The town’s efforts to create a Quiet Zone that would eliminate the need for train horn blasts 20 hours a day have gone from dormant to dynamic over the past month and could feature a citizen-driven option for a possible three-month seasonal horn moratorium in the area around the Needham Golf Club.
The flurry of activity came when separate senior MBTA officials, after months of being unresponsive to town inquiries, communicated with both town officials and a local resident to reinvigorate the sluggish project.
In the long term, the Quiet Zone Working Group now anticipates being able to move forward on developing designs and a more reliable cost estimate for upgrading the five grade crossings on public ways. In the near term, there are ongoing discussions about a possible agreement for an annual three-month (Dec. 1 to March 1) seasonal pause of the required horn soundings when trains approach and depart the Hersey station.
Long-term planning can now resume
The town has engaged Tighe & Bond as its engineering consultant to work on safety upgrade designs at the West Street, Rosemary Street, May Street, Great Plain Avenue and Oak Street crossings of the commuter rail line.
The financially challenged MBTA owns the safety-related infrastructure and technical equipment that would be upgraded or replaced, but it has no plans to make capital investments on the Needham line. Upgrades to MBTA gear would be made at the town’s expense but require MBTA approval.
The plans were expected to be presented at Fall Town Meeting but the town and Tighe & Bond were not able to obtain necessary information from the MBTA to design the project. Consequently, the plan had only advanced to the “10% Opinion of Probable Construction Cost” stage, insufficient for Town Meeting action.
Tighe & Bond, town officials and members of the QZWG all said they received no replies from MBTA officials when they sought their guidance. It was not until the week of Thanksgiving that Town Manager Katie King was able to secure a one-on-one meeting with MBTA COO Ryan Coholan.
“We were looking for some more guidance and, procedurally, what requirements he would have of us to advance to the next stage for the Quiet Zone,” King said at the Dec. 15 QZWG meeting of her goals in meeting with Coholan. “I’d say generally it was a very productive meeting, very positive.”
King reported she was told the T, “doesn’t have the bandwidth to do the construction, but they would work with the town to finalize all of the agreements that we would need for us to be able to do the work on their infrastructure.”
The town’s proposed capital plan for FY27 includes a $7 million request, to be funded by debt, for “Quiet Zone Safety Upgrades.” Assuming the town receives the needed information, Department of Public Works director Carys Lustig said, Tighe & Bond will “be able to move to a 30% design, which is where they feel they need to be in order to give us an accurate price.”
Lustig said the firm requires detailed information on what type of signal controls and gates will be needed. She said the design work will also identify purchases that can require long lead times.
Although the schedule is tight, if it all comes together before the end of March, the project could be voted on at Annual Town Meeting in May. If that vote passes, construction could begin in summer of 2027.
Liability, other concerns stall seasonal horn ban
Because communication with the MBTA occurred on separate tracks (pun intended), it has created a need to reconcile how to move forward with the problematic private crossing that abuts the golf course near the Hersey station. In season it is used by both golfers and non-golfers. It is lightly used when the golf course is closed.
Originally planned to be part of a townwide Quiet Zone, the crossing at the golf course had to be separated from the other crossings and treated as a separate project because it is not located on a public way.
This past summer, Needham resident and golf club member Chris Supple began his own discussions about the train horns with a different MBTA official, Michael Muller, the T’s executive director of the commuter rail.
After subsequent communications, Muller wrote in a Nov. 19 email to Supple that the T would be amenable to stop sounding the horns if the golf course installed a locked gate at the private crossing.
When the opportunity for the seasonal closure was discussed at the QZWG meeting Dec. 15, Select Board member and QZWG Chair Marianne Cooley said this was “new information that came into the town in late November and that was confirmed by Keolis.” Keolis operates the commuter rail for the MBTA.
She said the working group had inquired about seasonal closures months ago with the Federal Railroad Administration and was told that they were not allowed.
King, who is also a member of the QZWG, said T officials told her “there could be a seasonal stopping of the train horn if we were to fully gate off the current crossing there.”
She and other members of the committee said the agreement raises both safety and liability concerns that would need to be better understood before the town could commit to the agreement. The plan is to seek guidance from the town’s insurer and others.
“The adequacy of the gate is of large concern to me,” said QZWG member Justin McCullen, who is also chair of the town’s transportation safety committee. “I’m very wary about closing and telling the MBTA not to sound horns.”
“Obviously, we need to do things to increase that safety when we take the horns away,” he added.
Kate Weinograd, a member of Safer Quieter Needham, a longtime advocacy group for the Quiet Zone, also emphasized safety. “The SQN position has always been that the town should invest in upgrading our crossing infrastructure to make it more safe with the ancillary benefit of making the town quieter,” she said. “It’s about safety, safety, safety.”
Supple declined to be interviewed, but Alexandra Clark, president of the golf club’s board, said the golf course supports a seasonal closing.
“My understanding is that the MBTA would need the town to sign off any legal obligation if something were to happen at that crossing without any horns being blown,” she said. “We are trying to be a good neighbor and work with our neighbors, the town and the MBTA to achieve mutually beneficial solutions.”
Cooley said the town is doing its due diligence.
“Chris (Supple) showed up with something and said it’s possible on November 19. And he wanted to implement it in essentially 10 days — with Thanksgiving in the middle of it,” she said after the Dec. 15 meeting.
“People said hold on, there’s some questions we need to ask, because this doesn’t match what we heard before (from the FRA) and we need to understand what it actually is.”
Clark said the golf club is waiting for direction. “We lease the land,” she said, noting that they would defer to the town.
Save as PDF