2003 Year in Review

Orange Street Crossing Not Closing

The Orange Street Crossing will not be closed for now.

The Morrison City Council voted to close Orange Street crossing. So why hasn’t it been done? There is even talk about fixing up the crossing. What happened? UPRR (Union Pacific Railroad) first asked Morrison to close two crossings, which the council rejected. Then they came back to the table a year ago and offered if they could close one crossing UPRR would make Morrison a “Quiet Zone”.

Even though some council members and residents opposed the idea, it passed. Many residents felt this was a form of extortion, either they can make up a “Quiet Zone” or they can’t. Joe Woith, city administer, found out UPRR was bluffing. We had just called their bluff and they left the table.

Morrison is affected by the whistles. Businesses are affected, homeowners are affected, and commerce is affected. With 80-100 trains coming through Morrison blaring their horns, the city is affected. UPRR refuses to come back to the table and there are not many that can bring them back to the table.

Joe Woith doesn’t want to put his hands up and say “you win”. That is not his style. If you have been to any local businesses in downtown Morrison, you may have seen a petition setting there for a “Quiet Zone”. Morrison has done petitions before but this one is directed at Illinois Representatives Donald Manzulo and Lane Evans. About half dozen local persons have started the petition to ask Manzulo and Evans to bring UPRR back the table to negotiate again. The petitioners are hoping for 600 signatures, so they put them in high volume businesses like True Value, Casa Gomez, Dairy Queen, Quinn’s, Boss Radio Shack, Spahn and Rose, local banks and other businesses.

With the increasing traffic (due to the building of a Rochelle Intermodal facility, a state of the art railroad terminal) the problem will get even worse. There are other communities along the UPRR also trying to get a “Quiet Zone” such as Dekalb. Some communities in the Chicago suburbs have already achieved that status. Other communities have found an alternate to the horns such as directional horns that only blow at the crossings or using a form of a barricade to keep traffic from crossing while trains are present.

Now that you now why the petitions are sitting on the counter, go out and sign one.

by Barb Benson, theCity1.com
September 4, 2003