Encinitas Just Won the Money to Quiet Its Train Horns. Why Leucadia Will Keep Hearing Them for a While
October 15, 2026
October 15, 2026
At 9:54 on the morning of May 1, 2019, a Coaster train went through the Chesterfield Drive crossing in Cardiff without blowing its horn. Eleven minutes later, city officials stood at that intersection and celebrated it. That half-mile of track had become Encinitas's first federally designated quiet zone, in effect since 12:01 a.m. on April 28 and running around the clock. It cost about $6 million in SANDAG crossing work plus about $770,000 from the city for gates, lights and other required safety equipment, according to The Coast News.
Seven years later, the city has the money to do the same thing from downtown to Leucadia. In August 2026, the Federal Railroad Administration picked Encinitas for up to $33.6 million in rail-corridor funding. Most coverage stopped there. But the horns will go quiet only after state and federal regulators sign off. In Leucadia, the city's preferred quieter system depends on a special federal waiver, and another beach town has already lost one.
The grant covers three projects along about six miles of the LOSSAN rail corridor. That track is owned by the North County Transit District. The award pays for both project development and construction. Encinitas has to put up a 20% match. Here's each project and where it stood at the August 19 City Council meeting, as reported by the San Diego Union-Tribune:
| Project | Location | Estimated cost | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| E Street to Leucadia Boulevard Quiet Zone | Crossings at E Street, D Street and Leucadia Boulevard, plus the downtown station | $13.4 million construction | Coordinating with CPUC and FRA on waivers |
| Pedestrian crossings at grade | Grandview Street and Phoebe Street, Leucadia | $6 million | About 70% designed |
| Pedestrian undercrossing | Verdi Avenue, Cardiff | $16 million construction | Final design done; next step is CPUC approval |
Three road crossings would get new vehicle and pedestrian gates. The midplatform pedestrian crossing at the downtown Encinitas station would close. The city's consultant looked at raised medians, the usual low-cost safety upgrade. A November 2025 white paper found them unworkable at E Street, D Street and Leucadia Boulevard because intersections and driveways sit too close to the tracks. Instead, it proposed four-quadrant gates, which block both sides of the road on both sides of the tracks. City Manager Jennifer Campbell put the grant in perspective at the meeting: the city spent $77,000 on consultants to win it.
The rest of the schedule is in other agencies' hands. The city's quiet zone project page says the consultant, RailPros, finished 50% design on October 31, 2025. That design went to NCTD, the California Public Utilities Commission and the FRA for comment. RailPros was due to deliver 90% design by summer 2026. The page hasn't been updated since June 16. As of early October, no city release or news report confirms the 90% milestone was met.
No source gives a construction start date, a completion date or a date when routine horns stop between E Street and Leucadia Boulevard. The Union-Tribune reported that the city has "started coordinating" with the CPUC and FRA on waivers for a new warning system along the tracks. Once that system is installed, trains will no longer have to sound their horns at those crossings. Campbell also mentioned new federal grant spending deadlines but didn't give dates.
How much does it matter? NCTD runs 30 Coaster trips each weekday. Amtrak added a 13th daily Pacific Surfliner roundtrip between Los Angeles and San Diego on January 26, 2026, which brought that route back to pre-pandemic service. Together that's about 56 scheduled passenger trains through Encinitas on a typical weekday. Freight trains share the corridor too, but no current published count exists for them.
Under the FRA's train horn rule, locomotives sound their horns at public crossings starting 15 to 20 seconds before they arrive. The pattern is two long blasts, one short and one long. A city can get a quiet zone only after it makes up for the extra risk of trains not sounding horns.
Even then, the city's own page lists the exceptions:
That's why the city says quiet zones "may be more accurately described as 'reduced noise zones.'" At Chesterfield in 2019, then-council member Tony Kranz said the same thing: engineers can still blow the horn for any safety concern.
Cardiff's quiet zone relied on hardware. Encinitas put in gates and safety equipment, finished the required work, and federal rules took it from there. Four-quadrant gates are one of the standard supplemental safety measures that qualify. Some alternative measures, and stationary wayside horns, need separate FRA and CPUC approval. That's where Leucadia comes in.
Between Leucadia Boulevard and La Costa Avenue, there's no legal way across the tracks for 1.3 miles. The Grandview and Phoebe crossings would add two. Encinitas first studied the projects in 2018. In February 2026, the CPUC gave the city permission to pursue them, a decision city engineering director Dan Nutter called highly unusual for the commission.
About 100 people came to a neighborhood meeting at the Encinitas Community & Senior Center in late May. The Union-Tribune reported that most of the room seemed to live east of the tracks and wanted the crossings built. Some people who live or work right along the west side of the tracks worried the crossings would bring more horn noise. They called the current noise horrendous. A brewery owner said all conversation stops when trains go by. Matt DelVecchio, co-owner of Duck Foot Brewing, said, "I don't think there's a lot of excitement even for the quieter version."
Supporters made the case for access. "We were cut off three to four years ago when the (railroad) fences went up — it's just not fair," said Carol Heil, whose group LeucadiaNOW has pushed for the crossings. A longtime Leucadia resident said a pedestrian-only crossing would feel safer than the shared one at Leucadia Boulevard.
Nutter said several times that the crossings won't go forward unless the city gets approval for a warning system that removes the need for train horns there. The city's preferred option is a Pedestrian Audible Warning System like San Clemente's. It's quieter and the city would maintain it, but it needs a special waiver from the FRA. The fallback is a wayside horn system. Many people at the meeting asked for a demonstration of the equipment, and Councilmember Jim O'Hara said one could be arranged. The city also wants to bring the two new crossings into its quiet zone.
In June 2016, San Clemente unveiled an audible warning system at the pedestrian crossings along its Coastal Trail. It was billed as a way to keep warning sounds at the crossings and out of nearby neighborhoods. To qualify, the city also put up 2,600 feet of fencing along its nine crossings. San Clemente chose a five-year waiver that had to be renewed, rather than a permanent wayside horn system, which is louder.
In 2020, the waiver came up for renewal. The city fixed the repair and maintenance items that had been flagged, but on November 24 the FRA denied renewal anyway, and routine horns came back, according to the Orange County Register. "For five years, they haven't heard horns," City Manager Erik Sund said at the time. The research for this post didn't find how San Clemente's system has operated since that report. Treat the 2020 lapse as one documented episode, not a description of San Clemente today.
For Encinitas, the lesson is about timing. Four-quadrant gates at E Street, D Street and Leucadia Boulevard are standard, gate-based equipment of the kind Cardiff already uses. A waiver-based system at Grandview and Phoebe would be quieter, but any approval comes with its own terms, and San Clemente's approval had to be renewed every five years.
The city posts updates on its rail corridor project pages. These are the next steps in the public record:
For more on how the corridor fits into daily life along Coast Highway 101, see our guide to the Encinitas 101 restaurant wave and our Encinitas neighborhood page.
Do you live near the tracks in Leucadia, Old Encinitas or Cardiff and wonder how the rail projects might affect your street? Jorge Alvarez follows each step of the corridor projects and is happy to walk you through the public record, in English or Spanish. Contact us or request a free home valuation / solicita una tasación gratis.
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