Neighborhood Rattled By Parkway Turns To Brick Community For Help

BRICK, NJ — If you have been to a Brick Township Council meeting anytime in the last dozen years, chances are you have heard the pleas from residents of Evergreen Woods.

Many times, it's resident John Sluka, reading a letter urging, begging township officials to help the Evergreen Woods condominium community convince the state to build a sound wall between their community and the southbound lanes of the Garden State Parkway, to help tamp down the noise and the spread of exhaust from traffic passing behind their homes.

Other residents, including Michele Spector and Stephen Brill, have spoken as well, presenting information on increased noise rattling their homes. They have spoken about attending meetings of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

The township has arranged meetings between the community's board and other officials, with little success in reaching a resolution.

Now, Evergreen Woods residents have turned to another avenue: They've started a GoFundMe campaign to hire an attorney "and help us end this miscarriage of justice once and for all."

"The data we have illustrating that we qualify for a wall, fills volumes," Spector wrote in a letter she has distributed to media outlets. "The average acceptable decibel level is 65. But our noise levels reach 82 decibels. We even made a video illustrating how loud it is here."

She said other communities, including Cherrywood Farms, a Brick Township neighborhood directly across the Parkway "got a sound barrier wall for a small stipulation, an access road."

"NJTA used extremely narrow criteria to disqualify us," Spector wrote. "They claimed the highway didn’t move any closer to us, when it actually had. The shoulder used to be considered part of the highway and was used to make a lane. The NJTA deleted this from their policy and said that because the shoulder isn’t part of the highway that we didn’t qualify."

Spector said a community farther north, Laurence Brook, in East Brunswick, was allowed to pay for a sound wall after the turnpike authority initially refused a wall. The self-funded wall "was against NJTA’s own policies at the time," she wrote.

"In our struggle, the turnpike authority did everything in its power to wear down our resolve," she said. "They split up two Garden State Parkway projects that actually ran side by side, to avoid considering cumulative noise effects. They tried to shut us up by planting trees they knew would do nothing to mitigate the noise, and patted themselves on the back for their own ingenuity. Meantime, children and families still suffer here."

Laurence Brook hired a lawyer, Spector said, adding, "Our working class community cannot afford such a luxury to fight for us. So, we decided to help ourselves and started a GoFundMe page. We hope to garner enough community goodwill and support to right this injustice that has been allowed to go on for too many years."

"We only ask that you give what you can and help us end this miscarriage of justice once and for all. You may also donate anonymously. We thank you," she wrote.

Anyone interested can go to the GoFundMe campaign for information.