{"id":15108,"date":"2019-08-21T03:21:03","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T07:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=15108"},"modified":"2019-08-21T03:21:03","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T07:21:03","slug":"brick-to-conduct-sound-study-in-neighborhood-near-parkway-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2019\/08\/brick-to-conduct-sound-study-in-neighborhood-near-parkway-expansion\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick to Conduct Sound Study in Neighborhood Near Parkway Expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Evergreen<\/a>

Evergreen Woods, Brick, N.J. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

Brick officials have agreed to facilitate a sound study in the area of the Evergreen Woods condominium development in the latest chapter of a long-term campaign by residents to prompt the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (which has jurisdiction over the Garden State Parkway) to build a sound wall that they say could reduce the presence of exhaust fumes and noise in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody seems to be ignoring us, as well as the residents,\u201d said Mayor John Ducey, challenging the state\u2019s long-term decision-making process at the site of the new highway interchange 91.<\/p>\n

Residents contend their neighborhood qualifies for a sound wall, but one was not ordered because they could not afford to hire an attorney to make an environmental claim that would have forced its construction. Ducey previously said that the late former state Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox \u2013 who served under the McGreevey and Christie administrations \u2013 denied a sound wall for the community because he was ideologically against them.<\/p>\n

The township, Ducey said, will engage the services of Brightview Engineering to conduct a sound study in Evergreen Woods and determine, once and for all, whether the community requires a sound wall.<\/p>\n

If the tests prove the highway noise is above state-mandated maximums, \u201cWe can then put additional pressure on the governor\u2019s office, the legislature and even the commissioners\u201d to build one, the mayor said.<\/p>\n

\"Evergreen<\/a>

Evergreen Woods, Brick, N.J. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

The study will be conducted over the next few weeks, Ducey said.<\/p>\n

Residents have passionately argued at township council meeting on the subject of sound and fume pollution since the the Garden State Parkway was expanded in the Brick area. The state has contended that since the expansion of the roadway was in the shoulder area, rather than traffic lanes, that no sound wall was required under existing laws. But residents have shot back that the highway as a whole was expanded and a columns of tall trees were knocked down that provided a natural barrier \u2013 both physical and in terms of sound \u2013 to the neighborhood. The state funded new trees in the area two years ago, but residents have said they have failed to maintain them, and Shorebeat found several dead trees during a recent walk-through of the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Residents have called for the township to file suit against the state on their behalf, a request which has not caught on with elected officials.<\/p>\n

Ducey said there has been \u201cno discussion\u201d of a lawsuit as of yet, but he is hoping the sound study will form the basis for future action.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it doesn\u2019t help, we\u2019ll see what happens in the future,\u201d Ducey said.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brick officials have agreed to facilitate a sound study in the area of the Evergreen Woods condominium development in the latest chapter of a long-term campaign by residents to prompt the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (which has jurisdiction over the Garden State Parkway) to build a sound wall that they say could reduce the presence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,248,170],"class_list":["post-15108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-evergreen-woods","tag-garden-state-parkway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Screen-Shot-2019-08-21-at-9.18.05-AM.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-3VG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}