Comment EI-5006
Received or sent (printed as 2/10/2008)
I am writing to briefly express concerns over the proposed acquisition of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway by Canadian National. My husband and I moved to North Barrington from the city of Chicago less than 4 years ago (when I was pregnant with our first child) for the purposes of providing a better environment for our children. We were willing to face a somewhat long commute (myself to University of Chicago, where I was an assistant professor of Marketing, and my husband to Rockford where he practices medicine) in order to live in such a beautiful community. The proposed acquisition by CN threatens to greatly diminish our quality of life by turning what is already a sizeable, but acceptable, commute into an outright unbearable one. While we recognize that proposals such as Canadian National's are bound to face an onslaught of not in my backyard" cries in whatever communities they affect, we feel that our community is truly very ill-suited to handle the massive increase in rail traffic. North Barrington commuters such as my husband must use the two-lane Rt 59 through Barrington to access the highway. With **no** over or under-passes, this road is already plagued by congestion during rush hours. Furthermore, the children of our community who attend school in Barrington must rely on this same route -- not only to get home, but also to access medical care in the unfortunate event of an emergency. Certainly we ourselves would not have moved our family here if we had knowledge of such a marked increase in train traffic, so we can only expect that other would-be home buyers will react similarly if the proposal goes through. Therefore we are troubled by the potential decreased value of both our quality of life and our investment in our home. We ask that you fully consider the significant infrastructure limitations of our area roads when evaluating this proposal. Thank you, Ginger L. Pennington Das Gupta"
Submitted by: Ginger Das Gupta
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-5006 · back to the docket sheet