I am opposed to this project, just like I was back in 2000. The right of way (ROW) and my property share a common property line. The rail line was constructed back in 1875. Built with a 100-foot ROW, it was wide enough for two tracks and the necessary safety clearances.
A professional basketball court is 94 feet long, and the distance between bases in Major League Baseball is 90 feet. NJ Transit’s ROW is just slightly longer than either of these. Can you picture a 150-foot-tall monopole with a 10-foot diameter base at center court in Madison Square Garden? How about halfway between home plate and first base in Yankee Stadium?
Well, the monopole will not be in the center of the ROW. NJ Transit uses 70 feet of the ROW; this includes the two tracks, safe clearance between and beside the tracks, roadbed and structures supporting the NJ Transit catenary. This leaves 15 feet between the edge of the ROW (homeowner’s property) and the NJ Transit rail operation area. Now subtract the 10 feet for the base for the monopole and that leaves 5 feet for JCP&L’s out-of-state contractors to operate their heavy machinery, assemble and install poles and string wires.
This line has been proposed three previous times — 1962, 1989 and 2000 — and all three times JCP&L has withdrawn the project. We need to once and for all never allow JCP&L to propose or build this transmission project. The ROW is too narrow.
Mark White
Hazlet