Tell Chicago City Council - Have a Hearing on Dangerous Railroad Viaducts!

All across Chicago, there are railroad viaducts that allow trains to pass over streets. It's common for people to notice the holes in the columns, the rust everywhere, and the cracking concrete. Every year they get worse, and it's clear that today, you could gamble on which one falls first. These viaducts are a tragedy waiting to happen because of decades of neglect - take any engineer or architect to see one of them and they'll tell you so (we did just that, check out the video at the bottom).

Many people over the years have tried to bring attention to these conditions. But who do you call? Your alderman? CDOT? IDOT?

The problem is that the bridges that support trains are privately owned.

Union Pacific is one of the railroad companies that owns railroad bridges in Chicago, and they own many across the country. The company carries out its own inspections of rail bridges, and they make it very difficult to get details about those inspections. Yet members of the public have to walk, bike, and drive under them constantly to get anywhere in the city. We deserve transparency: when are these rail bridges inspected? What are the standards they are being held to? And most importantly - what's the plan to immediately secure rail bridges that have become a risk, and what is the long term plan to fully repair or replace them? We need our government to hold these railroad companies accountable for our safety.