(The following story by Guy Tridgell appeared on the Chicago Sun-Times website on September 9.)
CHICAGO — Some affluent white folks in the suburbs are the only ones who stand to lose if the EJ&E Railroad is sold to the Canadian National Railway.
That’s the contention of two University of Chicago professors in their study of the proposed $300 million sale of the EJ&E line that encircles the Chicago area from northwest Indiana to Waukegan.
Christopher Berry and Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, both of the university’s Harris School of Public Policy, said CN’s plans to divert trains from its crowded inner-city lines to the EJ&E will help poorer areas with largely minority populations.
Their report found that about 1.25 million residents — 70 percent of them nonwhite, with a median household income of $46,000 — will experience fewer trains in their areas if the sale goes through. But the suburbs where freight traffic will increase have a population of about 900,000, 67 percent of them white and with a median household income of $76,000, according to the report.
In Frankfort, for example, residents fighting the sale could see the number of trains grow from six a day to 28. The village’s median household income is $107,141, and its population is 94 percent white.
But in Chicago’s Morgan Park community, where the daily train traffic would drop from eight a day to just two, the median income is $68,542, and the population is 31 percent white.
“Affluent, white suburbs have clout. Less wealthy, minority neighborhoods do not,” the professors wrote. “The full litany of suburban complaints have been solicited, quantified and documented in thousands of pages of official reports, while the benefits of Chicago’s neighborhoods have hardly been mentioned. This is no accident.”
The U.S. Surface Transportation Board is accepting public comment regarding the EJ&E sale until Sept. 30. The board will issue a final ruling between Dec. 1 and Jan. 31.
Berry said he’s worried the board might be swayed by a vocal monied few who are politically organized in the suburbs to fight the proposed sale.
“We think it’s pretty clear in this (sale) that the winners far outweigh the losers,” he said. “But clout is playing a large role.”