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The Summerfield Avenue railroad crossing will close permanently to pedestrian and vehicular traffic Tuesday, Mayor John Moor announced at Monday night’s City Council workshop meeting.

The crossing was schedule for closure later this year but a split in the rail’s mainline prompted the immediate closure, Moor said.

“We got the news today from the DOT [Department of Transportation] and NJ Transit,” Moor said.

Although city officials fought the permanent closure originally scheduled to occur within two months, they lost the battle, Moor said.

“For as much as we lost the battle maybe we won the war because we will have three other intersections redone, we’ll be getting a preemption system done for firehouse and police calls,” Moor said.

The preemption system will allow emergency officials to bypass delays caused when trains pull into the Asbury Park station, Moor said.

“The main thing is to allow fire and police to get to the south, southwest and west side,” Moor said. “When there is a train in the station it shuts down Bangs to Asbury Avenue.”

The state DOT and NJ Transit plan to shutter Summerfield Avenue crossing includes the repaving of a side road between Summerfield and Munroe avenues. [shown at right]

Sunset, Springwood, Third and Fourth avenue crossings also will be refurbished with new signals, lighting, road improvements, and crossbars, Moor said.

Asbury Park has 12 intersections along Memorial Drive with railroad crossings. Three of those crossings [Springwood, Bangs and Asbury avenues] have traffic signals and there is a flashing light at Third Avenue. The remainder of the crossings have stop signs. Seawall Avenue is shuttered to cross traffic.

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