Towns fighting railroad merger gain new ally in DuPage County
DuPage County has joined a coalition of eight towns fighting a pending railroad merger fiercely opposed by mayors from Bensenville to Elgin.
Municipal leaders fear the growth in freight train traffic resulting from the merger would dramatically worsen road congestion and crossing delays for commuters and emergency responders in their towns.
Now DuPage has signed onto the coalition protesting Canadian Pacific Railway's acquisition of the Kansas City Southern Railroad.
The $31 billion deal requires the approval of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, a five-member panel that regulates mergers, acquisitions and other matters related to the nation's railroad industry.
If approved, the merger would create the first single-line rail network connecting the United States, Canada and Mexico. The railroads filed the merger application in October.
The eight towns that formed the "Coalition to Stop CPKC" - Bartlett, Bensenville, Elgin, Itasca, Hanover Park, Roselle, Wood Dale and Schaumburg - have filed their objections with federal regulators, arguing the merger would create safety issues at grade crossings, delay emergency vehicles and school buses and lead to more noise.
DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin said he's met with some of the mayors and echoed their concerns.
"I'm worried about safety. I'm worried about extremely long traffic delays," Cronin said.
County board members Tuesday authorized spending up to $100,000 in reimbursable funds for the coalition's efforts. County officials say the money can be used for technical studies, evaluating and communicating opposition to the railway merger.
"I don't have a whole lot of hope that the coalition is going to be able to prevent the merger. But I think that speaking in a unified voice might be able to get concessions about operations," board member Mary Ozog said. "And these operations, obviously, they impact public safety, movement through these towns and also Metra, so I think that ... it's going to be money well spent to at least try to maintain a voice in what's going on with this situation."
Regulators could impose mitigation requirements as a condition of the Surface Transportation Board's approval.
The coalition's filing says the potential price tag for mitigations in all eight suburbs could reach $9.5 billion and negate any benefit to the railroads. That figure does not include what it might cost to address potential environmental concerns, which will be laid out in an assessment in June.
Canadian Pacific currently operates an average of about three freight trains per day on a route that also supports Metra's Milwaukee District West commuter service.
Canadian Pacific spokesman Andy Cummings wrote a guest column in the Daily Herald Tuesday saying the proposed changes "do not represent a radical shift" in the use of the corridor. Cummings did respond to a request for further comment.
"Through most communities, the freight trains will operate nonstop at normal track speeds, passing through nearly all road crossings in about 3 minutes or less," Cummings wrote. "That adds up to about 24 minutes per day, or one minute per hour, of added gate-down times."
But suburban mayors contend the railway's estimates that freight traffic "would only increase by a mere eight freight trains a day" along the Bensenville-Elgin route "are too low," arguing the "new business opportunities" created by the combined railway network alone would generate more freight activity above those projections.
"It would impact at least 150,000 DuPage County residents by more than tripling the number of freight trains coming through communities on the north side and northeast parts of the county," Cronin said of the proposed merger.
The Surface Transportation Board expects to decide on the merger by the fall.
• Daily Herald staff writer Trey Arline contributed to this report.