Your Guide to Community, Politics, Arts and Culture in North Denver DenverNor thStar.com
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Volume 1, Issue 6
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March 15 -April 14, 2020
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ALWAYS FREE!
G Line Train Horns Won’t Go Quietly
Ernie's Reopens as Food Hall
PAGE 5 PHOTO BY SABRINA ALLIE
Trains running from the 41st and Fox Street Station south down the Gold Line commuter rail and adjacent freight train tracks toward downtown Denver blast their horns hundreds of times a day as they pass a privately owned fuel depot crossing. One neighbor has taken on the city and Regional Transportation District, and the city has begun issuing fines to RTD for violating noise regulations.
One Neighbor Takes on City, RTD in Fight to Stop 776 Horns a Day Developers Preserve Historic Chapel PAGE 9
ARTS & CULTURE NHS fundraiser Drag queens, dinner and bingo for cash
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COMMUNIT Y North Denver Saint PAGE 8 HEALTH & WELLNESS Walking Our Way Well PAGE 10
By David Sabados hile Blueprint Denver sets overarching planning and development goals for the city, small area and neighborhood plans are more focused efforts in specific communities. The city split Denver into 19 regions; one of the current priorities is the West Area Plan, including the West Colfax, Sun Valley, Villa Park, Valverde, Barnum and Barnum West neighborhoods. The planning process often takes 18 months to two years, according to Senior City Planner Eugene Howard. While the city began its research for the West Area Plan in March 2019, the public launch was last October. The city will do in-depth analysis, hold community meetings to receive feedback throughout, and then present recommendations. Planners said those recommendations could be in front of city council for review in Spring 2021. Still in the earlier planning stages, the city has held two large community meetings and presented at a dozen smaller ones. There are also monthly meetings with community members on a steering committee that are open to the public. “We’re asking very broad, general questions” at this stage, said Alexandra Foster, the communications program manager for Community Planning and Development, adding that they are
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DINING
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West Area Plan Could Shape the Future of West Colfax and Westside Neighborhoods
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By Sabrina Allie ust about a year ago, on April 26, 2019, many in the community came to celebrate the opening of the Gold Line (or G Line) at the 41st and Fox Street Station in Sunnyside. But that same day, neighboring resident Dan Mahony realized that RTD (the Regional Transportation District) had not made good on its promise in a press release issued April 17 that “quiet zones would be in effect along the entirety of the G Line corridor on April 26, 2019, when the line opens for passenger service.” After many months of testing the Gold Line between Union Station and Arvada during which horns are required to sound, neighboring residents were weary of the constant noise and had hoped, in vain, for relief. In the August 2019 Gold Line Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) required by the federal government, one resident quipped, “I just want to know when the loud, obnoxious quality of life affect of the train horns is going to stop. I have had enough of getting woke up at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m. and so on and on and on
and on. Prior to July 2007, there were no train horns. I just would like to know if at some point in the real near future they will be quieted.” The EIS indicates that a quiet zone is planned to mitigate noise along the G Line, and that both commuter rail trains on the G Line and freight trains would no longer sound their horns. It indicates that local municipalities would have to apply for the quiet zones, and that in areas where they are not feasible, the fallback mitigation would be to use wayside horns (which are much quieter) at crossings. Neither has happened, and neighbors have been subjected to almost constant horns for three years. In February, the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment confirmed that it has issued three administrative citations to RTD for violating the city’s noise ordinance, which have included fines that increased from $250 on Jan. 2 to $500 on Jan. 14 to $999 on Jan. 29. RTD has appealed the citations and the issue is now headed to a hearing in late March or early April – which may just
be music to the ears of Sunnyside residents. THE BNSF FUEL DEPOT CROSSING Just south of the 41st and Fox Street Station and the I-25 overpass, the RTD B and G lines share a rail alignment before they split to serve Westminster and Arvada. Both lines pass by a private maintenance yard and fuel depot owned by BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) Railway. Each day, the 194 trains that pass the fuel depot sound their horns four times before they cross, or 776 times per day. The 194 trains would pass by an average of one train every seven minutes, but the trains are more frequent during the day, sounding their horns ev- See PLAN, Page 3 ery three to four minutes – for the past three years, with no reprieve in sight. The horns are estimated to be 110 decibels, engineered to alert bystanders ¼ mile away – roughly as loud as a rock concert or thunderclap. The trains sound their horns between 300 and 400 feet from the long-standing neighborhood just northwest of the crossing and the new Westend apartments to the south, See TRAIN, Page 2
IMAGES COURTESY OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER