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May 31, 2011

Jeffrey Weatherford (Deputy Director at Public Works & Engineering) did reply to our email in March but we were delayed in getting the response posted on this website. Below is his response which is similar to previous responses. We have heard many people comment recently how the train horn seems louder and how there seems to be more trains lately. We have been pushing for the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone for over two years now. We need all the continued (and new) support that we can get. PLEASE contact your elected representatives and City of Houston Public Works & Engineering Dept. to express your support for the 34th St Quiet Zone. Click here for contact info.

Mr. Weatherford's response:
" At this point we have not determine how much if any additional funding might be available for use beyond the original 8 Quiet Zones that were funded.  Until we have advanced enough on the other projects determine what the necessary funding is, I cannot begin to expend money on a new project.  We continue to work with the Railroads on the other projects and at this point we have not received the cost estimates from them for the required work on the other lines.  I do not have an estimate of when we will receive this information from the railroads."

February 1, 2011

We apologize for the delay in providing an update regarding the 34th St Quiet Zone but there have not been many updates from the City of Houston since mid 2010. We recently sent the letter below to the City of Houston Public Works & Engineering Dept. We will keep you posted on any response we receive.

"We understand the City of Houston is still working on Quiet Zones ranked higher than the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone.  As I’m sure you know, residents in many Northwest neighborhoods (Oak Forest, Garden Oaks, Shepherd Forest etc) are anxious to hear whether there will be enough funding for the 34 St Quiet Zone. We do understand that the City of Houston is currently dealing with budget constraints. We just want to remind the City of Houston that there are several options to implement some or all of the proposed 34th St Quiet Zone. The letter we sent in Sept 2009 can be found here.  Options 3, 4 and 5 all save over $700,000 off the original estimated cost. If it is too costly to implement the entire span of the 34th St Quiet Zone at once, is it possible to implement the Quiet Zone in phases as funding allows?  Supporters of the 34th St Quiet Zone would rather see an initial implementation of a smaller Quiet Zone that would benefit thousands of people rather than see no Quiet Zone at all.

 We look forward to working with you to get the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone funded and implemented.  Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help move the 34th St Quiet Zone forward.  Thank you. "

 

June 22, 2010

We appreciate everyone's patience while we have been waiting for an update on the status of the 34th St Quiet Zone. We received an update from the City of Houston today. According to Public Works & Engineering (PWE), the FRA rulings were favorable to the City -which is good news! PWE continues to work on Quiet Zones ranked higher than the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone. PWE has indicated that there is a good chance that there will be funding for the 34th St Quiet Zone but they can not guarantee that at this point. According to PWE, "Until such time as we have accurate costs for these remaining projects, we cannot determine whether or not there is sufficient funding available to complete the [34th St Corridor] Quiet Zone." We will continue to check in with PWE and provide updates as we get them. We remain hopeful that there will be funding for the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone. At this point, we just have to wait until work has progressed on higher ranked Quiet Zones.

 

March 7, 2010

Supporters of the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone met with City of Houston Public Works & Engineering officials on 2/23/10. City officials provided an update on the status of the 34th St Quiet Zone and answered questions from supporters in attendance. As most are aware, the 34th St Quiet Zone was ranked #9 on the list of proposed Quiet Zones in the Houston area. The City is currently working on implementing Quiet Zones ranked higher than the 34th St Quiet Zone. The City of Houston has made a case to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) that several railroad crossings within some of the Quiet Zones already meet the requirements for a Quiet Zone and therefore do not require costly upgrades. If the FRA ruling is favorable to the City, then there will likely be enough funding for the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone. If the ruling is not favorable to the City, the City plans to appeal but the chances of getting funding for the 34th St Quiet Zone would be slim. The FRA ruling is expected sometime in April.

If the 34th St Quiet Zone receives funding and moves up to an actionable project, the next steps would be approval by Houston City Council and public hearings. The City would proceed with Option 2 (closing Golf and Courtlandt crossings) that was submitted back in Sept 2009. Once the 34th St Quiet Zone receives all approvals, it will take an estimated 13 months for the railroad company (BNSF) to implement the 34th St Quiet Zone. While the timeframe may seem long, we are closer than ever to seeing the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone become a reality. Please spread the word about the 34th St Quiet Zone effort and urge all neighbors, friends, coworkers etc to support the Quiet Zone. We encourage everyone to call, email or write City officials expressing support for the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone. Contact information can be found at http://www.34thquietzone.com/index-2.html.

December 2, 2009

The City of Houston Public Works & Engineering Dept is working to implement Quiet Zones ranked higher on the list of proposed Quiet Zones. We have been pushing to get word on whether the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone will get funded. We will continue to contact the City of Houston for updates and will keep you posted. Please express your support for the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone to the District A Council Member, the Mayor, and City of Houston Public Works Project Manager. Contact info can be found here. Check back for updates.

September 27, 2009

The City of Houston is still reviewing the community feedback and options to reduce the estimate cost of the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone. City officials including those from Public Works & Engineering will be meeting this coming week to discuss the Quiet Zone. We hope to hear soon whether the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone will be approved for funding. If you have not already done so, please email, call or write your elected representatives expressing your support for the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone. Thanks!

September 10, 2009

Today we submitted community feedback on the possible crossing closures to the City of Houston. We also outlined several options to reduce the cost of the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone. The letter we submitted can be found here.

A high-level overview of the letter is that we believe there are only two crossings that are less controversial and realistic candidates for closure - Golf and Cortlandt. We believe there was too much opposition to closing Oak Forest, Brinkman and Cornell. The owner of a property in the vicinity of the Brinkman crossing has indicated a willingness to fund up to $65,000 toward the Brinkman crossing upgrades if it enables the Quiet Zone to be implemented. The funding from the property owner combined with the Golf and Cortlandt closures results in an estimated savings of around $225,000. We believe this is the optimal solution to reducing the cost of the Quiet Zone while still ensuring the Quiet Zone can be implemented for the entire corridor. If this option does not reduce the cost enough, we proposed several other options that include removing some crossings from the Quiet Zone. We will let everyone know when we get a response from the City of Houston. Thanks to everyone who solicited and provided feedback on the possible crossing closures.

August 24, 2009

Oak Forest has been taken off the list of potential street closures. We are still soliciting initial feedback on the possible closures of Golf, Brinkman, Cornell and Courtlandt at the railroad crossings. Please send feedback regarding crossing closures to info@34thquietzone.com. There will be a public meeting in the future to discuss any proposed street closures. For those with interests in Independence Heights, we will be speaking at the 9/1/09 Independence Heights Super Neighborhood meeting. We will discuss the possible closures of Cornell and Courtlandt at that meeting.

The position of the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone team is that we believe the benefits of the Quiet Zone outweigh any potential negative impacts of street closures. The 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone will benefit thousands of people living in several neighborhoods. We are looking at some tradeoffs here because it does not look like we can get the Quiet Zone funded and implemented without at least a couple street closures. If we do not get funding for the 34th St Quiet Zone, another community will get the funding and we may never see a Quiet Zone. We do understand the concerns of some with street closures (traffic flow etc) and we want to get to an outcome where we can get the Quiet Zone implemented with street closures having as minimal an impact as possible.

August 06, 2009

We first want to thank Ms. Parker and Mr. Weatherford from the City of Houston Public Works & Engineering Dept for meeting with us and discussing options to get funding for the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone.

A full recap of the meeting we had on 8/3 is here. Our meeting focused around discussing possible railroad crossing street closures. The 34th St Quiet Zone is borderline on getting enough funding to implement the Quiet Zone. It sounds like we need to get at least a couple streets closed at the railroad crossings in order to realize enough cost savings so the 34th St Quiet Zone can be implemented. There are two prime candidates for closure (Golf & Cornell), 2 good candidates for closure (Brinkman & Courtlandt) and one questionable candidate (Oak Forest). Please review the meeting recap and send feedback regarding crossing closures to info@34thquietzone.com.

August 03, 2009

We had a very productive meeting with officials from the Public Works & Engineering Dept. We decided to rename the Quiet Zone effort to the '34th St Corridor Quiet Zone' since the proposed Quiet Zone parallels 34th St from W TC Jester to near Main. We all felt that a more generic name would better describe the Quiet Zone since it will affect several neighborhoods. We also discussed possible crossing closures to help reduce the cost of the 34th St Corridor Quiet Zone. Futher information and a recap from our meeting will be forthcoming shortly. Stay tuned!

July 29, 2009

The Interim Deputy Director for the City of Houston Public Works & Engineering Dept has scheduled a meeting on 8/3 with supporters of the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone. Several supporters from different neighborhoods will be attending the meeting. We want to thank Katherine Parker and Deputy Director Weatherford for setting up this meeting. We look forward to a productive meeting. We will keep everyone posted on the outcome of the meeting.

July 17, 2009

After several attempts to get a response to our 6/20 email from Toni Lawrence's office, we have yet to hear anything back. We would really appreciate the support from our elected Council Member. Other Quiet Zones are moving full speed ahead thanks in part to the support of their respective Council Members. Please express your thoughts to Toni Lawrence by contacting her office. Contact info here

June 20, 2009

KHOU report here on Quiet Zone on East side of Houston.

June 20, 2009
We are disappointed with the apparent lack of support for the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone from our District A Council Member Toni Lawrence. An email we recently sent to Toni Lawrence's office is copied below. We will let you know if we get any response. Please email Toni Lawrence expressing support for the GO Quiet Zone - districta@cityofhouston.net

Was there any money in the 2010 budget for Quiet Zones - particularly the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone?  The residents of Oak Forest, Garden Oaks, Shepherd Forest etc have continued to petition for a Quiet Zone in our area. We were disappointed that the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone was not ranked higher by the City of Houston even though we have one of the highest concentration of residents of any proposed Quiet Zone. The Garden Oaks Quiet Zone will improve safety at railroad crossings, improve quality of life for residents and increase property values. The residents of the area just want one thing - quiet nights without train horns blowing at all hours of the night. For the City of Houston, the City will most likely recoup every dime they spend on the Quiet Zone in the form of higher tax revenue from increased property values on properties near the train tracks. Has Council Member Toni Lawrence campaigned for constituents in her area for the Garden Oaks Quiet Zones?  In the newsletters received from Toni Lawrence's office, it appears that many issues from dog parks to multi-family parking to urban gardening are more important than Quiet Zones in District A which would improve the quality of life for thousands of people. We are again urging Toni Lawrence to campaign for the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone on behalf of thousands of her constituents.

-Garden Oaks Quiet Zone Coalition

June 16, 2009
The GO Quiet Zone did not get Federal Signal Program (FSP) funding to upgrade the crossings. The FSP funding would have gone a long way to reduce the proposed cost for the GO Quiet Zone. At this point, the GO Quiet Zone is on hold until the City of Houston approves more funding for the Quiet Zone program. Please contact the Mayor and your other elected officials to request more funding for the Quiet Zone program and express support for the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone.
 
April 13, 2009
We continue to have discussions with City of Houston officials regarding the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone. There are several options and proposals that might increase its ranking on the list. We will keep everyone posted. Please continue to spread the word about the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone. Please email, call or write Mayor White and Council Member Lawrence supporting the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone if you have not already done so. We appreciate your support!
March 4, 2009
We met with Council Member Lawrence's Chief of Staff and two representatives from Public Works & Engineering on March 2nd to discuss the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone. We appreciate them taking time to meet with us. The outcome from the meeting was essentially that the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone was more expensive and therefore was ranked lower. At this point, our best option is to campaign the City of Houston for more funding for Quiet Zones. A full summary in Q&A format is available here. Please email, call or write Mayor White and Council Member Lawrence requesting additional funding for the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone.

February 19, 2009
Council Member Lawrence and other City officials have agreed to meet with us to discuss the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone. We will be meeting on 3/2 and will let everyone know the outcome of that meeting. Thanks for your continued support of our efforts and the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone!
 
February 9, 2009
Council Member Lawrence was scheduled to speak with Mayor White last week regarding the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone. We are still waiting to get an update from the Council Member's office on what happened at the meeting. We recently spoke with Katherine Parker who is the City of Houston Project Manager for Quiet Zones. According to Katherine, the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone was not ranked higher mainly because its potential cost was higher than many other Quiet Zones. We expressed our view that although it might have a higher cost, the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone would benefit thousands of people and would be worth the cost. We added Katherine's email to the Contact page so please express your support to her in addition to the Mayor and Council Member Lawrence.
 
February 1, 2009
Thanks to everyone who has emailed and called Council Member Lawrence's office, the Council Member will be speaking with Mayor White tomorrow to advocate for the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone. Hopefully she will be able to convince the Mayor's office to reconsider the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone a top-ranked request for implementation this year. If you have not already done so, please email or call Council Member Lawrence and Mayor White requesting a reevaluation of the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone. Also, tomorrow (2/2/09) is Council Member Lawrence's annual CIP (capital improvement program) meeting. Please join us in attending this meeting to push for the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone. The meeting is at 6:30pm at Spring Woods High School. Link to location here. We hope to see you there!
 
January 27, 2009
We found out today that the Quiet Zone rankings were released. See document here. The Garden Oaks Quiet Zone was ranked #9 out of 16 proposed Quiet Zones. Only Quiet Zones ranked #1-6 will be funded with the fiscal year 2009 budget. We are disappointed with this ranking. Based on objective criteria of population, land use, number of trains, train speed etc, we believe the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone should be a top-ranked request. There are over 4700 homes within one mile of the proposed Quiet Zone in Garden Oaks, Oak Forest and Shepherd Forest alone. That does not even count apartments, businesses or homes in other neighborhoods in our area. We are following up with the City on whether the rankings are final at this point. We have also asked when the other Quiet Zones will be funded. We will keep you informed. Please call, email or write the Mayor and Toni Lawrence requesting that the Garden Oaks Quiet Zone be moved up in the rankings.