couple of statements made
within that article.
I do not feel that our recent attempt at making the residents
of Chatham aware of Federal Railroad Administration options
“backfired”. In fact, it raised more recognition within the village.
The Facebook page, as well as your newspaper article, informed
Chatham’s residents of the benefits of establishing a “Quiet Zone”,
as well as the psychological and physiological consequences of
train horns blowing during the day and at night. It is important
for our residents to know that “Quiet Zones” are being
implemented with success across all the the United States. In
fact, as of October 2015, the Federal Railroad Administration has
received over 665 Quiet Zone Notification packages.
Further, the statement that establishing “Quiet Zones” will
“require millions of dollars, years of study and design and
approval by CSX and DOT”, and that it will detrimentally affect
“responder and rescue access to the whole village” is simply
untrue.
The “Quiet Zone” would not “certainly affect our traffic
patterns”, anymore than traffic is affected now. Nor is there a
“need to construct new crossings with different geometries”. Four
quadrant gates that are all ready present in our village.
The village of Chatham qualifies for Automatic Approval
under 49 CFR Part 222, Appendix A to Part 222 – Approved
Supplementary Safety Measures as two of the three crossings all
ready have Four Quadrant gates. The third crossing has three
gates. A single gate would need to be installed at this crossing.

2. As discussed previously, one of the first steps in the process
is to have FRA, CSX, and SHA conduct a no-cost diagnostic of the
crossing.