9 Bergen towns sue NJ Transit over new track plans

Nine Bergen County towns have sued New Jersey Transit because of its plan to lay new railroad tracks to increase service on the Pascack Valley Line.

Oradell, Emerson, Hillsdale, Montvale, Old Tappan, Park Ridge, River Edge, Westwood, and Woodcliff Lake are named as plaintiffs in the complaint filed last week in Superior Court in Hackensack.

The proposed rail sidings are in Oradell, Hackensack, Teterboro, and Nanuet, N.Y. A railroad siding is a set of parallel tracks that allows trains to pass each other from opposite directions. The current layout allows trains to travel only one way in the morning and the other way in the evening.

The municipalities say in the complaint that the change would harm the environment, cause traffic jams, and impair emergency response.

Specifically, Oradell Avenue - which sees 30,000 vehicles per day - would have more delays due to more trains crossing the street, the complaint states. It also raises concerns over the siding's close proximity to the Oradell Reservoir, a water source for 750,000 New Jersey residents.

(from NorthJersey.com)

Again with the Nimbys.......

sigh. Let's keep the status quo. The same people who complain about trafffic problems yet cry when someone doesn't do anything to get more vehicles off the road. I wonder if has anything to do with re-elections in those towns :D

Ugh. Just ugh.

More frivilous litigation. We need a fee switching rule in this country. Each of these towns should be dunned for wasting our time and money.

I guess the towns (south)east of Oradell (i.e. River Edge, New Milford, Hackensack, Hasbrouck Heights, Teterboro and Wood-Ridge) aren't concerned ?

Abandon the PVL and tear out the tracks. The towns (north)west of River Edge would have a field day perhaps.

Bergenities do not embrace the commuter RR like folks in Morris Co. do.
Bergenities = "ultra anal".

Old Tappan? OLD TAPPAN???!

Why would Old Tappan care? They are closest to the West Shore Line, nowhere near the Pascack Valley Line!

Hey, if they want to keep that horrendous traffic situation up there, it's all on them.

Maybe, just maybe it's the Red and Tan (Coach USA?) Bus Line that's behind these lawsuits. Obviously, any improvement to the PVL would result in lost ridership on the buses.

Look behind any major initiative like this and you often see someone like them.

The Texas high speed rail project in the early 90s was to have built a 200mph line connecting Dallas, Houston, and Austin. All the environmental, traffic, and economic numbers favored it. But, it was killed by the Texas legislature through the wired-in Herb Kelleher, the founder and then CEO of Southwest Airlines. Watch out when your have an attorney (like Kelleher) who is also a CEO, and hobknobs with the politicos. No one else has a chance.

So, now it takes 20 minutes to find a parking spot, two hours to check in, one hour flight, and you're still over an hour to the next downtown where the train would have taking one hour and ten minutes. And, look at all the fuel those plane burn and will burn in the coming decades.

You come to expect something like this from:

A. The Northern Bergen County Snobs
B. The companies who don't want to loose their market share

It's only logical that making the Pascack Valley line will reduce traffic. This wouldn't impair the ability for emergency vehicles to answer calls, nor would it have an environmental impact. More trains = less traffic on the roads = less pollution. You'd think they'd get it by now.

mcmannors wrote:Obviously, any improvement to the PVL would result in lost ridership on the buses

If that's the case, they don't have as much of a "leg to stand on" as DeCamp and Lakeland versus Midtown Direct—increased service on the PVL would not be direct competition, what with no one-seat ride to/from Manhattan. If anything, if the PVL could remove more cars from the road, then it should mean better business for the buses, and if passenger service could be instituted on the parallel but further-east Northern Branch (we'll push for West Shore service for last), then if that results in yet more cars off the road, it means the bus service can yet move more freely. (Ever been in any towns in eastern Bergen County during rush-hour? Virtually no motion.)

having grown up there, the problem with all of those towns in that suit (except perhaps OT), is that they have very few overpasses or other manner of keeping traffic flowing while a train is coming. When the trains come through they really do put everything to a halt - and the trains go through the main areas of most of those towns. (they are in a bind because it would totally change the character of most of the towns if an overpass was put in right in the centers, not to mention the legal issues with eminent domain proceedings.)

Plenty of other New Jersey communities "divided" by sinister railroad tracks somehow cope adequately without disruption of "emergency" services. The North Jersey Coast Line comes to mind.

No, in NJ-ARP's view this is obstructionism, pure (if not necessarily simple), and it has little if any justification worth discussing. It discriminates against rail passenger service and the people who would use it. It is unconstitutional (interstate commerce clause). It advances specious concerns (rising through-freight traffic). And, by one party's admission, it is pre-emptive in nature -- staking out a turf claim, if one will -- that is at best spiteful on its face.

Fair enough, then. If need be, NJ-ARP is not above offering the "Getz Gambit" which would allow New York State riders service on the line at midday and on weekends. Coming through Bergen County? The trains can just sail on through to Hackensack -- that would prevent any supposed "problems" with blocked traffic. "Seal 'em up, send 'em through." (It worked for NJ-ARP once before, on the Main/Bergen Line. The balking party in that case: NJ Transit itself, which reconsidered.)


Meanwhile, our NJ-ARP members living in the Pascack Valley will be contacting their local representatives on the matter (some already have gotten under way). We welcome others to join us.

Ive never been on teh Pascack Valley line, and I know there are a lot of grade crossings, but it has to be very similar to the Coast Line west of Long Branch, especially west of Allenhurst into Asbury park, all the way down to Bay Head. Grade crossings seemingly every 100 feet. And there are a LOT of trains that run west of Long Branch, at all times of hte day and night, not just during rush hours like the Pascack.....

This suit is absoultely rediculous, i hope it gets thrown out and these people get laughed at for the waste of taxdollars

Like like that "seal em up and send them through" all the trains express through these towns then they will see which is worse, train traffic or road traffic