Just seven days after the Caldwell City Council voted 5-1 to approve them, Mayor Eric Phillips has vetoed a pair of resolutions that would mobilize the creation of the first railroad quiet zone in the Treasure Valley.
Phillips issued two veto letters citing “unresolved concerns over safety” as his reasoning for halting the downtown project.
One resolution would have approved the implementation of the quiet zone to eliminate locomotive engineers’ routine use of train horns at seven local crossings. The other would have accepted a contractor’s bid of $238,000 to complete the safety-related changes required for the project. Those include physical barriers separating opposing traffic, gates blocking all lanes of traffic, and visual indicators like warning lights…