Comment EI-8984
Received or sent (printed as 8/28/2008)
I live in Lake Zurich, IL and commute to my job at Columbia College Chicago each day by driving 2 miles to the Barrington commuter station, riding the Metra train into downtown Chicago. It takes me 1.5 hours each way. Twice in the past month my commute has been significantly lengthened due to interference by freight rail traffic on the EJ&E railroad. Once because a freight train blocked my drive to the Barrington station (I must cross the EJ&E tracks twice each way) and once because a slow freight train blocked the Metra train arriving in Barrington from the west. I am so fearful that this is but a small preview of what my commute into Chicago will be like in the future if the Canadian National Railroad (CN) is allowed to purchase the EJ&E and greatly increase the freight traffic on this line. Metra, and public transportation in general, is a key component in the economic health and vitality of Chicago and Illinois. If the CN railroad is suddenly allowed to interfere with, and possibly destroy, the commuter rail routes into Chicago, the economic costs will far outweigh the (claimed) economic benefit of more efficient freight traffic. The Surface Transportation Board is not making this an adequate consideration in their review of the CN acquisition. If this is given the review and deliberation it deserves, then the STB should never approval of this purchase.
Submitted by: John A. Wilkin · Barrington, 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-8984 · back to the docket sheet