(The following article by Larry Higgs was posted on the Asbury Park Press website on March 22.)
MANASQUAN, N.J. — Daniel Green would like people to show some support for MOM on the Friday before Mother’s Day.
Green and other supporters of the Monmouth Junction route for NJ Transit’s proposed Monmouth-Ocean-Middlesex rail line plan to hold a rally on May 11 in downtown Freehold in support of that route. A time has not been set.
Three routes are being considered for the MOM line, which would begin in Ocean County and run north through either Red Bank, Matawan or the Monmouth Junction section of South Brunswick.
“The New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers has been calling Monmouth Junction the true MOM,” said Green, who is Ocean County’s representative to the association. “We want the true MOM, not the step-MOM.”
The rally, being planned by the Monmouth-Ocean Development Council’s MOM rail committee, is being held to let potential riders know that work on the rail is ongoing and to build support for the Monmouth Junction route, said Benjamin Waldron, executive director of the Manasquan-based organization.
He said people have e-mailed him asking whatever happened to MOM.
This would be the first MOM rally since a similar event was held in Lakewood in 2005.
“We’re looking at various locations in downtown Freehold,” said Bonnie Goldschlag, assistant Monmouth County planning director.
Ideally, backers would like to hold the rally in the vicinity of the Freehold train station, where MOM trains could stop and where two NJ Transit bus lines stop now. Organizers said they plan to meet with borough officials on an exact location.
“We’d like to try and get to bus riders,” Waldron said.
All three proposed MOM routes will be examined in NJ Transit’s Draft Environmental Impact Study, but it won’t select one. A task force of representatives from the three counties, NJ Transit and a consultant are reviewing assumptions and issues to be addressed in the study.
Officials in Monmouth and Ocean counties support the Monmouth Junction route, contending it will attract the most riders and relieve congestion on overcrowded highways — Route 9 and the Garden State Parkway. Middlesex County officials have opposed that route as intrusive on Monroe, Jamesburg and South Brunswick.
“The issue for the Red Bank and Matawan routes is how many more trains that will put on the North Jersey Coast Line,” Goldschlag said, in addition to serving the growing Western Monmouth area.