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Members of the Asbury Park City Council are all in agreement that none of the city’s railway intersections between Memorial Drive and Main Street should be shut off to traffic.

In a discussion held during the Aug. 6 city council meeting, all five council members agreed to send correspondence to the state department of transportation [DOT] to notify them the city is not in favor of permanently closing any of the city’s 12 rail crossings.

The discussion stems from a plan DOT officials have to upgrade railroad crossings in the city. The plan proposes closing First and Summerfield avenues, improving road surfaces at Springwood, Third and Fourth avenue intersections and replacing rail crossing signals at Sunset Avenue, according to Todd Hirt, diagnostic team leader for the DOT’s Bureau of Railroad Engineering Services.

Hirt, along with a slew of other DOT representatives, NJ Transit officials, members of the county engineer’s office, and city officials met on August 1 at the intersection of Summerfield Avenue and Memorial Drive [shown above] to discuss the permanently closing the intersection to vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

DOT officials parsed out the Summerfield Avenue closure to piggyback off of an approved county “road diet” project that will reconfigure the traffic pattern of Memorial Drive between Route 33 on the Neptune border and Munroe Avenue, since the intersection lies within the affected portion of the roadway slated for reconfiguration.

Project engineers propose an extension of  the curb along Memorial Drive to bridge the intersection and placement of a fence between Bangs and Munroe avenues on the opposite side, Hirt said at the Aug. 1 meeting.

Councilman John Moor, who attended the on-site meeting with City Manager John “Jack” Kelly and representatives from the fire and public works departments, said the study that was referenced uses data from five years ago and DOT officials were also unaware the intersection is used as a school crossing for Thurgood Marshall Elementary School, located three blocks east on Summerfield.

“We live in this town, we know what happens here,” Moor said Wednesday, before he relayed a story about recently watching one of the city’s ambulances travel north to First Avenue to cross over to head south again on a call because traffic was backed up on several other cross streets.

Councilman John Loffredo, who has served on the city council for the last 13 years, said the DOT has tried previously to get the city on board with shuttering additional intersections in Abury Park to no avail.

Sewall Avenue is the only intersection that is permanently fenced off; the Cookman Avenue crossing is separated by the block that holds the city’s municipal complex.

Kelly said it would be hard to believe the DOT would follow through with the closures without the city’s support.

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