Encinitas city officials got an earful of questions, concerns and even grateful appreciation Tuesday about their plans to build two pedestrian crossings over the railroad tracks in Leucadia.
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About 100 people turned out for a city-organized, neighborhood meeting at the Encinitas Community & Senior Center. So many people came that city employees delayed the start time by 10 minutes to allow everyone to sign in.
The majority of the audience appeared to live east of the tracks and many of them said they were keen for the two projects to proceed. But some people — primarily those who live or work immediately adjacent to the west side of the tracks — said they worried these new crossing points might lead to trains sounding their horns more often in Leucadia and added that the horn noise situation is already horrendous.
A pediatrician said she was concerned about how train horn noise impacts young children’s hearing. A woman in real estate said more horn noise would impact property values. And a brewery owner said the train horns are so loud now that all conversation stops in the brewery when the trains go by.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of excitement even for the quieter version (of the crossing points’ bells and whistles),” Matt DelVecchio, co-owner of Duck Foot Brewing said.
Project proponents said the new crossings would bring neighborhoods back together and make conditions safer.
“We were cut off three to four years ago when the (railroad) fences went up — it’s just not fair,” said Carol Heil as she described why her organization LeucadiaNOW has been campaigning to add the pedestrian crossing points.
One project proponent mentioned she’d fell that day making an illegal crossing over the tracks and had the bloodstains to prove it, while another said he had witnessed a recent fatality when a train hit someone. Michael Murphy, who’s lived in Leucadia for five decades, said he has vision issues and believes the proposed pedestrian-only crossing points will be safer for him than using the one at Leucadia Boulevard, where both vehicles and pedestrians cross the tracks.
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The city is proposing to put one of its new pedestrian-only crossing points at Phoebe Street and the other at Grandview Street, thus creating two new crossing points in a 1.3-mile stretch between Leucadia Boulevard and La Costa Avenue, where there currently is no legal place to get over the tracks.
Encinitas held its community comment meeting Tuesday because the two crossing projects, which first were studied in 2018, are finally starting to move toward, city employees said. In February, the California Public Utilities Commission granted Encinitas permission to pursue the projects — a decision that was much welcomed and highly unusual for the commission, city engineering director Dan Nutter said.
“Concept designs” for the two projects are about 30 percent complete, and the city hopes to have them done by the end of the year, city principal engineer Matt Widelski said. Encinitas already has started applying for grant funding for the projects, city employees said.
Councilmember Jim O’Hara told the crowd that the city will do all it can to “move forward in the best way possible,” and Nutter repeatedly stressed that the two projects will not proceed unless the city gets permission to install a bells and whistle system that eliminates the need for trains to sound their horns at the new crossing points.
Encinitas is considering using either a Pedestrian Audible Warning System, which is in use in San Clemente, or a Wayside Horn System. The Pedestrian Audible Warning System equipment is quieter and would be city maintained, and that’s the city’s preferred option, but it will require a special waiver from the Federal Railroad Administration, he said.
Many people in the audience asked the city to host a demonstration of the equipment, and O’Hara said this could be arranged.
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