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Protestors aim to stop CSX expansion plans

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LAKELAND - A group of protestors in Polk County is trying to derail a CSX train project. They held signs, collected signatures, and provided information to passersby in Munn Park in Lakeland at lunchtime on Friday. CSX wants to increase the number of trains it sends through downtown Lakeland. Not long ago, the company was talking about eight more trains a day. Recently, it has dropped that estimate to four.Either way, protestors say more trains, no matter how many, are a bad idea."The amount of disruption it's going to cause it going to be tremendous," said Julie Townsend of the Downtown Lakeland Partnership, the business group that organized the event. Demonstrators say more trains would cause traffic delays and tie-ups, and make downtown much more noisy. That, they say, would be terrible for business."You get the public perception that there are going to be a lot of problems associated with the train, and they're going to stay away from it," said William Wakeman III, who owns property and an investment firm downtown.The trains would come from CSX's proposed hub in Winter Haven. They would be going from there through Lakeland to the Port of Tampa where they would pick up cargo and come back again. The City of Winter Haven and the Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce are thrilled over the hub because it would create jobs. Many homeowners who live near the proposed hub are fighting it. The protestors in Lakeland insist that CSX could upgrade its existing lines outside Lakeland and avoid the city completely.CSX spokesman Gary Sease told FOX 13, "That is not an option."Sease says CSX is willing to sit down and negotiate with Lakeland officials. He says CSX may be able to compromise with a "quiet zone." In essence, trains would not blow their horns as they go through downtown.Townsend is thinking bigger thoughts. She and others are collecting signatures with hopes of sitting down with the governor. Even though, Townsend admits, it's a David and Goliath-like battle, she says the little guy has stopped similar projects elsewhere.
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