Comment EI-22220
Received or sent (printed as 4/23/2016)
I hear to discuss my 78 year old widowed mother who lives on a plot of land that the train is going to run diagonal through the corn field on her side and back yard. This is occurring in Winnebago, IL. My mom does not own the cornfield and will not be getting any compensation. However, she will be getting a train within 200 ft of her property line, 300 ft from her home, significantly decreased property value to the point that the beautiful, well-kept early 1900’s home with original wood work risks being abandoned, and finally the most scariest part for me is the way the train is scheduled to go through the intersection of Alworth and Edwardsville Rd, not only for my mother, but tractors and school buses. The whole reason behind this railroad is to bypass Chicago. However, I believe the railroad company lost their focus. There are existing railroads in place that are hardly ever used. In fact, one is less than 0.25 miles away from my mother. The same mother that has this GLB train proposed to go diagonal across her home. I haven’t stopped for a train on those tracks for three plus years, and it is an active track with a grain elevator. Bypassing Chicago to go through small town America and destroy acreage is simply not acceptable or smart. In fact there is acts in place to eliminate blighted properties in larger cities affected the railroad. Now, you are asking thousands of homes and farms along this 280 mile corridor to become blighted properties by the installation of this railroad and potentially future utilities. We have bike paths everywhere in small town America because railroads were taken out and yet we are to believe in a revitalization of the railroad industry when this world is advancing the technology at alarming rate. These railroads were taken out less than 20 years ago. I find that hard to believe. The Surface Transportation Board needs to support our farmers and not destroy the acreage. The destruction of the farm acreage alone creates an environmental concern. Why are we looking any further?
Submitted by: Amy Sandow · Winnebago, 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-35952/comment/EI-22220 · back to the docket sheet