UPDATE: The Davenport City Council has agreed to take an offer from the Canadian Pacific Railroad.
The council voted unanimously Wednesday, when more than a dozen other people spoke against the measure at the council meeting.
“Life-threatening to our citizens” were strong words from opponents of the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Southern merger.
“Are we going to be a train town or a river town?” one person asked.
In the end, the council approved the deal in a unanimous vote, reminding those in the council chambers they are powerless over the merger, so the deal was better than the potential of no deal.
The next step will be deciding the best way to use the $10 million the city will receive.
EARLIER: A draft of an environmental impact statement about Canadian Pacific Railway’s acquisition of Kansas City Southern Railway was delivered to the United States Environmental Protection Agency last week.
Among the data included is one of significance for Quad Citizens: The railroad crossing with the longest increase in average delay will be at Ripley Street in downtown Davenport.
While the average increase in delay due to the increased rail traffic will be 0.7 seconds per vehicle for the 277 grade crossings with an average annual daily traffic of 2,500 or more vehicles per day, the delays at Ripley are expected to increase by 7.3 seconds per vehicle, “the greatest average increase in delay for any grade crossing,” according to the report.
The Draft EIS analyzes the potential environmental impacts of the proposed acquisition, including impacts related to expected increases in rail traffic “ranging from eight to approximately 14.4 additional trains per day, on average,” on CP and KCS lines between Chicago and Laredo, Texas.
Last year
In December, the mayor and city council of Davenport officially expressed concerns over the impact of a proposed merger between the Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern companies.
In a letter to the Surface Transportation Board, available here, the mayor and council warned that the merger would triple the amount of trains traveling through the city on a daily basis. The letter communicated concerns of harm to infrastructure, nearby neighborhoods and Davenport’s downtown and riverfront areas.
The mayor and city council asked that the concerns be addressed before a merger is approved. You can read the entire letter here.