(The following story by Tona Kunz appeared on the Daily Herald website on March 26.)
CHICAGO — A string of train fatalities in the last month has local officials wondering whether it’s time to change the agency that oversees rail safety.
Legislation being debated in the state House would give the Illinois Department of Transportation control over rail-safety education programs, grants for safety upgrades and accident investigations.
The Illinois Commerce Commission, an appointed regulatory body, has had those duties for more than four decades.
DuPage County board members and municipal leaders this week questioned giving one agency control over railroads that has had the worst string of accidents in 20 years – a near miss of a senior citizen on a scooter, three dead children and one dead adult in a little more than a month.
Board member Robert Schroeder of Naperville doubted the transportation department could give rail safety enough attention when it already has to take care of the planning, construction and maintenance of Illinois’ highways, bridges, airports, rail systems and public transportation.
State Rep. John Millner, a Republican from Elmhurst who is backing the consolidation, said IDOT is up to the challenge.
“IDOT will have a special division for rail,” he said. “IDOT will make this a priority.”
Millner said the consolidation will make it easier for municipalities to get safety upgrades, such as crossing gates, without the runaround he remembers when he was police chief in Elmhurst.
“We want to eliminate the gray area of who is responsible for what,” he said. “No one is assuming responsibility for turf battles, and these turf battles go on all the time.”
Officials are split on whether they like the way things have worked under the ICC. Officials at Union Pacific Railroad and the Northwest Municipal Conference, which represents municipalities in Cook, Kane, Lake and McHenry counties, said they have been happy with responses to accidents. Under the ICC’s control, accidents at railroad crossings in Illinois declined from 827 a year in 1976 to 155 in 2002, the most current statistic available.
John Noel, a DuPage County board member from Glen Ellyn and chairman of the county’s transit committee, said the ICC should have done more to prevent the recent accidents.
Still, he’s not sure removing the ICC from rail oversight would make anything better.
Villa Park Village President Rae Rupp Srch agrees. She would rather have two agencies to watch the rail industry as a buffer from enforcement decisions becoming too political.
State Rep. Joe Dunn, a Republican from Naperville, said the consolidation could be the better of two bad choices.
“IDOT is a mess to begin with,” he said. “Can they take on another job and give it the attention it needs? I don’t know, but ICC hasn’t done a great job either.
“But we in government need to consolidate,” Dunn said. “We need to balance that with safety concerns.”