Metra renews suit against STB over CP-KCS merger approval

Chicago commuter rail provider Metra has renewed its lawsuit criticizing how the Surface Transportation Board handled its review of the merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern. Metra joins Union Pacific and a Chicago-area citizens group in suing STB.

In a Sept. 29 filing before the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., Metra asked the court to find that STB’s March 15 approval of the CP-KCS merger was unlawful and should be sent back to the board so it can address the “legal deficiencies” in its decision.

Metra initially filed a suit against STB after ther merger officially took place in April. But the court ruled that Metra must wait until STB responded to Metra in a separate board proceeding about Metra’s concerns over how the merger was handled. In that proceeding, Metra had asked the board to reconsider elements of its decision, which had been rendered in March. The board subsequently rejected Metra’s request to reconsider its decision.

During merger proceedings before the board, Metra, along with the Coalition to Stop CPKC, a citizens group consisting of western Chicago-area communities, had questioned the data that STB used to determine the magnitude of additional freight rail traffic that would occur as a result of the merger. Both claim that the data prompted the board to underestimate how much freight rail traffic would increase as a result of the merger. The citizens coalition filed its lawsuit against STB in federal court this past summer.