enhancements to create the
nation's longest Quiet Zone in
Orange County.
one or several consecutive public
highway-rail crossings in which
locomotive horns are not routinely
sounded. The Orange County Quiet
Zone spans 34 railroad crossings
where safety enhancements were
made to a total of 52 crossings
in eight cities. The project was
completed in 2012, and the entire
process took seven years and
cost $85 million. Typical safety
enhancements included extended
and widened center medians;
improved sidewalks; improved
highway approach geometry; four-
quadrant pedestrian gates and
flashers; exit gates; pre-signals;
queue-cutter signals; vehicle traffic
signal system interconnections
with advanced preemption; and
reconstructed and lengthened
highway-rail grade crossing surfaces.
of Riverside opened in 2016. The first
extends more than seven miles along
the BNSF railway line between Mary
Street and Buchanan Street (running
parallel to the SR-91 Freeway). With
12 at-grade crossings, this stretch of
tracks averages more than 100 trains
per day (including those operated by
BNSF, Metrolink and Amtrak).
went into effect December 28, 2016.
Running along the Perris Valley Line,
this Quiet Zone is composed of
four crossings between Mt. Vernon
and averages 15 trains per day. A
third Quiet Zone is planned for the
four crossings from Palm Avenue
to Cridge Street. The crossings
at Palm, Brockton and Panorama
are operated by the Union Pacific
Railroad (UPRR), while Cridge is
operated by BNSF. These crossings
average approximately 30 trains per
day (run by BNSF, Metrolink and
Union Pacific).
three intersections at the Sonora
Avenue, Grandview Avenue and
Flower Street crossings by San
Fernando Road. Train engineers only
will need to blast their horns in the
event of an emergency such as a
person or car on the tracks.
projects, in 2017 Metrolink
constructed rail-highway grade
crossing improvements in Covina.