EDISON – As expected, the Township Council unanimously approved a $1.3 million bond ordinance to construct a quiet zone along the railroad crossings at Inman Avenue and Tingley Lane.
The quiet zone is a combination of federally mandated technologies that add stepped-up security precautions to grade crossings to eliminate the need for trains to sound their horns at those grade crossings.
The two quiet zones proposed for Edison would come on the heels of Conrail’s renovation of the Lehigh Valley line, which added a second track that bisects the state linking the ports of Newark, Elizabeth and Bayonne to the greater mid-Atlantic region.
Council member Anthony Massaro was a vocal proponent for the quiet zone and an opponent of Conrail’s plan to implement a second track. Massaro sent out more than half a dozen letters to Edison residents updating them on the state of the construction and keeping them abreast of developments regarding the quiet zone.
The council unanimously approved the measure, which has had vigorous backing from Mayor Jun Choi’s administration, and the project is expected to be completed by June.
The passage of the bond did not come without criticism from the public, however.
James Kukor, during a public hearing on the ordinance, asked why it was the township’s responsibility to install the quiet zones, and not that of Conrail or the federal government, which has control of the right of way on which both tracks are located.
The answer, Massaro said, is because quiet zones can be added to these areas but are not required for the crossing to exist, but only to have the trains go by without sounding the horn.
Massaro said he would rather have seen someone else pay for the zones, but that the township is confident that much of the cost could be deferred by outside funding, including a possible $250,000 from the county, and hopefully would result in little cost to the township.
“I would like to see the railroad pay, sure,” Massaro said, “but I know I’m not going to live to see that happen.”
Council President Charles Tomaro agreed.
“We agree,” Tomaro said in response to Kukor’s comment. “Unfortunately, they [the railroad and federal government] don’t agree.”
Quiet zones were approved by the federal government in the past year, and Edison would be the second township in the state to implement the use of the technology.
The zone is an updated version of railroad gates that eliminates the chance of a car being caught between the gates and the possibility of a car driving around lowered gates.