Lakewood Mayor Outraged at Conrail Repairs Schedule on Rt 9

as the mayor I have just been notified that conr will be coming to Lakewood to repair and replace the railroad ties running across Route 9 and they'll be doing this work between John Street and Central Avenue on Route 9 they're going to be closing off Route 9 starting November 18th and November 19th from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. both days what I've further been told is that once they close off Route 9 at the beginning of November 18th they will remain closed until November 19th this is an absolute outrage we cannot let this happen emergency vehicles needing to get from the north end of town to Kimble hospital or whatnot or in general people needing to get from the north end of of town to the south end or vice versa this is an artery which runs through our town this cannot be shut down during the week absolutely not especially further I've looked at the their traffic uh plan and they're going to be putting cars down Central Avenue all the way around to cross street to come back to Route n and going north sending them down Oak Street possibly all the way over to to uh New Hampshire and to come back on Clifton Avenue and come up South Clifton Avenue this will gridlock the town to to to unbelievable proportions we cannot let this happen I've immediately reached out to the township Attorney John Waters to get his advice how I could put the stop to this this cannot happen and I've John Waters has mentioned to me that in his town that we're doing a similar situation and if you could just elucidate us on that that's correct mayor uh recently in my town Red Bank uh New Jersey Transit replaced a great Crossing at the intersection of Route 35 which is a major thoroughfare knowing the major gridlock and traffic problems that would cause in the town New Jersey Transit wisely plan to do their work Friday night over the weekend to end on Tuesday they in fact finished the work uh two days early and so the gridlock and the traffic problems did not materialize I recommend to the mayor that we immediately contact New Jersey Department of Transportation and Conrail to emphasize upon them the needs of the Lakewood community and that during the week is not the time to uh close a grade crossing on Route 9 that would be better closed both Friday night and over the weekend I absolutely have taken this very seriously I'm moving ahead with this we cannot let this happen I've reached out already to uh my colleague commit manstein who's leaz on with the police department to reach out to traffic and safety as well for traffic and safety perspective this cannot happen please get members from their Department as well I spoken to the deputy mayor Albert arriman as well and we are going to do everything in our ability to to to push this off right now postpone this job until we can actually get to a better time to get this work done that it does not wreak havoc within the town we will keep you posted stay tuned