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The City of Flagstaff, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), BNSF Railway and other stakeholders are seeking interim solutions to increase safety around the railroad crossings following 10 deaths in the past two years.

The city is in the design phase of both the Downtown Mile Safety and Connectivity Project and the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) Section 130 projects, but both are not scheduled to begin construction until 2026.

The eight total incidents in 2024 -- which resulted in five deaths and three injuries -- is the third-highest annual total since Flagstaff’s quiet zones were established in 2010.

In 2020, there was a total of six deaths and four injuries.

City traffic engineer Jeff Bowman, Flagstaff Police Department (FPD) Lt. Ryan Darr, FRA inspector Sara Logan, city project manager Christine Cameron and city public affairs director Sarah Langley provided insight into the plans, providing a glimpse into the short and long term, during a 50-minute presentation at Tuesday’s Flagstaff City Council meeting.

Most notable from the presentation was a Feb. 28 deadline by the FRA for the city to implement the interim improvements or potentially have the quiet zones at the five at-grade railroad crossings temporarily suspended. During the presentation, Bowman noted that the Arizona Corporation Commission recommended a suspension of the quiet zones following the stretch of train-related accidents in 2024, and Logan added that the FRA will keep in contact with the city over the coming weeks to monitor the progress.

“We realize that sometimes the weather may hinder some of that progress,� Logan said. “We will hold a meeting to look at that progress to make sure that it’s moving in the right direction to hopefully save that quiet zone from being suspended until everything is done.�

A field visit to the crossings that included representatives from the FRA, BNSF, Flagstaff Shelter Services, FPD, the city manager’s office and various offices within the City of Flagstaff led to a list of short-term improvements in an effort to avoid an immediate suspension of the quiet zones.

Those improvements include repairing existing fencing and adding additional fences at the five road-level crossings in the city, as well as adding signage to look out for a second train and signage that will include information for the suicide crisis hotline.

Cameron said Kinney Construction would begin the work in early February under the city’s job order contract.

“We have a lot of good projects in the works, but they’re not coming along at the speed that we would like in order to help this trespassing issue,� Cameron said. “We’ve been working with the FRA and BNSF to kind of pull some of those improvements that are going into the larger projects, kind of pull those forward and go ahead and get them underway.�

Currently, the five at-grade crossings included in Flagstaff’s quiet zone offer safety measures meant to alleviate the need for trains to sound their horns when approaching a crossing.

For Beaver Street and San Francisco Street in downtown Flagstaff, that includes active gates and warning devices spanning across the entirety of the one-way roads. With all lanes of traffic physically blocked at the crossings, the horns are not needed, according to the FRA’s Quiet Zone Risk Index.

Similarly, at Ponderosa Parkway’s crossing, the extended median offers a physical barrier to the lanes for oncoming traffic. The median serves a similar purpose as gates blocking all lanes of a one-way road, because a vehicle is theoretically unable to drive on the wrong side of the road in order to drive through the train’s gates when down.

For Steves Boulevard and Fanning Drive, the inability to place a long enough median at the shortened crossing space while operating as two-way roads leaves the need for wayside horns. Allowed to sound at a lower decibel level, the wayside horns sound toward the approach to the crossing as opposed to the train’s horn sounding as it travels down the tracks.

Two members of the public spoke about the requirement for the wayside horns on the east side’s two crossings, seeking a way to have them removed and instead meet the quiet zone requirements via alternative safety options. Bowman addressed the status of a plan the city had considered a few years ago to end the need for the horns at the crossings, explaining the lack of a capital project manager has led to the project being rolled into future budgets.

Cameron also presented on the future improvements to all of the city’s at-grade crossings through various projects.

The Downtown Mile Safety and Connectivity Project will connect Flagstaff City Hall to the new Downtown Connection Center via a pedestrian tunnel, with another connecting Walnut Street in La Plaza Vieja to Florence Street across the railroad tracks. The reconstruction of the bridge over Milton Road will also allow for enhancements to the pedestrian and bike pathways, and the pair of downtown railroad crossings will add gates to the opposite side of the tracks to prevent wrong-way drivers from reaching the tracks as a train moves through.

As for ADOT’s Section 130 improvements, made possible by grant funding, the Ponderosa Parkway and Fanning Drive crossings will have additional fencing, signage and lighting added. For Ponderosa specifically, a northbound presignal will also be installed to keep vehicles stopped well before the actual train crossing. The final project detailed during the presentation was the upcoming Lone Tree Overpass, which will add a grade-separated crossing over the Rio de Flag and railroad.

'Any one of these is too many'

Darr also addressed the possible reasons for the 10 deaths and four injuries in the past two years combined. Dating back to 2010, when the quiet zones were established, Darr explained that the past two years of 14 total accidents is high while still trailing the single-year totals of nine in 2017 and 10 in 2020.

“Any one of these is too many,� she said. “One of the reasons why I wanted to work on this was to dig down and find out why these things are happening, not just are they accidents or are they on purpose.�

Adding that it may be hard to put an absolute reason to each incident, especially with cases where detectives respond in the middle of the night and investigate the circumstances, Darr said the vast majority are suicides based on the evidence available. With 10 of the 14 incidents occurring away from established crossings, Darr added that FPD would like to place cameras in areas where incidents have occurred rather than official crossings in order to be automatically notified if movement triggers a notification of a person near the tracks.

“We have zero tolerance for anyone trespassing on the tracks,� Darr said. “Our officers don’t drive by; if they see someone walking on the tracks, they stop. � If you’re walking in an area on the train tracks that is not a crossing, you’re probably going to get contacted.�

Outreach and education

In addition to the engineering improvements and added enforcement, Langley presented on the public outreach and education the city will undertake as part of the efforts.

Along with community outreach through social media, public service announcements and physical signage, the city has listened to suggestions from the FRA based on what it has found to be successful in other cities.

Assisted by the FRA’s Operation Lifesaver Program, Langley said, a key message would be that crossings have blue and white signs with contact information and a unique identifier for the location in order to alert railroad operators of issues at a crossing well before a train arrives.

The city plans to get the educational messages out with assistance from behavioral health resource providers such as the CARE unit, Terros Health and The Guidance Center, as well as shelter-resource providers including Flagstaff Shelter Services and the Community Assistance Teams bus.

If you or anyone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 or visit .