Winfield Metra pedestrian crossing removed
Tom Pacini stood on Winfield's train platform Friday afternoon with a puzzled look.
After he got off the 3:38 p.m. Metra train out of Chicago, the Winfield resident expected to take his usual route across the tracks. But that crossing was now gone.
"It seems a little awkward not having it here," Pacini said. "I think it's inviting accidents to happen."
Union Pacific Railroad crews Friday morning had removed the pedestrian train crossing that connects both the inbound and outbound Chicago platforms in Winfield.
The dozen or so commuters who comprised the beginning of the Friday afternoon rush hour had to walk several hundred feet away along Winfield Road to get to the parking lot across the street.
Some, like Pacini, stood at the newly removed crossing for a moment to process what had just happened.
Although notices were posted on the doors of the train station, several commuters seemed to be caught off guard by the pending closure.
"Really? Well that doesn't sound right," said Chicago resident Diane Hagler, who was waiting for the 9:48 a.m. train into the city. "I come out here four days a week to visit my sister. Now she's got to fight traffic to get around to the other side of the tracks to pick me up."
Others, like West Chicago resident Rita Berger, said the crossing's removal would improve safety at the train stop.
"I don't have a problem with it," she said.
Union Pacific had planned on closing the Winfield train crossing as early as 2005 as part of an effort to eliminate uncontrolled crossings along its rail lines. But the company held off after Winfield officials made assurances they would pursue construction of an underpass.
Yet despite those assurances, the village board couldn't muster the votes last week to approve funding of the underground train crossing, the latest in a seven-year-long saga to get a train underpass built in town.
The village board had received assurances from a Union Pacific spokesman that the railroad giant would cover the approximately $313,000 funding shortfall that would have to be paid by the village to build the approximately $4 million underpass. The remainder of the project's cost would have been paid for by a combination of state and federal grants.
In two weeks, the village board will consider a measure to formally abandon the underpass project and relinquish any grant money obtained for the underpass. The village has spent about $141,000 for design and engineering work on the underpass, and village officials said Winfield would have to cover that cost.
Village Manager William Barlow said Friday that the Illinois Commerce Commission, which approved the underpass project and provided $852,000 in grant money for its construction, has suggested it may force the village's hand in building the crossing.
"A lot of people are mad," Barlow said. "The fact is that we have signed contracts that say the village will appropriate the funds to build the underpass."