- Salt Lake City Council voted to close a small section of 200 South in Poplar Grove.
- The closure will help create a quiet zone, reducing train horn noise for west side residents.
- Mayor Erin Mendenhall praised the decision as a step toward silencing disruptive trains.
SALT LAKE CITY — Residents of Salt Lake City's west side had long complained about disruptive train horns blaring at all times in the day well before the fiasco that led to a similar issue from Ogden to Provo between late 2024 and early 2025.
While the issue has been solved elsewhere along the Wasatch Front, leaders of Utah's capital city hope that its decision to close a section of 200 South in Poplar Grove indefinitely will resolve the issue across every railroad crossing.
The Salt Lake City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to close a section of the road between Montgomery Street and approximately 1640 West. It allows the city to close off a railroad crossing in the area, as early as this July, that prevented it from qualifying for a federal quiet zone.
"While this is a little bit of a minor inconvenience to have the closure of this street, I think the positives outweigh the negatives," said Salt Lake City Council Chairman Alejandro Puy, whose district covers half of the west side, before the vote. "Creating this quiet zone in this part of town will be a big deal for a lot of our neighbors. They will be able to sleep better."
City leaders were presented with the proposal in April, which was considered the easier and cheaper alternative than bringing the railroad crossing up to new standards for quiet zones.
Quiet zones are a federal program established by the Federal Railroad Administration two decades ago. It allows train operators to pass crossings without blaring their horns unless there is an immediate emergency on the tracks because the area is deemed safe enough.
A pair of existing zones from Ogden to Provo were suspended for months when a few had fallen out of compliance, but those zones never included three crossings in Salt Lake City's west side.
Fixing the crossing at 200 South near Montgomery Street would likely cost tens of millions of dollars because it would require raising one of the rails that's at a different level than the rest, among other things, said Lynn Jacobs, a transportation engineer for the city.
Rocky Mountain Power, Union Pacific and Patriot Rail, all of whom are considered abutting properties, all sent the city letters of support for the measure, as they will all be able to access their properties. Both railroad companies acknowledged the inconvenience of train horns.
It's expected to have some impact on the area, although the section averaged less than 500 cars passing through daily, which is considered low. Nobody spoke to the measure during a public hearing before Tuesday's vote.
Physical barricades, fencing and signage on both sides of the tracks will eventually be installed by as early as July 1. The city plans to build a cul-de-sac west of the crossing to help vehicles turn around, while 200 South will bend into Montgomery Street east of it.
It's unclear when a new west side quiet zone would be established. Crossings at 100 S. Navajo Street and 300 N. Orange Street would also be included in the zone.
The city has met with railroad operators and the federal government to "design the necessary safety improvements to meet federal requirements for a railroad quiet zone," city officials wrote in a memo before Tuesday's vote.
Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, who has been a proponent of the quiet zone for years, celebrated the decision while the next steps are pieced together. She thanked the City Council for also supporting funding needed to engineer crossings that are up to code in recent years, as well.
"We're very close now, and (this) was a step closer to silencing those trains," she said. "I hope we could have a very quiet party when it finally happens."
Other road happenings
The City Council also approved an indefinite closure of 7200 West between I-80 and California Avenue, extending a closure that was first enacted in 2024 to handle illegal dumping issues.
The road could eventually reopen as a connection between I-80 and state Route 201 once the industrial growth demand is there, city public service officials noted in April.
Salt Lake City is also close to swapping rights of way with the Utah Department of Transportation over land in the area of 1300 South and 5600 West. The measure would help UDOT extend the Mountain View Corridor in the area in the future.
The swap can be carried out in negotiations between the city administration and UDOT without a City Council vote, but a public hearing was required. Nobody spoke about the measure in the meeting.
