People living near tracks blast loud trains - and LIRR agrees
BY JESS WISLOSKI DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, September 23rd 2007, 4:00 AM
Train whistles are romantic fodder in folk songs and literature, but for those who live near the Long Island Rail Road, bone-jangling horn blasts from passing trains have increasingly become an unromantic nuisance.
Complaints against the country's largest commuter rail are at an all-time high, but LIRR officials say they can't lower the horn volume because of federal regulations.
So they're trying to change the rules themselves.
"Friends, neighbors - everywhere I go, people talk to me about the horns," LIRR President Helena Williams told the Daily News.
"In this day and age when you have noise pollution everywhere, people are sensitive about the length and pitch of our horns. They have some legitimate concerns," she conceded.
Homeowners who bought properties next to railroad tracks said they were prepared for a small nuisance, but a recent increase in horn volume and more frequent use has tipped their sanity scales, they said.
"It's like you're being assaulted," she said. "You acclimate yourself to noise in this city, but this is too much."
Some blame the LIRR's new trains as the culprit for their worsening woes, but the agency noted that the fleet, which was fully replaced early last year, is operating at the federally required minimum loudness.
But that may change soon.
"We're seeking a waiver so we can lower the decibel of the horn," as well as reducing the sequence of blasts, said Williams, who said the LIRR is also testing new technology.
A 2005 Federal Railroad Administration mandate amped up horn use rules at crossings, and raised the minimum volume to between 96 and 110 decibels.
The LIRR wants an exemption, so it can lower it to the previous level of 92 decibels. Every 3 decibels means a doubling of loudness.
"The problem is when you use the horn in a dense area, it reverberates off all the residential buildings and multiplies exponentially," Williams said.
For Jack Mevorac, a Long Island attorney, the news arrived right on time. He founded the Train Noise Abatement Association after the new rules drowned Cedarhurst, with five street-level crossings, in 1,200 blasts a day.
"It's not a quality-of-life issue, it's a health crisis," said Mevorac, who routinely wears earplugs.
After demonstrations by his group, engineers and media outlets logged readings of 109 to 119 decibels in his town.
"We have already crossed the point where everybody agrees they're too loud," he said. "Everyone at least is moving in the right direction."
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