Comment EI-21789
Received or sent (printed as 4/5/2016)
I have been looking at the proposed Great Lakes Basin Rail Line with a good deal of interest. Having been born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, I have spent my life in close proximity to, or a short distance from, most of the major rail lines. If you look closely at the routine freight traffic, both the sheer volume, and the variety of products shipping through this area is quite impressive. In watching both the volume and the variety of rail freight one can literally gauge how well, or how badly, the economy is doing on a national level. With rail freight being such an important link to our overall economy, I feel that well planned new routing, such as the Great Lakes Basin Rail line appears to be, are critical to improving the efficiency, safety and reliability of our overall freight transportation systems. For many years I have seen and heard railroad executives, transportation experts and shippers of all varieties decry the bottleneck that Chicago has become for transcontinental shipping. I see it with my own eyes with freight trains sitting idle on local sidings for hours on end, and trains blocking thoroughfare crossings for sometimes 1/2 or more. The Project Information for this particular plan states that it can take 30 hours for a train to make its way through this bottleneck, but I have also heard from the experts mentioned above, that it can oftentimes take from 2 to 4 days. That this has not yet been corrected seems to me to be a serious error. For those reasons, and more, I am a proponent of this proposed bypass. Since this particular comment opportunity is to address Environmental related issues, I wish to state that my support for this plan is based on my strong belief that this is a net positive to the environment on a number of levels; (1) reducing the time for as many as 110 freight trains a day from as much as 4 days, to less than 8 hours significantly reduces the amount of fuel burned, and the emissions from that burnt fuel, (2) reducing the congestion in metropolitan areas that causes delays at railroad crossings can also significantly reduce fuel consumption and emissions from the thousands of autos that sit idling waiting for the crossings to clear, (3) for perishable products being shipped to market these delays could make the difference between getting fresh products to the consumers and possibly spoilage of the products before they even get to market, (4) although there is certainly some impact on the environment during the construction of the new rail line, the impact over its lifetime is minimal especially when being compared to possibly having to build new roads to handle increased truck traffic. In closing I want to express my appreciation for the opportunity to provide my thoughts and opinions, and I hope to hear in the not too distant future that this much needed bypass has been approved and is moving forward. It would be a great benefit to us all. Paul H. Stout Sr. Crestwood, Illinois
Submitted by: PaulStout Sr. · Creswtwood, Illinois
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-35952/comment/EI-21789 · back to the docket sheet