Jim Lehrman bought his home near the Union Pacific tracks in 1999. At the April 8, 2025 City Council meeting, he said he had been told then that the railroad was winding down and would eventually become a rails-to-trails project. "That hasn't happened," he told the council. "The railroad traffic has only increased over the past 26 years."
Eighteen months later, Pleasanton is closer to a railroad quiet zone than it has been in nearly two decades. The cheap fix that got the design work funded has also become less certain. The city's project page, updated September 18, 2026, says reviews by the California Public Utilities Commission, Union Pacific and the Federal Railroad Administration are done, and that "extensive upgrades would be required to implement the quiet zone." A public meeting on those changes is scheduled for early October. After it, staff will take the findings to the City Council and ask for direction. The city had not posted an exact date, time or venue as of October 4.
Why the horns sound in the first place
Federal rules require trains to sound their horns before public road crossings: two long blasts, a short one, and a long one, starting 15 to 20 seconds ahead of the crossing. The Independent described the requirement as at least four horn soundings at a minimum of 96 decibels. A city can lift that requirement only by adding enough crossing safety measures to make up for the missing horn. Even inside a quiet zone, engineers can still sound the horn in an emergency, such as when a person, a car or an animal is on the tracks.
In Pleasanton, Union Pacific runs both freight trains and Altamont Corridor Express commuter trains on the same line. It comes out of Niles Canyon and Sunol, runs through downtown, follows Stanley Boulevard toward Livermore, and climbs over the Altamont Pass. Inside city limits, it crosses Santa Rita Road, Saint Mary Street, Rose Avenue and Angela Street.
The ACE weekday timetable shows which horns are not commuter trains. As of ACE's current schedule, the four westbound trains stop in Pleasanton at 5:23, 6:48, 7:53 and 8:45 a.m. The four eastbound trains stop at 3:08, 4:28, 5:28 and 6:28 p.m. The city notes that ACE also runs special-event service. On a typical weekday, though, ACE adds nothing to the horns between early evening and the next morning. The Independent described the horns as sounding through downtown neighborhoods "at all hours of the day and night." The commuter schedule covers only part of that.
Still, ACE growth is what brought residents to the council. Dan Fellman, whose family has lived one block from the tracks for 28 years, said there was "rarely more than one train a day" when they bought their house. He said the noise became a problem after ACE added two more trains in the morning and two in the evening.
How a low-priority project got funded
In the spring of 2025, the quiet zone wasn't on the city's spending plan. City communications manager Heather Tiernan told Pleasanton Weekly the project had ranked low in the capital improvement prioritization process, so it was left out of the proposed budget for fiscal years 2025-26 and 2026-27. A Change.org petition dated April 28 had support from 229 residents. It argued that "lower-cost safety solutions are now available."
The idea of lower-cost solutions carried the project from there. Each step after that depended on the work staying small:
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| August 19, 2025 | Council creates the Railroad Quiet Zone capital project, CIP 26510 |
| October 15, 2025 | City issues a request for proposals for a design consultant |
| December 16, 2025 | Council unanimously approves Kimley-Horn's $168,858 contract |
| January 2026 | City begins the quiet zone review process |
| March 17, 2026 | Staff ask council to fund up to $50,000 to reimburse Union Pacific for review time |
| September 18, 2026 | City reports "extensive upgrades" are required |
| Early October 2026 | Public meeting, followed by a request for council direction |
Kimley-Horn was the only firm to respond to the city's request. The contract is being paid for with money left over from the Bernal Synthetic Turf Repair Replacement project. When the contract was approved in December 2025, the plan relied on what Sunol had done. A 2007 Pleasanton staff review had estimated $2 million for crossing upgrades with motorized gates. The city now planned median islands or similar designs at about 10% of that cost. The Independent also reported a condition. If Kimley-Horn found that the crossings needed more than typical civil designs, the project would need more funding and new city approvals.
What the city expected in March
The March 17, 2026 City Council agenda report is the clearest record of what staff expected before the railroad review was finished. Union Pacific requires up to $10,000 per crossing for its staff review. The report said that amount would cover "a very detailed review of plans for installing a quad gate and/or other complex installation measures." It also said Pleasanton was unlikely to need that kind of review.
The report also brought in a fifth crossing. Union Pacific's records list St. John Court as Eva Street, a private emergency vehicle access point, and the railroad requires it to be part of the quiet zone. Staff expected "modifications to be minimal" there. They planned to bring recommendations for all five crossings to the council in summer 2026.
The same report includes a cost that will apply whatever the design turns out to be. Any safety measures installed will be the city's to build and maintain, and Union Pacific requires a Construction and Maintenance Agreement before construction starts. Medians cost relatively little to maintain. Gates and other equipment cost more every year, not just when they are built.
What changed by September
The summer council review never took place. In September, the city reported that the railroad review had found extensive upgrades were needed, and it put a public meeting ahead of any council decision. The project page does not say which crossings need what work, and it gives no new cost estimate. The early-October meeting is the first chance for residents to see the actual list.
That moves the decision back to where it was in June 2025. Back then, Tiernan said total implementation could cost anywhere from $50,000 to $500,000 or more, "depending on the number and characteristics of railroad crossings and the required safety upgrades." The September update suggests the cost will land toward the top of that range. Until the meeting, though, nobody has published a number.
The schedule has also changed. Kimley-Horn's proposal laid out a 21-month timeline. The March report listed these steps:
- Preliminary analysis, January to March 2026
- Concept development at 15% design, March to July 2026
- Stakeholder engagement, March to July 2026
- Council review of the design concept, July 2026
- Final design, July to December 2026
- Construction, January to September 2027
Step four is now at least three months late, and the city has not posted a revised schedule. In December 2025, the Independent called the 2027 construction window a best-case scenario that would depend on how well the city, Union Pacific, ACE and the Federal Railroad Administration worked together. That forecast came before the railroad's review. Now the city's estimate is about two years to design, review, construct and activate the zone.
Pleasanton has priced this before
This is the city's second serious try. In October 2007, the East Bay Times reported a proposal for four-quadrant gates at four downtown crossings. It was estimated at $1.6 million to $2 million, plus about $20,000 a year in maintenance for each crossing. In June 2008, the paper covered residents campaigning to quiet the horns, including the overnight freight trains. No quiet zone came out of that effort. The 2025 restart depended on the argument that Sunol had since proved a cheaper approach.
Sunol shows both why that argument was reasonable and why the timeline should be read loosely. Work began in October 2017 at the Main Street, Bond Street and Castlewood Drive crossings. Sunol had targeted October 2017 to have the quiet zone in place. According to InformSunol, it became official in June 2018. Fremont has established quiet zones at Stevenson Boulevard and the Niles/Nursery Avenue crossing. Its Centerville corridor finished concept plans in February 2026 but still has no construction or establishment dates.
When the council approved the consultant, Lehrman told the Independent that the project would take "the better part of two years and require approvals from the railroad and federal agencies." The approvals are now underway. The open question is how much the council will spend. After the public meeting, staff will report the scope of the upgrades and ask the council what to do next. The project's status is tracked on the city's Traffic Engineering current projects page, which is where the early-October meeting was first announced.
If you live near the downtown tracks and are wondering how the quiet zone's timing could affect future plans for your home, Couture Real Estate Group can go over what we see along the rail corridor and what buyers ask about it. Get your free home valuation, and we'll include our notes on the project as the council moves forward.
