Cambridge residents fed up with loud train horns 'at all hours'

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Residents in one Cambridge neighborhood are fed up with the loud commuter rail train horns blaring at all hours of the day.

Some residents near the Sherman Street MBTA crossing say they're woken up early in the morning by trains passing by.

"It's the first thing in the morning and it's at night - it's all day, it's horrible," said one resident.

However, the loud horns starting early in the morning and continuing through midnight just started in recent weeks.

"It started a like just a couple weeks ago, we’ve trying to figure out what’s going on - very ,very distracting," said  Ernesto Tavarez, a resident. "I have to come back from work and I have to sleep at least one or two more hours to get a little bit more rest."

The problem is that the area used to be a "quiet zone" - a designation the city applies for and the federal railroad administration approves. As it turns out, the city's exemption expired 12 years ago, and Keolis discovered that last month.

The MBTA told Boston 25 News in a statement:

"It appears that the City of Cambridge allowed their quiet zone exemption to expire. Once this was discovered, Keolis is required by federal law to sound the train horn when approaching and passing over the crossing."

The City of Cambridge explained in their website why they didn't take action, saying:

"After the paperwork was submitted for the extension to 2006, the FRA and the MBTA did not raise the issue of train horns at Sherman Street again, and it became clear that it was not a priority to resolve this issue."

Now, the city is working on making this crossing a quiet zone again. They will also host an informal public meeting next Tuesday.

In order to get a quiet zone designation so the horns stop blaring, the city needs to install added safety measures, possibly a median treatment to keep cars from traveling around the gates. Whichever the solution is, it will not be immediate.

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