Residents wanted trucks banned from Lambertville following deadly gas explosions in 1970 and 1971.
By: Sue Kramer
LAMBERTVILLE For some residents, the battle to ban trucks on area roads is nothing new, and they’re speaking out in frustration over their 15-year battle with the state.
"We’ve been lied to, given false promises and been jerked around by DOT and our legislators over the years," one longtime member of Lambertville’s grassroots citizens truck committee said, who asked not to be identified.
Another, who also asked for anonymity, added, "Someone is definitely insulting our intelligence by leading us on the way they have."
"They’ve been lying to us for years," yet another said, voicing his disappointment with area politicians and DOT. "They were going to do this and that and the other, but it’s never been done. All the meetings at the library; we had them all there. They were all there and said something’s going to be done. They never did anything."
The original truck committee was formed in 1985 as a grass-roots movement to address the problem of the hundreds of quarry trucks that were traveling up and down North Main Street each day. With memories of the 1971 York Street gas explosions in their minds, and copies of Lambertville’s 1969 Master Plan that stated Main Street wouldn’t be able to safely handle the projected truck traffic once Route 202 and the toll bridge were completed, they set out to curtail the truck traffic.
Problems with large trucks were nothing new to Lambertville when the truck committee was formed. On the heels of an Oct. 5, 1970, gas explosion on Church Street that leveled six houses, killed one person, injured eight others and left 26 people homeless, came a second, then a third, more deadly explosion, that was attributed to truck traffic.
The first explosion, at 5:45 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 4, 1971, leveled the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Crosby at the corner of York and Franklin streets. Then, at 7:45 a.m., as residents gathered across the street in the home of Bessie Randolph to make coffee for the firefighters, a second explosion rocked Lambertville, leveling Mrs. Randolph’s home and that of her neighbor, Emma Mack. In all, eight people were killed, a dozen hurt, four homes were destroyed, and 80 people had to seek temporary shelter.
The ensuing investigations put the blame for the blasts on a cracked valve in the gas main at the intersection of York and Franklin streets. No official cause for the crack was ever determined, but the most likely cause was thought to be a combination of the effects of freezing and thawing that winter with the weight and vibrations of the truck traffic that traveled through the intersection as the catalyst that finally cracked the valve. Heavy trucks were subsequently banned from York Street and were rerouted down Main Street to Bridge Street.
Lambertville’s 1969 Master Plan addressed some of the problems inherent in the expected heavy truck traffic. It stated the age and condition of Lambertville’s water and gas mains as well as the structure of Main Street itself as not being able to handle the weight and vibrations caused by trucks and the expected extra traffic once the Route 202 project was completed.
A bypass running across Music Mountain from the new Route 202 to Route 179 was proposed by the state as the solution, but it never followed through.
One of the first things the truck committee did was draft a resolution banning trucks on North Main Street, citing the hazards of antiquated gas mains, the damage the trucks were causing to homes and the noise and pollution caused by the trucks. The resolution was adopted by the mayor and council on April 20, 1987 and forwarded to the state Department of Transportation.
"We were writing to both our representatives in ’88," said long-time member and former Chairman William Taylor. "They had gotten the DOT to consider a partial ban for certain hours. They got back to us and asked us if we would consider that a beginning, and we said, ‘Yes.’ Then, they (DOT) never came through with it."
The truck committee gradually faded out after that, with members feeling frustrated over the lack of regulation and what many considered to be false promises made by DOT representatives.
Some of the promises that were made by DOT representatives over the years, according to members of the committee, included:
An overnight ban on truck traffic from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.
A ban on truck traffic from 7 to 9 a.m. and 2 to 4 p.m. when children were going to and from school.
Establishing State Police truck inspections in Lambertville.
Instituting a 25 mph speed limit within Lambertville’s boundaries.
Making it more lucrative for interstate trucks to use approved roads such as the New Jersey Turnpike by lowering fees.
The truck committee became active again in 1993 as Citizens for a Safer Main Street. At that time, more than 500 big trucks were recorded traveling North Main Street in a six-hour period. Members again drafted a resolution that was passed by the mayor and council and again forwarded it to DOT, and Lambertville was given a similar set of promises.
"We didn’t, at that time, understand the extent to which this was a regional problem," Dr. Taylor explained. "In our section of the world, we were just inundated with trucks. Now, we’ve come to understand that it’s 179, it’s 31, it’s 206."
The "mistake" that was made in the early ’90s, according to members of the committee, was that individual municipalities were trying to address the truck issue as individual entities, rather than joining together as a single force.
"That’s a mistake that ought not happen again," Dr. Taylor said.
Another long-time member and Delaware Avenue resident, Marv Silverstein, agrees.
"Most of the folks who came to the meetings lived on Main Street or one house in," he said. "Now, it should be everyone’s meeting."
Dr. Taylor added, "One of the things we were trying to do was prevent this sort of thing (serious or fatal accidents). If a truck’s brakes fail at the elementary school, the same sort of scenario develops; that was one of the motivating factors in starting the group. We believed that lives were in danger."
"In my mind, that accident (the Friday, May 12, accident that took the life of 54-year-old Joan Eschen of Delaware Township) was the accident I was waiting for," Mr. Silverstein added.
He said he was always afraid that a truck would crash into the Lambertville Public School on North Main Street or at the base of Route 179 as it did May 12.
"Two lives have been lost; now how many people have to die before the problem is solved?" asked North Main Street resident and committee member John Goccia. "It’s a tough thing that people have to die over lack of regulation."
The two lives he was referring to included Ms. Eschen and a fiery crash last August in which a truck driver perished following an accident in front of the Golden Nugget flea market on Route 29 in West Amwell Township, about two miles south of the May 12 incident.
Mr. Silverstein added, "These are the furthest west roads in New Jersey. It just doesn’t make any sense (that interstate trucks would be on them). Maybe now that we have some backing Mayor (David) Del Vecchio, Mayor (Marylou) Ferrara of Hopewell and the other municipalities all working together maybe we can get something done," Mr. Goccia concluded.