By Jonathan Heller
STAFF WRITER Union-Tribune
March 7, 2005:
“Remember that scene from “It’s a Wonderful Life” in which George Bailey is waiting at the railroad station for his brother to return from college? He says wistfully: “You know what the three most exciting sounds in the world are? … Anchor chains, plane motors, and train whistles.”
Many residents of downtown San Diego complain that blaring train whistles in the middle of the night hardly contribute to a wonderful life.
” There’s a sadistic SOB who just lays on the horn at every intersection,” said Phil Gorman, who recently moved into the Watermark condominium complex on India Street.
The noise problem is the latest byproduct of downtown’s rapid residential growth.
Today, 20,000 people live downtown, and an estimated 60,000 more are expected in the next two decades. Many of the condominiums are being built on land that once belonged to the railroads.
More than 125 sleep-deprived residents crammed into the Downtown Information Center on Thursday to demand that the Centre City Development Corp., the city’s downtown redevelopment agency, do something about the noise.
The agency has been working on the problem since mid-2004 and hopes to silence the whistles within 16 months.”
Does anyone know if they were successful in silencing the train whistles?
