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The repaving and addition of NJ Transit no trespassing railroad signs has caused a parking shortage for area residents and businesses along Steiner Place between Fourth and Fifth avenues, Mayor John Moor said.

While the corridor is less than 400 feet long, it provided over 30 parking spaces for the busy area, which includes the popular Georgies, Lentil Tree, and nearby pharmacy and Shops At Sunset mall.

But with NJ Transit taking ownership of its easement along the roadway, parking has been reduced by some 20 spaces, Moor said.

“We asked NJ Transit if we could pave their area and they said no,” Moor said. “We might have been better off not paving the road at all for goodness sake.”

The corridor landed on the city’s road improvement program after the State’s Department of Transportation [NJDOT] awarded the city a $903,017 grant in December to help supplement its estimated $4.7 million construction costs for work along Steiner Place from Fourth to Fifth avenues; Park Avenue from Sunset Avenue to Deal Lake Drive; Sunset Avenue from Bridge Street to Memorial Drive; Prospect Avenue from Washington to Asbury avenues; Washington Avenue from Ridge to Prospect avenues; Dunlewy Street from Fourth Avenue to the northerly terminus; and Cookman Avenue from Langford Street to Memorial Drive.

“If we paved the road ourselves, we would have gone back to the way it was,” Moor said. “We would have put the bumpers back.”

Instead, NJDOT placed the cautionary no trespassing across the railroad tracks signs in its easement along the road and no parking signs.

Following a Monday afternoon meeting with the state agency, the no parking signs were removed and the head on spots facing the railroad tracks have been replaced by parallel parking, Moor said. 

“I do want to give DOT credit for recognizing the importance of the issue and they are looking into it,” he said. “If DOT does not agree to go back to the original layout, we may be looking to see if we can make Steiner one way going south so that we can put diagonal parking on the west side and parallel parking on the east side of the street so that we can recoup some of the lost spaces. We are in better position than we were in last week but it’s still affecting a lot of people who have been parking there.”

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