TRRAAC (The Rail Road Advisory and Advisory Committee) has now morphed into CAARRT (Community Activist Against Rail Road Transgressions) and have distributed a stinging newsletter which includes the following assertions and questions:
“Let us be perfectly clear. CAARRT does not oppose the Lancaster Northwest Gateway Project. The reuse of the Armstrong site is a beneficial reuse of old polluted industrial property. However, the economic potential of this project does NOT depend upon relocating the rail yard to the old dump. We have proposed using the original expansion plans announced by Norfolk Southern back in 2003. But F&M and Norfolk Southern will not make those plans public. The rail yard can be expanded without wasting $12 million in your tax dollars cleaning up a dump.
“Why were the project partners so intent on moving the rail yard to the dump? Was it to remove a nuisance from the campus environment? Was it because federal and state tax dollars would be readily available if they could claim reuse of a brownfield? Can they justify using our limited tax revenue to pay for the expansion of a profitable private railroad? Can they justify the use of tax dollars to primarily benefit a private college and a private hospital that had a profit last year of $113 million?
“Instead, they send spies to our meetings, make unsubstantiated accusations that CAARRT continually misrepresents the facts, refuse to meet with CAARRT or respond to our comments, and yet claim they are being transparent…”
This is clearly a case of David taking on not just one Goliath, but three: Franklin and Marshall College, Norfolk & Southern Railroad, and Lancaster General Hospital. In fairness to the latter two, John Fry and F&M have been in the driver’s seat.
CAARRT and its predecessor TRRAAC have basically only asked for one thing: An independent study of whether there is an equally good or better alternative location for the rail yard. If so, taxpayers would save over ten million dollars in unnecessary excavation, moving and then re-burying of material from the dump. Moreover, School Lane Hills would not be subject to as much sound pollution.
The cost of such an indpendent study would be tiny compared to the potential savings, but John Fry and his minions have managed to thwart their request at every turn.
