Agreement was reached at a public meeting last week to place a 25-foot-high wall along the Hoboken/Weehawken border near an area where NJ Transit plans to construct an emergency shaft for a train tunnel.
The Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) project is an $8 billion tunnel extending from the Frank R. Lautenberg Rail Station in Secaucus to midtown Manhattan. It will be under construction until 2017. When finished, it will greatly expand the number of trains traveling between New Jersey and Manhattan.
The wall will be 25 feet high and made of wooden planks left in their natural color.
________
NJ Transit does not really need residents’ agreement to build, and they don’t have to appear before local planning or zoning boards because they are a state agency. But the meeting served to give them an explanation of the construction that will occur.
The meeting lasted approximately one hour and residents expressed agreement on certain specifications: the wall should be 25 feet high, and it should be made of wooden planks approximately three feet thick. The wall will remain unpainted natural wood.
Serving as a barrier to noise from the vent shaft and conforming to the aesthetics of the area, the wall is expected to take three to four months to build and is slated for completion by the end of the summer or early fall in 2010.
The land that will be behind the wall is in Hoboken and is currently a combination of jitney bus parking and wild landscape. NJ Transit will acquire the property and also build a road parallel to the light rail tracks that will go along, beneath, and parallel to the Willow Avenue and Park Avenue underpasses. Construction vehicles will use the road to circumvent the Shades residential area of Weehawken on their way to the emergency vent site.
“The project for the wall will be paid by New Jersey Transit,” said Chief of the Trans-Hudson Express Tunnel Project Arthur Silber, who said he did not know how much it will cost.
Bob Drasheff, Weehawken’s planning consultant, said that estimates placed the distance between the future wall and the emergency vent shafts at 175 feet.
“The vent will only be used in emergency situations, like a fire in the tunnel, and it is set to vent toward the south, away from Weehawken residents,” said Drasheff. “It will be tested once a month for 15 minutes to make sure it’s properly working.”
There will also be a public hearing in Hoboken regarding the project on Dec. 8.
Still time to view renderings and make comments
Mayor Richard Turner said that for those who were unable to attend the Weehawken meeting, there is still time to view the renderings, which will be on display at the Weehawken Municipal Building at 400 Park Ave. Comments will also be accepted.
“It was a very productive meeting,” Turner said. “We thank residents for coming. Our plan is to keep the residents informed as things transpire.”
Melissa Rappaport may be reached at mrappaport@hudsonreporter.com