Editorial: In Englewood, a conflict over a rail yard expansion. The way out? Dialogue.

In “Chicago,” a stirring paean to our brawny metropolis, Carl Sandburg described the “City of the Big Shoulders” as a “Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler …” When it comes to freight rail, that’s still the case today.

Chicago is the nation’s preeminent rail nexus, with as many as 1,300 freight and passenger trains moving through the city each day. One of every four American freight trains passes through Chicago, trundling along the metro region’s 3,865 miles of track and more than 50 freight rail yards.

Status as the nation’s rail nerve center gives Chicago remarkable economic heft, but with that status come challenges. One of the biggest: How can the noise, soot and congestion inherent in so much freight rail traffic coexist with everyday living — with kids playing in front yards, with seniors on porches, with people in cars stuck at grade-level crossings?

Long overdue work is being done to improve the movement of freight trains through Chicago, with less interference to passenger train service. But rail yards are a whole different issue. They’re places where trains stay put for long periods, often with accompanying noise and fumes. The tracks in yards are wider to allow for loading, unloading, waiting for clearance and servicing.

The inherent invasiveness of rail yards is a matter coming to a head in the South Side’s Englewood neighborhood, where the Norfolk Southern Railway wants to make its biggest American intermodal rail yard even bigger by buying up several streets and alleys in between two existing rail lines from Garfield Boulevard on the north to 59th Street on the south.

Englewood once thrived as a neighborhood of railroad and steelworkers, but today the community bleeds people at alarming rates. Boarded-up greystones and vacant lots line many streets. Violent crime is an ever-present threat to families who have stayed. Ald. Jeanette Taylor, whose 20th Ward includes parts of Englewood, has been battling Norfolk Southern’s plans for the rail yard expansion, last week blocked a vote on an ordinance that would have allowed the freight company to acquire the land it needs for its project.

Taylor wants to extract more concessions from Norfolk Southern, including more jobs for area residents and an explanation from the freight company on how $3 million that the company set aside in 2013 for environmental and community development projects near the rail yard was actually spent, the Tribune reported.

Meanwhile, Mayor Lori Lightfoot says the rail yard expansion helps because it keeps jobs and commerce in the city. At a time when companies and jobs continue to stream out of Chicago, projects such as Norfolk Southern’s yard expansion make sense.

Both sides of this standoff appear to be entrenched in their positions, and that’s not good for anyone — not for the people of Englewood, Norfolk Southern or the city.

Residents in Englewood would be more receptive if they could see tangible benefits from Norfolk Southern’s plans: a commitment to jobs that isn’t just lip service; consideration of what impact the steady flow of freight container trucks have on local roads and the health of people in the neighborhood; and, for homeowners whose properties stand in the way of the expansion, fair compensation.

It’s worth remember that, in 2019, the residents of north suburban Glenview effectively blocked a planned Amtrak yard designed to help expand Amtrak service between Chicago and Milwaukee and slated for their affluent community. The village spent more than $500,000 dollars on that effort to retain their quality of life in the face of expanded train movement.

Whatever the merits of these cases, you can hardly blame the residents and representatives of Englewood, who generally have access to fewer lobbying resources, for expecting the city to care about their quality of life too.

By the same token, it cannot be forgotten that freight movers like Norfolk Southern have been critical to Chicago’s economic vibrancy for decades, and will continue to be so. Chicago is blessed with geography that makes it an ideal transportation hub — for commercial aviation and freight rail. It’s a big reason why Chicago legitimately can call itself a global city, and that’s something that must be nurtured rather than neglected.

So, in this stalemate, we urge both sides to get back to dialogue and do what it takes to coexist. Chicago is both a “city of neighborhoods and, as Sandburg put it, the “City of the Big Shoulders.” Those two ideas shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

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