PROVO -- Coming soon to a neighborhood near you, if you live in downtown Provo: a welcome respite from the train horns that honk day and night.

The technique is called a quiet zone, and that relief is coming about three years earlier than originally planned for the densely populated downtown Provo neighborhoods that are close to the train tracks. City and Utah Transit Authority officials decided to fast-track the quiet zones for four intersections, which could be in place early next year. Those intersections are at 200 West, 500 West, 700 West and 900 West in south Provo.

Steve Meyer, UTA's manager of engineering and construction for the FrontRunner Commuter Rail, is behind the longest quiet zone in the country, which stretches from downtown Salt Lake City to Pleasant View and will about double in length once FrontRunner South is open. Typically, UTA waits on quiet zone applications until the whole project is ready, but city officials wanted residents to have the benefits of a quiet zone, so they jump-started the application process, he said.

Under Federal Railroad Administration law, trains are required to honk when approaching intersections to alert others of their presence unless other safety measures, such as flashing lights and the lowering arms, are in place. Most of the intersections in Provo don't have those measures, so when the Union Pacific and other trains come through, the engineers have to honk.

However, with the coming of FrontRunner, commuter rail that will have trains coming frequently and at all hours of the day, UTA decided to go the quiet route and started building the required safety structures, including raised medians that will keep impatient drivers from going around lines of cars. Since the infrastructure is in place, no one saw a reason to wait.

"That's good news for everybody, whether they ride FrontRunner or not," Meyer said.

Greg Beckstrom, the deputy public works director for the city and the point man for the quiet zones, said city officials were concerned because residents are seeing the downside of the construction -- detours, inability to turn left at railroad crossings, constructions that slowed traffic and took over the neighborhoods sometimes -- but they wouldn't see the benefits of quiet zones for about three years, when FrontRunner is tentatively scheduled to go.

"We were anxious to proceed sooner than that," he said.

Those four intersections are in highly residential areas and the train noise is disruptive to a large number of residents, which is why they selected the downtown area to go quiet first. Most of the other intersections will probably not be quiet zones until FrontRunner is completed, but that's not definite, Beckstrom said.

The construction and other work, including electronic upgrades, are scheduled to be completed by the end of the year. The application process includes notifying Union Pacific and other railroads, the Utah Department of Transportation and the Federal Railroad Administration, and the city has to have a 60-day notice period so residents can speak up if they don't like it.

"Basically, if everything goes perfectly, we could possibly see the quiet zones implemented shortly after the first of the year," he said, adding everything most likely will not go perfectly, and spring is a better estimate.

And for those select few who might miss the sound of a train horn, UTA will have a downloadable version on its Web site.

"They can download that, maybe as a ring tone or something," Meyer joked.

• Heidi Toth can be reached at (801) 344-2556 or htoth@heraldextra.com.

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