IMPORTANT: AMTRAK COMMUNITY MEETING — THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
Amtrak is holding another community meeting on Thursday, September 17 at 6:30 PM at the Pui Tak Center, 2218 S. Wentworth Avenue.
Justin Ishbia is expected to attend, along with Ald. Nicole Lee.
Please register and make plans to be there.
This is an important meeting, and we need Bridgeport and Chinatown to show up in numbers.
We also need to be prepared for what we are likely to hear.
Amtrak has now had several weeks to respond to the growing opposition to this project. We should expect a more polished presentation. We may hear about newer equipment, environmental testing, noise mitigation, reduced idling, lighting, landscaping, operating procedures and other measures they say will protect the surrounding community.
Ask questions. Listen carefully. But do not let the conversation become about how Amtrak can make this facility more tolerable.
The question we have been asking from the beginning is much more fundamental:
Why is a massive, 24/7 rail maintenance facility being moved into a densely populated residential community at all?
Nothing Amtrak promises at this meeting changes the location.
There are homes immediately across from the proposed site. Historic Armour Square Park sits alongside it. Bridgeport and Chinatown families, children and seniors live around it. This is not an isolated industrial area with a substantial buffer separating heavy maintenance operations from residents.
Nothing they promise changes the scale of what is being proposed: a major new maintenance complex operating around the clock, with trains, equipment, servicing activity, noise, vibration, lighting, vehicle traffic and emissions.
Nothing they promise changes the fact that Amtrak pursued a categorical exclusion for this project rather than conducting a full Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement.
And pay close attention to how Amtrak defines the project itself. They may ask us to look only at the phase they are proposing today and dismiss future phases as hypothetical, separate or not part of the current project. But we have already seen planning materials showing what future expansion of this site may entail. Whatever terminology is used, residents have every right to ask about the full context and foreseeable future of this property — not just the portion Amtrak chooses to put in front of us today.
And nothing they promise changes the larger context. Amtrak’s existing 14th Street property is valuable land tied to major redevelopment plans, and relocating Amtrak clears that property while shifting the burden of its maintenance operations south into our neighborhoods.
Bridgeport and Chinatown should not have to absorb the consequences of making other land available for redevelopment.
We support investment. We support better rail service. We support responsible development.
We do not support putting the wrong project in the wrong place and then asking residents to trust that mitigation will make it okay.
Promises about how a facility will operate can change. Operations can change. Equipment can change. Future plans can change.
The location does not.
That is why our position remains the same: this facility does not belong here. Amtrak needs to seriously pursue another location.
There is also organizing underway for a strong community presence outside the meeting, and we will share more details as plans are finalized.
Please register. Please come. Bring your neighbors and bring your questions. We need Amtrak, the developer, our elected officials and everyone else involved in this project to see exactly how strongly this community feels about what is being proposed.
Thursday, September 17 | 6:30 PM
Pui Tak Center | 2218 S. Wentworth Avenue
REGISTER:
https://tally.so/r/VLe2dN
Learn more, read the research and follow updates:
https://www.stopamtrakbridgeport.com/