The Lackawanna Coalition passed a resolution at its July meeting that calls on New Jersey Transit to save the Kingsland station, located on Ridge Road in Lyndhurst. The agency has proposed enlarging parking facilities and making other improvements at the Lyndhurst Station; the next station going toward Suffern, but the 2021 proposal under consideration called for eliminating Kingsland.
The Coalition’s resolution states that the Kingsland Station “is located on Ridge Road, in a residential neighborhood with local businesses, which makes it walkable for local residents” and “is connected to points from Newark to Hackensack on the #76 bus, which runs a full-service schedule”. In the resolution, the Coalition also noted that the cost of keeping both the Kingsland and Lyndhurst stations open would be “nominal” and that the Lyndhurst Station “is not located within convenient walking distance of the Kingsland Station, nor does it have Kingsland’s bus connection”.
The Coalition urged NJ Transit to continue operating both stations, and also urged civic leaders and others concerned to join the initiative to keep the Kingsland Station “as a viable passenger-rail facility”.
The original Kingsland Station was built by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (Lackawanna) as a parallel route for the Morris & Essex Line, where there would be more room for freight, but there have been passenger trains on the line since 1870. In 1963, the configuration of the line was changed, and the part of the Lackawanna Boonton Line east between Hoboken and Athenia in Clifton was joined with parts of the Historic Erie Railroad as the “Main Line”; a designation still used today.
The station house sits along Ridge Road, and there are separate stairways down to the platforms in each direction at ground level. The current station was built in 1918. Kingsland is part of the Coalition’s heritage, not only because it connects with the Morris & Essex Line at Hoboken, but also because the station was originally built by the Lackawanna Railroad. At the meeting when the resolution was passed, the Coalition did not object to planned improvements at Lyndhurst Station, but wants Kingsland to stay open, too, serving its own catchment area.
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