Don Manzullo Fires Again at Canadian Northern’s Attempt to Take Over EJ&E

16th District Congressman Don Manzullo joined 8th congressional district Republican primary candidate Steve Greenberg in opposing the Canadian Northern’s attempt to make Lake, Northwestern Cook, Kane and Will Counties a way for freight trains to bypass the Chicago bottleneck.

But this was not his first appearance on the scene.

It should be noted that his Democratic Party opponent is the village president of Barrington Hills, probably the highest income area in Manzullo’s district. He took up the issue in mid-October.

Congresswoman Melissa Bean, the Democratic Party incumbent Greenberg seeks the right to oppose, also represents the Barrington area.

Manzullo’s press guy, Rich Carter, said over 200 people attending the hearing.

Here is Manzullo’s latest press release on the subject:

Manzullo: More Freight Trains
in Barrington Would Threaten
Safety, Fuel Delays for
Many McHenry County Motorists

[CRYSTAL LAKE] Congressman Don Manzullo today said a plan to add at least 15 freight trains daily to downtown Barrington could threaten the health and safety and aggravate traffic delays for the tens of thousands of McHenry County motorists and commuters who travel east to work each day.

Several months ago, the Canadian National Railway (CN) petitioned to purchase the EJ&E rail line that currently runs up to five freight trains each day through downtown Barrington. CN’s plans call for adding 15 more freight trains through Barrington each day that would cross “at-grade” with Route 14, Route 59, Lake-Cook Road, and the Union Pacific Northwest Metra rail line that serves 4,000 McHenry County commuters each day.

Acknowledging the severe impact the additional freight trains would have on traffic, safety and the Barrington communities, the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB) launched an extensive Environmental Impact Study on the proposed plan. Federal officials were in Barrington for a “scoping session” today to solicit comments from residents, motorists and officials. Manzullo submitted the attached letter to the Surface Transportation Board outlining his concerns with the proposal.

“While I understand the need to ease freight congestion in Chicagoland, this plan would simply shift the congestion from Chicago to the suburbs. It would threaten the health and safety and exacerbate traffic delays for the tens of thousands of McHenry County motorists and Metra passengers who travel through Barrington to get to work each day,” Manzullo said. “I implore the Surface Transportation Board to consider solutions that increase safety, reduce pollution, and reduce congestion for all Illinois residents rather than ‘solutions’ that pit one community against the other.”

  • In addition to the “scoping” sessions, the STB is accepting written comments from citizens affected by the freight plan. Comments should be no more than two pages long and can be emailed to the congressman at railroadcomments@mail.house.gov,
  • faxed to 815-356-9803, or
  • sent to Congressman Manzullo’s Crystal Lake office at 5186 Northwest Highway, Suite 130, Crystal Lake, IL 60014.

Deadline for comments is January 21, 2008. Manzullo will forward all comments to the Surface Transportation Board.

In his letter to the Surface Transportation Board, Manzullo highlighted the following concerns with the proposal:

  • LACK OF EMERGENCY ACCESS – The three rail crossings in Barrington at Lake-Cook Road and Routes 14 and 59 are a total of 1 mile apart. Some freight trains are up to 2 miles long. What happens if someone gets in an accident or has a medical emergency when a long freight train is passing through Barrington? If they are east of the train, all three of those major arterial intersections could be blocked at the same time for several minutes and the emergency vehicle would have to go several miles out of the way to get to Good Shepherd Hospital in Lake Barrington. Every second counts when it comes to saving lives, and the delays caused by the additional freight traffic could be catastrophic.
  • SAFETY CONCERNS AT RAIL CROSSINGS — The Barrington school district estimates its school buses cross the EJ&E lines 400 times a day. The addition of 15 freight trains a day will quadruple the safety risk of students who have to traverse the crossings to get to school each day. Officials in many states – including Illinois – are so concerned about the safety of “at-grade” rail crossings that they will only allow a community to add an at-grade crossing if they eliminate one elsewhere.
  • MASSIVE TRAFFIC CONGESTION — If each train takes 6 minutes to traverse a crossing, that’s an extra hour and a half of delay each day for motorists passing through Barrington. McHenry County motorists already deal with a significant amount of traffic congestion on their daily commutes to work. The U.S. Department of Transportation developed engineering standards for grading intersections and rail crossings at a Level of Service (LOS) based on the time it takes for vehicles to travel through the crossings. The grades are A through F. Local engineers have already determined the crossings in Barrington are rated “F!” Can it get any worse than an “F?” The answer is yes, because an already heavily congested area could become Gridlock City.
  • THREAT TO FUTURE MASS TRANSIT PROJECT — Canadian National’s purchase of the EJ&E line could doom a planned massive expansion of commuter rail that will help more than a million suburban residents get to work faster as road congestion continues to snarl suburban roads. The 55-mile STAR line, part of Metra’s future expansion, would connect nearly 100 suburban communities by linking together four of Metra’s lines, including the Union Pacific Northwest line that McHenry County uses, and providing a direct Metra connection to O’Hare International Airport. Metra was planning to run the STAR line along the existing EJ&E tracks that Canadian National is proposing to purchase. Without access to the EJ&E tracks, the STAR line – that will be so important to our transportation infrastructure in the future – could be shelved indefinitely, which will mean much longer commutes for the people of northern Illinois.

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The head shot is of Congressman Don Manzullo. The EJ&E Railroad crossing is at Cuba Road in Lake Zurich.


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