(The following column by Bill Mego appeared on the Naperville Sun website on January 8.)
CHICAGO — Would you say that, because a community is used to flooding, no more flood controls are needed? Well, that’s the kind of logic the Surface Transportation Board used when it ruled that, because some towns were used to train delays, no improvements to certain railroad crossings would be recommended. The people can handle it, the board said.
The STB is the successor agency to the Interstate Commerce Commission, which died in a spasm of deregulation in the 1990s. The three current board members were appointed by, and share the mindset of, George W. Bush. On Christmas Eve, they decided to allow the Canadian National Railway to purchase the single track Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway that, 100 years ago, was built as a 198-mile bypass around the crowded rail yards of Chicago.
Naperville owns one EJ&E crossing (111th Street), uses many others, and is a member of The Regional Answer to Canadian National, an organization of towns opposed to the sale. TRAC fears, along with environmental concerns, that long freight mega-trains would block at-grade crossings to emergency vehicles and commercial traffic, essentially cutting towns like Naperville and Aurora off from each other.
Another worry, which I share, is that the explosion of high-speed rail traffic that CN has planned will prevent Metra from establishing the Suburban Transit Access Route, a suburb-to suburb-to-O’Hare commuter line on the EJ&E tracks. Naperville has two STAR park-and-ride stations planned, and many people, including me, think that STAR, in combination with light rail or pod car systems, is essential for a practical public transportation system in the suburbs. I suspect that the EJ&E sale will be the death of STAR.
While towns like Barrington are still fighting in court, the towns along the rail lines radiating out of Chicago are delighted they will have less traffic, and a Chicago newspaper called the deal “a real boost to the economy of the region.” The paper seems to believe that the deal will somehow reduce the number of trucks, “spur rail infrastructure improvements,” and “create new opportunities for commuter lines,” despite what I think is evidence to the contrary.
The STB did rule that CN will have to pay 67 percent of a proposed grade separation at Route 34 in Aurora, and some fraction of the cost of only seven other crossings. Ten towns have now cut deals with CN to get money, mainly for studies. However, anyone who thinks that Aurora, the state of Illinois, or anyone is going to come up with the tens of millions of dollars their share of those improvements will cost simply does not understand the state of the economy.
Long before those crossings are built, if they ever are, the Fairview Container Terminal in Prince Rupert, B.C., Canada, will be unloading 4 million containers a year of Chinese exports, shipping them across the United States, through Naperville to New Orleans and Mobile, then into the Carribean and South America, bypassing the Panama Canal. Hunter Harrison, CN’s head and a former Illinois Central guy, wants to merge the six biggest North American railways into two “uber railroads.”
All we will be able to do about it is sit in our cars, waiting for them to go by.