With the federal Surface Transportation Board giving permission last week to tear up a nearly unused rail line along Waukegan’s lakefront, the ball is now in the city’s court when it comes to who will own the land and how it will be redeveloped.
Mayor Wayne Motley said he received word on June 25 that the U.S. Department of Transportation board had granted a request filed this spring by the Wisconsin Central Ltd. to vacate a 3.6-mile rail line that runs parallel to Pershing Road and dead-ends near Greenwood Avenue.
Asked what the next step would be, Motley said “we’re going to buy it. We’ve negotiated a price already, and we’re going to see if we can get that done.”
Owned in the past by the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway Co. and used for local freight, the line has only been used in recent years by a single Lake Bluff-based manufacturer, according to documents filed with the transportation board.
According to a record of decision posted by the board on June 29, arrangements have been made with that manufacturer to utilize alternate shipping routes. The decision also noted that the request to abandon the line was made “so that the city can implement its multi-faceted lakefront revitalization and redevelopment.”
“The city states that a major step in this plan is (the Wisconsin Central’s) agreement to convey the right-of-way to the city,” the report states, adding that the Wisconsin Central “has demonstrated that its abandonment of the line and plans to convey the right-of-way to the city are for a valid public purpose. Likewise, there is no overriding public need for continued rail service.”
Noelle Kischer-Lepper, the city’s director of policy and projects, said last week the goal is to close on a real-estate deal sometime in 2015.
“It’s been three solid years already, so I’m hoping it’s by the end of the calendar year,” she said. “There are a lot of factors, and abandonment is just one step. But the (surface board) is saying that they’re OK with that section of track not being there any more.”
In the petition filed with the board to vacate the line, Motley included a letter of support stating that “the continued presence of a legally ‘active’ rail line in the middle of Waukegan’s waterfront area would thwart, and indeed could defeat, Waukegan’s plans for waterfront connectivity and to add public parkland.”
While adding that specific plans for redevelopment on and around the rail line have yet to be drawn up, Motley said that right-of-way “will be devoted at various places to parkland or pathways ensuring the flow of pedestrians and cyclists, reducing reliance on automobiles and local traffic congestion.”
Twitter @NewsSunDanMoran
