(The following story by Kevin P. Craver appeared on the Northwest Herald website on September 8.)
CHICAGO — Barrington Village President Karen Darch will have a large, and very influential, audience next week regarding her opposition to Canadian National’s purchase of a suburban railway.
Darch will testify Tuesday in Washington, D.C., before the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The committee is pondering a bill that would significantly tighten the guidelines by which the Surface Transportation Board approves rail purchases.
Darch will be joined by Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner, with whom she co-chairs a group opposing CN’s purchase of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway.
Darch and Weisner will speak in support of the proposed Taking Responsible Action for Community Safety Act, which would require the Surface Transportation Board to thoroughly consider community impact before approving a rail purchase.
“We need to confirm that our nation’s rail policy does not pick winners and losers, but rather strikes a balance between the quality of life of residents and freight rail efficiencies,” Darch said in a statement.
The bill, House Resolution 6707, was co-sponsored by suburban Democratic Reps. Melissa Bean and Bill Foster, and Republican Reps. Don Manzullo, Judy Biggert and Peter Roskam.
CN’s $300 million plan to buy the railway in essence would ease chronic rail congestion on Chicago-bound rail lines by shifting more of it to the 200-mile EJ&E, which loops around the city from Waukegan to Gary, Ind.
Many community leaders along the EJ&E, and many of their congressional representatives, say that more trains – between 15 and 24 more a day for Barrington – means traffic congestion, environmental pollution, and emergency responders stuck at crossings.
The Surface Transportation Board expects a ruling by early 2009, but CN has threatened legal action to get approval by year’s end because EJ&E owner U.S. Steel will not extend the stock purchase agreement beyond Dec. 31.