Comment EI-24952
Received or sent (printed as 7/14/2016)
From reviewing the map of Illinois rail lines, the state is scarred top to bottom with existing rail lines. Many of these lines already bypass the Chicagoland region. Please explain why the GLB project is needed why if the railroads wanted to avoid the Chicagoland region they can already. All the class one railroads have tracks that can take them around Chicagoland, if they wanted to use them. The GLB project is completely unneeded as the railroads obviously want to go through Chicagoland. This is support by the facts. 1. No existing railroad or railway has come out in support of the GLB plan. 2. Existing by-passes are in place, such as the old Elgin, Joliet and Eastern line, and the Keokuk Junction Railway line and the Toledo, Peoria and Eastern railway line. 3. The current flow of freight traffic is directed to the Chicagoland region by design. A design that has been in place for decades. The early railroad planners had a vision and that vision still works. 4. The railroads could easily improve and expand their current tracks to accommodate the larger freight volumes; they chose not to do this. Since the railroads themselves have not proposed this line, and they have not sought to improve their existing lines that they can by-pass Chicagoland on, this line from GLB is un-needed. Why too do we need more lines in Chicagoland, a bypass takes trains away, GLB needs to build their line where it is needed, such as in Kansas City or Atlanta the fastest growing rail hubs in the nation.
Submitted by: Laura Scheppler · Mount Prospect, 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-24952 · back to the docket sheet