NJ Transit installed a fence on the Hasbrouck Heights side of the Teterboro Train Station.

(Photo by Myles Ma/NJ.com)

HASBROUCK HEIGHTS — For 10 years, Lino Brescia has walked on Williams Avenue across Route 17 to the Teterboro NJ Transit train station.

Until three weeks ago, when NJ Transit put a fence up on the Hasbrouck Heights side to keep people from crossing train tracks.

Now the only way for Hasbrouck Heights residents to walk to the station is along Route 46, which Brescia said was even more dangerous. There is a parking lot at the station, but Brescia was told he would have to take a place on a waiting list for one of the 27 spots.

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"We didn't know that fence was going to be there until one day we saw it being built," Brescia said Tuesday night.

Brescia has agitated for weeks, catching the ear of Mayor Rose Heck, who arranged a meeting between commuters and John Leon, senior director of government and community relations for NJ Transit. While Leon didn't have answers for all their questions—Why didn't you talk to any of us first? Can't you install a pedestrian overpass? How much did the fence cost?—he promised to take their concerns back to headquarters in Newark.

One resident said he would leave town because of the fence. Brian Mc Court lives with girlfriend in an apartment complex three blocks from the station on Williams Avenue.

The two had been looking for a bigger apartment when the fence went up. Mc Court had hoped to stay—he loves the town, and he could walk his girlfriend to the station and wait for her there in the afternoon.

Now she takes the bus, extending her commute to New York to more than an hour.

"It used to take her 45 minutes from door to door, from my house to her job," he said.

The commuters have gained an ally in Assemblyman Tim Eustace, who released a statement Tuesday night pledging to work with the Hasbrouck Heights council on a solution to the fence problem.

Leon, the NJ Transit representative, told commuters that the transit agency's safety department recommended installing fence after train engineers reported a few "near misses" at the station.

"We know that it's not a perfect solution," he said.

Still, Leon said he couldn't commit to addressing all the commuters' problems.

"I will convey your concerns back to the leaders of our organization," he said.