For the second consecutive Town Meeting cycle, a planned warrant article related to advancing the creation of a Quiet Zone to eliminate mandatory commuter rail train horn use in town has been scrubbed.
At its Sept. 18 meeting, the first since March, the Quiet Zone Working Group conceded it does not have sufficient information to provide a reliable estimate for what is required, and what it would cost, to implement safety upgrades at the town’s five grade crossings to a standard that would make the 20-hour per day cycle of train horn bleats a thing of the past.
Town Manager Katie King said Special Town Meeting in October will receive a report on the status of the project, but there will be no warrant article proposed.
“Even though it’s not going to advance to Town Meeting, we’ll continue this conversation with the Select Board about next steps,” she said.
The Select Board’s current capital plan lists a $3.5 million estimate as a placeholder for what would be required to upgrade safety levels at the grade crossings at West Street, Rosemary Street, May Street, Great Plain Avenue and Oak Street along the town commuter rail line.
That does not include the advance work being funded by a $750,000 appropriation made at the May 2024 Town Meeting that allowed the town to hire the engineering consulting firm Tighe & Bond to assess the infrastructure needs and other requirements.
The QZWG had hoped to have sufficient supporting information to make its case at Town Meeting this past May, but opted to wait until it could conduct more due diligence with the MBTA and its commuter rail operator, Keolis.
Completing that effort requires considerable communication with the MBTA and Keolis, but making that connection has proved to be difficult. Members of the working group and the town’s engineering consultants said they have not been able to engage with the MBTA and Keolis to receive the detailed information needed to prepare a reliable report.
“It’s the MBTA’s property that is operated by Keolis,” King said after the Sept. 18 QZWG meeting. “We need partnership from both because, at the end of the day, our project is making changes to their infrastructure.”
QZWG member Marianne Cooley noted that, “in the spring we had fully expected that we were going to be at 90% design at this point in the process. So, we’re at a different place. We had a diagnostic review and then we really didn’t get much beyond that.”
Tighe & Bond instead provided a “10% Opinion of Probable Construction Cost” which placed a $5.85 million price tag on the project and an additional 30% “design contingency” that could raise that to $7.6 million.
“I am grateful to our engineering team for giving us a price but that’s not a particularly informed price and it comes without actually a path forward with the MBTA at this point,” said Cooley.
Town officials were finally able to obtain a meeting with the MBTA’s COO, Ryan Coholan, at the end of August. It included King, DPW Director Carys Lustig and Tom Ryder, the town engineer. King told the QZWG that Coholan had thought the scope of the project was much smaller than it actually was.
“I think he hadn’t realized the extent to which we’d be upgrading the T’s infrastructure,” King said. “He asked for more time to look further at the materials so we sent some followup information.”
Lustig said the MBTA and Keolis are both vital.
“Everyone agrees we really should be talking to Keolis,” she said. “They’re the ones who would be providing the oversight during the project. They’re the ones who are reviewing our design. And the problem is the MBTA holds the key to that relationship.”
King said the town has yet to hear back from either and has run out of time to present an evolved plan to Town Meeting next month.
“It’s not for lack of trying on the town’s part to make that happen. So, people just need to understand that,” Cooley said at the meeting.
Safer Quieter Needham is a local group that has been championing the creation of the Quiet Zone for many years. Lars Unhjem, chair of its Executive Committee, is a member of the QZWG.
Kate Weinograd of the SQN leadership said the group remains optimistic about the progress of the project.
“The town has really shown its dedication to QZ and it’s just a matter of continuing to put the pieces together with the MBTA and Keolis,” she said. “Complicated projects with multiple public stakeholders take time, but everyone involved is committed to seeing this project cross the finish line.”
Interviewed after the meeting, Cooley said she understood if SQN supporters might be sad. “I think we all are because people have worked really hard on something that makes a whole bunch of sense for our town.”
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