City Council Tuesday work session: Sign code changes, oil and coal train resolution

A train carrying oil along the Edmonds waterfront. (Photo by Larry Vogel)
A train carrying oil along the Edmonds waterfront. (Photo by Larry Vogel)

The Edmonds City Council will dive into a range of lively topics during its Tuesday, June 28, work session. Among them: proposed changes to the city’s sign code, including those governing sandwich-board signs downtown; a resolution urging a ban on transporting crude oil and coal by rail through Edmonds; and discussion of next steps in developing an urban forestry management plan.

Also on the council agenda:

– A quarterly update from the Edmonds Planning Board.

– A presentation by the Snohomish Conservation District and Edmonds Community College on how rain gardens could help reduced stream flows and improve fish habitat in Perrinville Creek.

– An ordinance to add no parking signs on the south side of 238th Street Southwest, from 100th to 104th Avenue West.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers, Public Safety Complex, 250 5th Ave. N. You can see the complete council agenda here. 

    1. See this update that was included in our council meeting report earlier this month:

      In other action, the council held a public hearing on the city’s 2017-2022 Six-Year Transportation Improvement Program, although no one testified. One disclosure of interest to those living downtown was news from Public Works Director Phil Williams that a wayside horn system aimed at lessening the noise as trains come through town, may be postponed from 2016 to 2017. That’s due to technical glitches with the signaling equipment that would actually cause the horn, which would substitute for the louder locomotive horn, to blow more frequently.

      “Right now the option being given to the city for triggering the wayside horns is the same signal that operates the signal arms,” Williams said. And that would mean that every time a passenger train comes through, you are going to get two sets of horns for 17 seconds each.”

      “We’re trying to figure out a way — instead of increasing the number of horn blasts when you are trying to quiet the community — to actually keep them the same,” Williams explained. “Quieter, but the same number.”

      The city is working with BNSF to determine whether the railroad can reprogram its signal cabinets. “If they can’t — and so far that is the answer we’ve been getting — then I’m going to maybe come back to you and say ‘do you still want to go ahead with the project?’” While staff is likely to recommend the wayside horn project proceed anyway, Williams said that councilmembers need to make that decision “with your eyes wide open that there’s going to be that little glitch in the system afterwards.”

  1. Please proceed with the wayside horns! I vote for more rather than the ear shattering loudness we now have.

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