“Should the city enact more rules to limit train traffic through downtown crossings, or are the trains an inevitable feature of Cedar Rapids? If new solutions are needed, what would you suggest?”
http://thegazette.com/conversations/cedar-rapids-downtown-trains-new-solutions-needed/
Make your trains go away. It is an epidemic worse than bed bugs.
it is interesting that Googling found a hostility to the railroad pre-Civil War, when I found exactly to the contrary. Reading the history of Barrington, one can easily find this in Wiki:
"The combined settlement of these pioneers, located at the intersection of Rte. 68 and Sutton Road (Rte. 59), was originally called Miller Grove due to the number of families with that surname but later renamed Barrington Center because it “centered” both ways from the present Sutton, Algonquin and Higgins roads.
The Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac Railroad, predecessor to the C&NW, pushed its tracks to the northwest corner of Cook County in 1854 and a station named Deer Grove was built. Although it meant improved profits, many area farmers feared the railroad would bring too many saloons and Irish Catholics to the area. In response to the opposition, Robert Campbell, a civil engineer working for the railroad, purchased a farm 2 miles northwest of the Deer Grove station and platted a community there. However, at Campbell’s request, the railroad later moved the Deer Grove station to the new location, which Campbell named Barrington after Barrington Center."
So in reality, Barrington was built because of opposition to the railroad, in a new location a bit farther to the northwest.
^
I guess the railroads are still bringing Saloons and Irish Catholics.
The fact that people are upset that a major highway and commuter rail route were blocked for 2 hours is perfectly understandable and shouldn’t be surprising. But this doesn’t seem to have much to do with the CN-EJE merger. It’s the type of railroad mishap that could occur anywhere. Highways are more often blocked by traffic accidents than by railroad mishaps like this. For example, there was a serious truck accident on the Bishop Ford Freeway in Chicago this evening that tied up the expressway for hours, and it undoubtedly affected far more people than the EJE incident.
The real problem in the EJE territory is that the various municipalities actively encouraged development over the past few decades that created huge increases in the amount of highway traffic using railroad grade crossings, without seriously dealing with the grade crossings this additonal traffic created. EJE might have been an underutilized railroad through the Barringon area in recent years (although it was more heavility used in years past than it was in the years immediately before the EJE merger). But the highways that crossed the EJE were also much more lightly used than they are today. The Route 14 crossing is a good example. An at- grade crossing may have been acceptable when Rt 14 was a sleepy country highway (as it used to be). The fact that it remained a grade crossing when surrounding area developed into a heavily populated suburb aand Rt 14 became a major suburban highway demonstrates poor planning by the munipalities involved, as they encouraged the develoments that increased highway traffic. That should not be the railroad’s responsibility.
You could just as easily write it this way:
“The real problem … is that the railroads actively promoted, encouraged and directly participated in settlement, development, industrialization and population growth over the past 16 decades that created huge increases in the amount of highway traffic using railroad grade crossings, without seriously dealing with the grade crossings this additonal traffic created.”
This particular NIMBY argument is an argument that cuts both ways. Many people – i.e. voters – will see through any hackneyed argument that “it’s all somebody else’s fault, always, all the time,” and conclude that what is good for the goose is good for the gander.
I, for one, have no desire to have to stop trains at crossings that were in existence long, long before the railroad ever arrived based upon somebody’s shallow and short-sighted argument that argues either “first in time, first in right,” or “population, urban, and industrial growth and dynamic economic development was nothing we had any role in or desire for, and received no economic benefit from.”
Frankly, people are smarter than that.
People are going to complain when a train blocks a crossing. Railroads are going to complain when people block a crossing, although the result is usually considerably more violent. Neither “complaint” solves the problem, nor do they offer a permanent conclusion that affords internet posters on either side of the argument the conceit of satisfying their personal sense of justice, do they?
In point of fact, Rte. 14 has been a major 4 lane highway since the early 1950’s. Barrington is not and never was a heavily populated suburb, currently only ~10,000, although adding in the surrounding area brings that to 40K. Whether or not the CN has any responsibility for assisting in building the needed crossing is a matter for law and courts, not by opinions nor a unilateral decision by the railroad.
I found this update:
Investigation Continues of 1½ Hour Railroad Crossing Blockage
Posted Date: 10/20/2010
The Barrington Police Department is continuing a review into the 1½ hour blockage of the Canadian National (CN) rai
Now we’re down to a 90 minute blockage. Getting better all the time!
Urban planning is not a simple task. And its made harder by the age of the infrastructure and the economic times we live in.
The Northwest Highway has been there a long time, the EJ&E has as well. Barrington, the county and the State have limited funds and have to project budgets into the future based on what they know will happen. Not based on what MIGHT happen. The Environmental Impact Report and the resulting STB review is supposed to mitigate these issues by forcing CN or any railroad to compensate for the planning changes their purchase will instigate. For some reason, Northwest Highway got missed in that planning.
I’m sure Barrington is filled to the brim with NIMBYs. It’s a very well to do suburb. Local celebrities, movers and shakers live there.
That does not make THIS practical issue of city/county/state planning a NIMBY issue.
The world is not black and white. The requirements of infrastructure change, often before anyone can address them. This is such a case. Sometimes, the NIMBYs and township are right. This was such a case.
What will happen when one of Barringtons residents decides to end it all?
Planning issues aside it’ll be blamed on the RR probably.
People with a grudge against the railroad will blame the railroad.
People who like the railroad will just blame the kids.
Many people will blame the kids, but wonder how well identified the danger was, should they do a better job supporting Operation Life Saver? Has th railroad put up all the signage one could expect. and on and on.
And even within that group there will be variance.
That’s what being social creatures entails.
I have to keep re-reading the link in post #1 as this thread progresses. This thread seems to have been started for the purpose of feeding the always ready railfan outrage at Nimbys and morons, as if the story were about a break-in-two that inflamed Nimbys who just could not stand any disruption to their perfect little world.
Yet I don’t see that in the news story. Rather, the story is about the odd coincidence of the break-in-two delay occurring on the same day that a grant has been obtained to begin planning for an infrastructure improvement that would eliminate the bottleneck that causes that delay. If it were not for that coincidence, I am not sure if either of the two coinciding components of the story would have justified a news story.
Yes. 70 posts later, we have degenerated to the really insightful comment: “What will happen when one of Barrington’s residents decides to end it all?”
Actually, there have been two suicides by train in Barrington since mid August 2010. One was a 17 year old male high school student and one was a 62 year old woman. Both people chose Metra trains operating on the Union Pacific as their instrument of self destruction.
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/08/metra-train-hits-pedestrian-in-barrington.html
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/09/pedestrian-hit-by-metra-train-in-nw-suburb.html
Barrington High has had a problem with student suicides. This 17 year old was not their first student to take his/her own life in recent years. Sad.
I don’t think this discussion has degenerated all that much. It was basically a couple of people making a mountain out of a molehill from the start. Three road crossings were blocked and some commuter trains delayed. Once!
And because of this one off event we have folks claiming the environmental impact statement was “Wrong”. No, a one time occurance does not prove the need to spend $69 million for a grade seperation. There may be a need for such a grade seperation, but this incident doesn’t support the case one way on the other. It has happened once.
The train passengers were dealyed about 30 minutes each. Once. That’s not a big deal. I’ve commuted to work in the Chicago area for over 30 years now and every now and then you’ll be delayed. There are millions of cars and thousands of trains moving in and around Chicago on a daily basis and there are bound to be some probl
Thank you greyhounds for finally providing a responsible answer.
I’m not a railroad employee or resident of Barrington. I did grow up along the CNW west line in Glen Ellyn though and watched a good deal of the complaining coming out of Barrington since 2008.
I can’t find an article to back this up, but I do remember CN offering municipalities along the EJE money to drop their opposition to the purchase that would be used for grade separation. I’m pretty sure that only Barrington and one other village refused. Now look at what’s happened.
You know, Barrington was the tiniest of milk stops when the railroads went through.
In fact, when I grew up, it was still a very small down that was surrounded by horse farms and tenanted by some of the better-off of the “Horsey Set.”
To a large degree, Barrington exists because of the railroads.
Commuter rail is how it was able to grow into the suburb of Chicago it has become.
Now, nobody who owns property there was unaware that there was a railroad when they bought their property, I really doubt there are very many family holdings there going back to when it was incorporated. And knowing there is a railroad, one would have to know that traffic on a railroad comes and goes as fortunes change.
They remind me of the people who bought property neat Ohare Airport in the 1950s knowing full well that jets were coming, and that the noise level was going to rise, and that this is why the property prices were so low. But did this stop them from complaining when the jets came? Nope.
They might have a right to want the grade crossings changed, but they have no right to complain of the existence of the railroad, or its increase in traffic.
-Ben
The character of traffic on the EJ&E has changed enormously from what it was for the last 40 years.
Barrington is not the same as Barrington Hills, which is the part “tenanted by the better-off of the Horsey set.”
The UP line was also blocked. If the CN had blocked the UP in West Chicago on that extremely busy freight mainline, I wonder if the anti-NIMBY complaints would be different?
Regardless, the idea of just doing whatever you want on your property is highly irresponsible. Railroads should strive to be good citizens in the communities they pass through. Most do. For example, the people of Barrington do not complain about the UP ex-C&NW line, used by Metra commuter trains. Perhaps CN is a bad apple?
Yes. But a railroad has a right to have traffic. The state road I grew up on (2 miles from the EJ&E tracks) has about 200X the traffic it did when I was small. Assuming I lived there, do I have a right to limit traffic on that road?
Yes, I am aware of the difference, but long ago, many people lived IN Barrington and had their horses out on the farms. I don’t know if that is still the case.
I’m not saying do whatever you want; I am saying you may operate as much traffic as you can and are lawfully allowed to. Obey regulations. You have a right to complain if any of that does not happen, but none to complain simply about the traffic density unless that is limited by legislation or original charter.