Canadian National (CN) has announced they are planning to expedite the increase of freight traffic and destruction of quality of life in Aurora, Naperville and other communities along the
EJ&E tracks much sooner than many had anticipated.
As early as March, train traffic will increase even though CN has yet to commit to how they will remedy the negative impact on communities or pay for such costs.
Aurora, Naperville, Barrington and other suburbs are fighting back, both in court in a federal appeal and addressing the accountability of elected officials who are willing to shove freight traffic from Chicago at the expense of suburban taxpayers.
Aurora Mayor
Tom Weisner is co-chair of a coalition of suburbs
(TRAC) fighting back and pursuing a federal appeal on the
Surface Transportation Board's (STB) approval of CN's purchase.
On Thursday, during a radio
interview with
Chicago Public Radio, Aurora Alderman
Rick Lawrence, who has supported the efforts of Weisner and the coalition to fight the railroad and make sure the STB reviews the matter properly, says suburbs must also address the hidden opposition, which is the
City of Chicago and
Mayor Richard Daley.
Lawrence says Daley wants the freight traffic out at the expense of the suburbs. He points out suburban taxpayers not only fuel much of the economy of the City of Chicago, but when it comes transportation, suburban taxpayers have had to help pay for Daley's CTA:
"If this benefits the quality of life in Chicago, well, maybe Chicago needs to throw in some money in there since we’ve bailed them out on their CTA debacle."Daley, who is trying to pry billions for Chicago out of
President Barack Obama's economic stimulus spending package with the help of his loyalists
Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and Valerie Jarret, always complains the City of Chicago needs more money.
From the CTA, O'Hare, Chicago Public Schools and many of Daley's other debacles, he now also wants to spend about a half-billion dollars more on a temporary city-controlled stadium for the Olympic bid that is only necessary due to Daley's
$700 million cost to taxpayers in mistakenly renovating Soldier Field in a way that eliminated it from being used as the main Olympic venue.
At the same time Daley pursues billions of taxpayer funds, he is sitting on close to
$6 Billion in cash from his recent deals to lease the Chicago Skyway, Midway Airport, downtown parking garages and parking meters.
Lawrence says any economic stimulus package involving infrastructure should make the suburbs the first priority and communities such as Aurora and Naperville should bear zero cost and negative impact for the benefit of CN railroad and Daley.
"...you want to destroy a small community. You talk about economic stimulus, throw this project into our city, you’ve just destroyed our economy. Financially, it could really hurt us."He also says that elected officials, including
Sen. Dick Durbin, who defer to Daley's wishes, but fail to protect the taxpayers of Aurora, Naperville and other communities should be held accountable.
Meanwhile,
Jim Kverdaras, a public affairs manager of CN, sidesteps the impact and cost on local communities and focuses instead on the larger transportation issue:
"Railroad transportation is a building block of the economy. All the business and industries that have use for rail, especially those that come through Chicago, which is widely recognized as the transportation hub of North America."
Alderman Lawrence says again the bottom line is that the only acceptable solution is
zero cost to taxpayers of communities such as Aurora and Naperville and that if Chicago, CN and the rest of the nation benefit from this, then they should all pay for it.
>Listen to the Chicago Public Radio report (mp3)
