Folks who live in the Suffolk Meadows community have been sleeping a little better since January. That’s when a new “quiet zone” went into effect for the railroad that passes near the neighborhood.

Prior to January, when a train approached the Nansemond Parkway railroad crossing near Suffolk Meadows, the conductor was required by federal law to sound the whistle, regardless of the hour of day. That’s a busy rail line, so residents often found themselves startled awake in the wee hours by the shrill tone of a train whistle. And as anyone who’s experienced such a loud intrusion into their sleep can attest, getting back to one’s interrupted 40 winks can range from challenging to nearly impossible.

Suffolk Meadows is the second of the city’s neighborhoods to benefit from City Council’s effort to quiet things down around railroad tracks that pass through or near residential areas. Olde Mill Creek became a quiet zone in October 2014, after Suffolk made the new zones a priority.

Federally mandated improvements were necessary for the railroad crossings to ensure the safety of travelers, and once those improvements were made, the designation was a relatively simple matter of navigating federal rail bureaucracies.

What changed things for people in both communities was the simple act of citizens approaching their council members and stating their case. The rest was responsive government at work. It surely must have seemed like slow going for those who were being jarred awake at 1 a.m., but bureaucracies are not famous for moving quickly.

Considering the number of railroad crossings around the city, it’s likely there are other communities that could benefit from having their crossings improved and being designated as quiet zones. We’d love to see city officials take a proactive approach to identifying those areas and polling the residents there for their wishes.