If you go What: Transportation Advisory Board When: 6 p.m. Monday Where: Twin Sisters conference room, Development Svcs. Center, 385 Kimbark St. More info: bit.ly/1VNbgP1 To comment on FRA horn rules:

1.usa.gov/1QY6o84

A group of residents plan to start urging the city to invest in making Longmont’s railroad intersections a bit quieter.

There’s a lot of activity around railroad intersections right now. The Federal Railroad Administration is accepting comments about its 11-year-old rules that require trains to blare their horns louder and longer when approaching crossings.

Additionally, development is underway on South Main Station at First Avenue and S. Main Street. As part of the agreement, the developer is paying half of a $1 million cost to improve the Emery Street intersection in preparation for a quiet zone.

The city is paying the other half of the cost, but the quiet zone improvements won’t be implemented until there are similar improvements at four other nearby intersections.

Responding to council direction in October, when 30 neighborhood activists showed up at a meeting asking for funding for quiet zones, staff just updated the proposed quiet zones costs in a 151-page study.

And on top of it all, the city is about to enter budget season.

The updated study will be presented to the Transportation Advisory Board at the board’s Monday night meeting.

Historic Eastside Neighborhood resident Rick Jacobi said he plans to speak to the board about the importance of quieting the train horns and has encouraged his neighbors to attend the meeting.

Jacobi said that the city needs to invest in downtown because of the development going on there and because of the density of homes near railroad tracks there.

“Right now there is a unique opportunity with South Main Street,” Jacobi said. “With quiet zones in the downtown area, the development will be a much better quality development — higher-income residents in nicer housing and nicer businesses moving in with the renovation down there.”

In 2010, city staff estimated that to implement quiet zones at 11 crossings in Longmont would cost between $3.7 million and $4.5 million. The project is in the Capital Improvement Plan, but remains unfunded.

The updated 2016 study estimates that for those same 11 crossings, the cost would be between $4.34 million and $5.27 million.

The updated study also adds in five intersections being studied for commuter rail by Regional Transportation District. Those would cost a total of $1.03 million, the updated study found.

Additionally, fencing at three added pedestrian crossings at tracks would cost roughly $217,000.

Both Jacobi and his neighbor Michelle Mabie both said they realize some Longmont residents may criticize the Eastside group for wanting to quiet the train horns.

“We hear, ‘If you didn’t like the train horns then why did you buy property here,'” said Mabie, a Transportation Advisory Board member.

Mabie and Jacobi said that the train horns have gotten significantly louder and longer since the FRA changed the rules.

“My feeling is that people who don’t live near the trains don’t appreciate the impacts the louder horns have. They’ve gotten so much louder it’s really not livable,” Jacobi said.

“It would be unreasonable to move in here and say ‘Now we don’t want any horns.’ We just want to work with the city on bringing the level back down to where it was before.”

Karen Antonacci: 303-684-5226, antonaccik@times-call.com or twitter.com/ktonacci