Comment EI-14214
Received or sent (printed as 9/30/2008)
There are serious problems about STB's assurance that the EJ&E merger will have only a minor impact in the area affected, including my town of Wayne. 1. CN has offered the entire region!! (Gary, IN to Waukegon,WI) a total of $40 million to mitigate the infrastructure impact. An overpass for a 4-lane road costs approximately $40-50 million. 133 grade crossings require an overpass, as opposed to the few that CN will admit to being needed. The gap in costs and mitigation is outrageous. 2. CN has misled communities claiming they will experience significant decreases in freight traffic. 3. CN's unwillingness to provide freight traffic projections beyond 3 years; a cut-off that precedes the expansion of a major new port served by CN in western Canada. 4. CN's subpar safety record, as documented by the Canadian government, and the STB's refusal to take theses documents into account during the decision making process. 5. CN's President indicated that taxpayer dollars would have to be used to help mitigate the costs of infrasturcture improvements. Our outer regions of midsize towns and small villages cannot possibly support this invasion by the CN. Our towns will die. Any tax base we now have would be diminishing year by year as the heavy railroad spread destroys our economic base. Please consider all these factors. A foreign company can't just crush our towns at will, can they? They must play fair and invest their own dollars to make the tremendous profits that they are expecting to gain. Thank you for considering my comments. Marilyn K. Griffin
Submitted by: Marilyn K. Griffin · Wayne, IL
The Board publishes this comment in its environmental-comment table for this proceeding. It is quoted here as printed; nothing is inferred from it, and it states the commenter's own position in their own words, not this record's.
Permanent address docketyard.org/d/FD-35087/comment/EI-14214 · back to the docket sheet