(The following story by Erik Larsen appeared on the Asbury Park Press website on July 28.)
BELMAR, N.J. — NJ Transit plans to spend $330,000 on safety upgrades at 33 of its 73 train stations that have the kind of flat, graded crossings adjacent to platforms that contributed to an accident at the station here two weeks ago, Mayor Kenneth E. Pringle announced Thursday.
Of those 33 stations, 14 are on the North Jersey Coast Line. The other 40 stations that will not get the upgrades are on single track lines that present no risk of passengers getting off one train and being hit by another train coming in the opposite direction.
That’s what happened on July 14 at the Belmar Train Station. A 16-year-old girl was struck by a northbound train, which resulted in the amputation of some of her fingers and other serious injuries. Two other girls were believed to have been brushed by the train, authorities have said.
This week, workers for NJ Transit installed new pedestrian fencing and erected a plethora of big and small signs to warn passengers against crossing the tracks when the electronic gates are down. The fencing will steer passengers away from the railroad tracks.
In addition to the barriers and signs, public announcements will be made on board the trains to remind passengers about the dangers.
“NJ Transit does not just want to deliver riders to their stations but to deliver them safely,” said Pringle, who is on the NJ Transit board of directors.
Pringle and Bill Duggan, vice president of rail operations for NJ Transit, held an informal news conference Thursday in Belmar, outlining the changes.
The news conference was held just feet from where Alycia Byrne-Navarez, 16, and the two others, who haven’t been publicly identified, had gotten off a southbound train and tried to cross behind it to the other side when the northbound train arrived.
The electronic warning gates were down, but the girls were within the gates at the time and had no way of knowing another train was approaching.
Alejandra Munizaga of New York City, who is vacationing in Belmar and was at the station Thursday waiting for her mother to arrive, said the upgrades are “a good thing.”
“I would worry about NJ Transit being liable,” she said. “That shouldn’t have happened. There could be some negligence on their part. At least it wasn’t more serious.”
But Alissa Dering, a 17-year-old Belmar girl who attended Belmar Elementary School with Byrne-Navarez, wondered how Byrne-Navarez could not have seen the train. She recalled the school having a presentation on train safety after a boy was struck and killed by a Coast Line train while he was fishing near the tracks.
“You live here all of your life, so for those of us who do, we should know better,” Dering said Thursday.
Duggan said upgrades could be in place at all 33 stations in about three to six months.
The uncertain time element is because NJ Transit can’t make an upgrade without the approval of the municipality in which a station is located, Pringle said.
The total cost of the upgrades are in the neighborhood of $330,000, Pringle said.