Train horns to keep blaring in downtown Cedar Rapids; too costly to establish quiet zone

CEDAR RAPIDS - The blare of train horns in downtown is here to stay - for the foreseeable future.

City Manager Jeff Pomeranz on Wednesday said the city has pulled the plug on a proposal to hire a consultant to study ways to implement a quiet zone through the downtown, a task that requires the installation of crossing gates that can cost up to $500,000 at each crossing.

Last week, city officials put the cost of the proposed study alone at $370,000 and estimated the expense of the crossing guards along the train corridor through the downtown at anywhere from a few million dollars to more than $10 million.

Pomeranz said the initial thought was that the study cost and the cost of implementation would be much less than what the cost projections now are.

“The goal is certainly worthwhile, but the overall package is way, way beyond what is reasonable and what had been contemplated,” the city manager said. “ … So why waste the time.”

The city and the Cedar Rapids Downtown District have been talking about establishing a quiet zone free of train horns through the downtown for several years now, and Pomeranz raised the matter anew in tandem with the city's purchase of the downtown hotel and its plans to renovate the hotel and return it to “upscale” status. Train horns blaring right outside might not be the best feature for a downtown hotel, Pomeranz said earlier this year.

On Wednesday, though, he said the city now will look at soundproofing measures inside the hotel to reduce noise from the train horns. The trains have been running by the hotel for the 32-year life of the facility, the city manager noted.

Doug Neumann, president/CEO of the Cedar Rapids Downtown District, on Wednesday said the establishment of a quiet zone free of train horns remained an “important” project that he said would help spur development in the downtown. At the same time, he said the quiet-zone issue was not on his list of top priorities. Among those is a proposal to build a new parking ramp across from the hotel and a second ramp on Second Street SE near the new federal courthouse.

The City Council even now is trying to figure out how to pay for the ramps.

“Given the higher priorities in play right now, this (setting the quiet zone aside) is an entirely understandable policy decision by the city,” Neumann said.

Axing the quiet zone from City Hall's list of priorities is the second major proposal to which Pomeranz and the City Council have called a halt in the last couple weeks.

The City Council had proposed buying 2.4 blocks of downtown property, which now house PepsiAmericas' warehouse and maintenance operations, and paying to relocate PepsiAmericas in a new building on the edge of the city. The cost was estimated at $10 million. The city then planned to use one of the blocks for a new Intermodal Transit Facility with the help of a federal grant.

Earlier this month, though, Pomeranz said the city could not afford the PepsiAmericas deal, and he said the city was giving up on building a new Intermodal Transit Facility and would return the city's bus operation to the flood-damaged Ground Transportation Center bus depot.

Pomeranz said the decisions on the Intermodal facility and the quiet zone are of a like nature.

“We have a lot of projects going on right now, and we're trying to set priorities and limit expenditures,” he said.