Comment EI-8816
Received or sent (printed as 8/27/2008)
Dear Ms. Johnson-Ball, I am a resident of Lake Zurich and have attended prior events concerning the contemplated purchase of the EJ&E railroad by the Canadian National RR. Unfortunately, I am not able to attend the next meeting in Barrington scheduled for today. I would like to express my concern as a resident of Lake Zurich, which would see an enormous increase in railroad traffic (currently about 3 to 5 trains with a length of 2/3 of a mile to up to as many as 25 trains up to 1.5 miles length). There are numerous issues at stake. 1. Safety - access to hospital, fire and police service. Hundreds of school bus crossings, traffic congestion (it can take over 11 minutes per train to clear a crossing - and there is a huge network of commuter trains operating), air quality and foremost, there will be an increase in rail accidents 2. Economics - too much congestion will force people to rearrange their shopping patterns thus driving business to closure; loss in tax revenue for the communities; fuel consumption will go up because of delays and the need to use alternative routes (when doing the math, on several crossings in Lake Zurich and Barrington, such crossings would be shut down for railroad traffic for up to 5 hours - one of the CN representatives, when asked about this concern, stated that it is not his problem, he is a railroad person and is not concerned about car drivers); spilling of contaminates; decrease in property value and damage to property - it has come to may attention that the vibrations caused by such large freight trains can cause damage to houses as far as 1 mile away); the future of a commuter line will be put in question; US taxpayers are funding a foreign corporation. 3. Mitigation - The report failed to list Route 14 (which is the most traveled road in Barrington) and Lake Cook (which is the main artery in the town of Barrington) as needing a grade separation." Why was such grade separation not recognized at the Union Pacific and EJ&E crossing. This will shut down Metra and the commuter trains at certain times. Cohesiveness - these towns were here before the railroad. The proposed purchase by the Canadian Railroad will affect our life-style with a severe impact on our safety, economy, environment, quality of life, and future growth and development. Thank you in advance for registering my concerns. Best regards, Helmut E. Gerlach"
Submitted by: Helmut Gerlach
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-8816 · back to the docket sheet