New gates, intersections needed in downtown Rock Hill before trains can quiet down

Rock Hill wants to muffle the sounds of its downtown railroad tracks, but the city will have to come up with the money for enhanced safety measures at key crossings to get conductors to keep their hands off the horn.

City officials may rearrange some of their previous priorities to get safety measures in place so they can implement a 24-hour “quiet zone” through the downtown corridor as soon as possible.

The city is working with state transportation officials and the Norfolk Southern railroad to cut a planned four-phase improvement plan down to three, while shifting resources to improving one of the most dangerous railroad crossings first.

A quiet zone would require trains passing through the heart of Rock Hill – from the Poe Street-Quantz Street crossing to the Main Street tracks at Dave Lyle Boulevard – to keep their horns quiet all along the route. The intention is to improve quality of life for the people living, working and shopping within earshot.

Under plans drawn up by Rock Hill’s study group in 2010-11, the first phase focused on a $2.4 million project to construct a new crossing at the realigned Poe and Quantz streets. The City Council was told at a planning retreat Wednesday the Poe-Quartz crossing is fully funded and could begin construction as soon as this spring.

But the next phase of the process – affecting a five-way stop on Community Street – is $1.4 million short of its $2.3 million budget, drawn from city funds, the hospitality tax, community development grants and York County’s “Pennies for Progress” road-improvement program. The City Council considered options for boosting the project’s funding, like adding it to the next Pennies list for voters to approve in a referendum, but may instead switch the two projects around.

“Poe-Quantz is ready to go, but you could set that aside and do Community Street instead,” said City Manager David Vehaun. “This (Community Street project) helps with the downtown quiet zone, but we can’t do that until we fix that intersection.”

Currently, Community and Curtis streets intersect at the railroad track, at the same place where Church Street merges into the north side of Curtis behind Northside Baptist Church. The plan would eliminate what the city labeled a dangerous intersection by creating a single crossing, with the south side of Community becoming a dead-end street feeding onto an expanded Poplar Street.

But to complete that project, Norfolk Southern will require the city to put up a “four quadrant” gate on the site that would place a drop-down arm on each lane of traffic on either side of the tracks.

That kind of installation would be required for Rock Hill to lower its “risk index” for its downtown crossings, and thus qualify for a quiet zone along a 1.4-mile stretch of track.

To lower the risk index – based on road conditions, the amount of traffic, and crash history in the area, as well as safety measures already in place – would require four-quad gates at the Main and White Street crossings (a combined $1.7 million) as well as closing the crossing on Mill Street.

The last phase of the railroad project was to cut down on stopped trains blocking intersections by installing a dual sidetrack on either side of the rails between Community and Quantz streets. But general services director Cindi Howard told the council Norfolk Southern has said its longer trains would be unable to use the sidetracks, and the city will look at reallocating that money. The sidetracks won’t be necessary for the quiet zone.

“There’s so many parts to this, I feel like we’re trying to grab hold of jello,” said Mayor Doug Echols. “But I want to do what we can to get the quiet zone.”

This story was originally published January 27, 2016 at 5:48 PM with the headline "New gates, intersections needed in downtown Rock Hill before trains can quiet down."