Camden Courier-Post – February 1, 1938
Possibility of amending existing statutes providing state aid for elimination or grade crossings to permit financing, an underpass in Cramer Hill was suggested by City Commissioner Hartmann to State Senator Burling and Assemblymen Lawrence H. Ellis and Millard E. Allen at the weekly legislative forum.
Hartmann, attending the session on other matters, was asked by the legislators to join a discussion started by Clarence Dunkleberger of the Eleventh Ward.
Dunkleberger pointed out no streets cross the railroad tracks between River road and Westfield Avenue, between Twenty-seventh and Thirty-sixth streets. He said parochial and high school students cross the tracks at great danger, and suggested some way be found to compel the railroad to provide an underpass at Thirty-first street, Thirty-second Street, Lois or Beideman avenue.
Burling said that matter was one for the city’s legal department to pursue. Hartmann was called in, and said three solicitors have given opinions that the railroad cannot be forced to act. He also said such an underpass would cost $400,000, not $40,000, the figure named by Dunkleberger.
“We are unable to get state aid be cause there is no crossing there to eliminate,” Hartmann said. “If the law could be changed to cover such situations, we might be able to work out something. Certainly an under pass is needed there.”
Dr. Ethan A. Lang, Eleventh ward physician, has been seeking for a long time to have something done about the situation, but has been stymied by the high cost.
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