Barrington trustee candidates discuss state of efforts for improved rail safety in village

Four candidates seeking three Barrington village trustee seats recently discussed efforts to improve pedestrian rail safety in town a year after a Barrington High School student was struck and killed walking across the Union Pacific tracks downtown.

Incumbents Todd Sholeen and Jennifer Wondrasek along with newcomers Lauren Klauer and Jesse Rojo are the candidates.

Work on a long-planned underpass beneath the Canadian National tracks along Route 14 and installation of pedestrian gates at the Main Street crossing of the CN tracks near Barrington High School are expected to begin this month.

But the village continues to face strong public pressure to expedite installation of pedestrian gates at the Union Pacific crossings at Main Street, Hillside Avenue and Hough Street where 17-year-old Marin Lacson was struck on Jan. 25, 2024.

All four candidates acknowledged the process will take time due to the number of stakeholders.

Sholeen said any effort involving multiple higher levels of government is going to take longer than people want, but the village is working to make it as soon as possible.

“These things do not happen immediately, unfortunately, and we tried to put this forward to our community and to our residents that things like this — when they want them to happen — take time and it’s not something that happens overnight,” he said. “We have tried to work with the railroads, with the state.”

Rojo wants to expand methods of communication about it.

“We’re not going to get this done overnight, and that does lead to stress among residents.” he said. “We have to be urgent about this issue, even though it does take patience.”

Wondrasek said the Illinois Commerce Commission offering the village a seat at the table in this process was itself a big step toward a solution that will be in the best interest of a community with two intersecting train lines.

The village is already providing crossing guards during the wait, while the village president and manager plan to speak with students at the high school in the next week about the situation, she added.

Klauer had questions of her own after about the accident, and heard concerns of others since announcing her candidacy. But she’s come to believe the village has advanced the process as quick as it can.

“I think it’s going to happen,” she said. “I also think that more safety is always important and we should be, as a village, looking at these problems and really trying to be proactive where we can.”