CN acquisition foes unfairly attacked
As the Chicago-area public hearings on the Canadian National Railway Co.'s proposed acquisition of the Elgin Joliet and Eastern Railway wound down last week, opponents of the deal endured plenty of name-calling.
The opponents, led by towns such as Barrington, Bartlett, and Richton Park, have been called "not in my backyarders" or "NIMBYs." Last week, a Chicago alderman lambasted their supposed "me-first attitude." Two University of Chicago academics released a study hinting that opposition to the CN plan may be environmentally racist because it seeks to block CN from shifting rail traffic to wealthier communities populated largely by whites.
This brand of classist criticism is as unfortunate as it is unfair. It is also unsupported by the data in the draft environmental impact study on display at the public hearings conducted by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board.
A close look at the study shows that the impact of current rail traffic in Chicago and the inner Cook County communities pales in comparison to what the outlying towns like Barrington would experience if the acquisition is approved.
In Chicago and the inner Cook County towns, the average number of trains per day is less than six at 11 of the 24 crossings examined by the study. Only five of the remaining 13 "inner" crossings see as many as 19 to 22 trains per day on average. But the average number of freight trains per day at the outer, suburban crossings identified by the study will jump from the 10 to 18 range to as many as 30 or 40.
Moreover, the federal study meticulously identified which crossings had grade separations (rail overpasses or underpasses) and which did not. Grade separations predominate where CN currently runs its freight trains in Chicago and inner Cook County, but they are rare in the outlying suburbs.
Meanwhile, CN's proposal would lengthen the trains from an average of just over half a mile to well over a mile, with some trains as long as 8,000 or even 10,000 feet or more. Suburban residents wait plenty at rail crossings now, but under the CN plan, they and emergency responders will experience significantly longer waits, and this will happen significantly more often.
The draft report went on to identify 15 major suburban crossings that will need "mitigation," as in expensive grade separations that no one seems to know how to fund. The CN plan's critics say that the draft report understates the impact on the suburbs, but, frankly, the impact evident from the face of the report seems difficult to understate.
No matter how rich or how white they may be, the Barringtons of the world should be allowed to speak up for their quality of life, and against a proposal that they reasonably believe will sacrifice their communities, without being labeled NIMBYs or environmental racists. Their concerns are valid and need to be addressed, not mocked or belittled.
After all, the proposal that CN is trying to ram through the federal regulators - who last week wisely refused to be bullied into an October decision on the plan - is not about improving the lives of city dwellers near freight train tracks. The plan is about CN finding a way to move greater and greater volumes of goods through the Chicago area by freight train in a for-profit, commercial activity.
The questions of whether CN ought to be allowed to do so, and whether there are alternatives to CN's extreme proposal for the suburban communities along the EJ&E, should be discussed and decided without demonizing one side of the debate, and without pitting communities against each other.
• Gabriel A. Fuentes is an attorney with the Chicago law firm of Jenner & Block.