Commissioner Humphryes responded yesterday afternoon to my e-mail. As you can see below he dodged all the questions for the most part, but at least he or someone in his office responded. I am sure I wasn't the only one to hound him. Here is his response:
I am aware that Norfolk
Southern (NS) was interested in moving into the existing industrial park for
their intermodal facility. The plan that I saw did not include any land on the
south side of the railroad tracks except for enough land for them to build a
private road for the trucks to use to load and unload the railcars.
We will see at the zoning
hearing tomorrow what their plans are now. It seems they have options on
property that goes way beyond that.
Commissioner Humphryes
The zoning hearing today promises to be interesting. I am not going but the local news reported that some expect 200-400 to show up. I'd be surprised at that number but there will no doubt be a bunch.
We will see how that goes.
I looked up some locations of other hubs. One is in Austell, GA, outside of Atlanta. I had T call and speak with someone in the mayor's office. The mayor was out of town, but I got his direct number and told to call him next week. T asked about the hub and the community relations. Basically, they told her that if the decision has been made (which we think has been) there is nothing you can do. "You can fight it, but you will lose, the railroads just have too much money" is exactly what they told us.
As far as communty impact, they said they were able to negotiate a $5,000,000 settlement with Norfolk Southern that was escrowed for communty projects. Unfortunately for McCalla, we are unincorporated and do we really want Jefferson County having control of a settlement like that if we were to get one. The only complaints they have received, according to this person in the Mayor's office is some noise complaints. Interestingly she did not say anything about traffic. The unofficial response from someone in the Austell, GA mayor's office has been that is has been good/bad.
I will try to talk with the Mayor next week and see if we can get more specifics. So far, I haven't been able to determine how negative this hub would be for the whole community or jus some certain areas. I may try and talk with someone in Harrisburg, PA as well. They built a hub there in 2000, so perhaps they have a track record to see what the community impact will be.
I live in Austell Ga and had much apprehension about the inter-modal facility; however, it has basically become a non issue. They closed one of the railroad crossings and built a bridge over the tracks a little further down -- sometimes that is inconvenient.
As for the number of trains -- it seems that they are the same. Number of trucks? Well, they are routed down a highway just outside of town and have not really been a problem. Every now and again, one will get lost and drive through a residential area, but it is rare. As for noise -- rare as well. If you did not know that facility was there, you really wouldn't know it was there. They built burns and planted trees all around the facility for noise protection.
Austell was able to negotiate a money settlement. We are a small town and the statement, "You can't fight the railroad" is a true one. We thought for sure it would just ruin things, but in reality, it hasn't had that much impact as far as I can tell.
Strange thing -- there was the promise of all these potential new jobs, but I have yet to meet one person who works there.
Pat
Posted by: Pat Deneen | July 17, 2009 at 06:59 PM