I am 37 years old and have grown up here in central New Jersey. I (always had) a very clear image in my mind of what my home would look like, what we would talk about at the dinner table each night, and how my family would grow and the love my children would feel in our home. My wife and I have worked very hard to live the American dream, and I’m proud to say we now own the home that we planned on watching our two boys grow up in. I want to emphasize the word home and not house. There is a big difference.
When we moved into our home almost three years ago, the idea of a bike trail less than half the distance of a football field directly behind our home was a positive. Never in our wildest dreams did we think that some day, in the very near future, would I be sending an e-mail to convince a senator that a diesel (train) line in our back yard would kill our dreams of living in our home with the sounds of migrating birds and looking out the kitchen window at real deer in our back yard eating our just planted trees each evening at dusk.
My two boys just learned how to ride their own two-wheelers last fall. It just so happens that the very first ride we took together as a family was on the newly black-topped segment of the Henry Hudson Trail between our development (Stevenson Road) and Vanderburg Road.
[Running a train line] through the middle of Marlboro and our neighborhood would end all of this for hundreds of families just like mine.
I would hate to think that by the time our boys are 9 and 7 they would not be able to ride their bikes outside at all, for fear of a diesel train blowing by at a high rate of speed every 40 minutes. I’m sure that we would have to give up our dream of living in a nice home with a nice quiet back yard — a dream that we have worked so hard for.
We would be forced to move and to take thousands of dollars less for our home than it was worth before the diesel rail line cut through our back yard. We would never be able to afford another house to live in that would be considered comparable and probably would not even be able to afford to stay in the same town. Our boys would have to go to different schools and move away from their friends.
I understand that our roads are way too crowded. I understand that a rail line may make sense when all options are considered to some. But please give greater consideration to those routes that don’t cut so dangerously close to people’s homes and to those where the infrastructure is still in place (i.e., train tracks, not trails for bikers and joggers).
Please do not favor those routes that we as taxpayers have already spent over $2 million to develop into trails that improve the lives of people living in our community, not ruin them. Please do the right thing and say no to the Lakewood to Matawan line.
Jason and Robyn Silverstein
Marlboro