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New York State Senator Michael Nozzolio was at Ladoga Park Saturday to talk to residents about getting a railroad crossing reopened in their neighborhood.  Norfolk Southern Railroad blocked the crossing in May, and residents have been up in arms since then, saying that closing the crossing halves access to their neighborhood, posing a safety hazard.

"I am approaching this from a safety standpoint, that it's the right thing to do to have the residents protected," Nozzolio says.  "To insure that emergency vehicles can serve that area of great citizens who pay a lot of property taxes.  I believe they deserve appropriate protection."


The lakeside neighborhood is cut off from the rest of the town by Norfolk Southern railroad tracks, and the only way to enter the neighborhood is by crossing the tracks.  The railroad owns the right of way for a certain distance from the center of the main track as it winds across the lake.  Residents enter the neighborhood from Lake Shore Road on Ladoga Park Road, which crosses the tracks on the east end of the neighborhood.  That road circles back to the west, toward Myers Park, meeting Lake Shore Road after crossing the tracks again.  That crossing it the one that is blocked.  A third crossing is the road that leads into Myers Park.  The railroad owns an access road that connects from Ladoga Park Road to Myers, but residents do not have the right of way to use it.

But Lansing Judge William Burin says that he has the right to use the blocked crossing in the deed to his house.  When the railroad posted a sign asking anyone to call if they had information about ownership of the crossing, he assumed they wanted to buy the rights.  "I didn't call because I had no intention of trying to be compensated for that crossing because it's already in my deed," he says.  "Without that crossing my house would be harder to sell.  I had no idea that they were going to close it down."

Since the crossing was closed the issue has become a nightmare for Burin.  He says he misplaced the abstract for the house that he bought 30 years ago, and has been forced to pay an attorney to research the history of the property and the deed.  In May a railroad representative stated that the crossing would be reopened if the deed was produced.  But now the railroad is claiming that it has owned the right of way since 1876, and that the deed must be in error.  That is why the abstract has become vital to Burin's case.


Burin's deed says that the Lehigh Valley Railroad gives him the right to go up and over the railroad crossing to Myers Road.  Since he bought his home the railroad company has changed, and the name of that road is now Lake Shore Road, but Burin says the rights granted stay with the property.   So far legal fees have cost him about $800.  He says he is frustrated that he has to pay so much to get back what was his in the first place.

Burin also sites safety concerns.  "By taking my right of way from my property, they're making it more hazardous down there," he says.  "When Rob Cutting had his boating accident there the fire trucks and ambulances had a tough time getting in.  And the railroad doesn't stop to think about the flooding.  When the water's high, if you need an emergency vehicle down there it's hard to get one there because the water comes way up."

Indeed, lake level rises flood the neighborhood frequently, often covering the part of Ladoga Park Road nearest the lake with water.  That can potentially cut off half the residents from the main railroad crossing on the east side.


Another issue residents site is that the train often blocks all three entrances to their neighborhood.  While New York Railroad Law states that crossings may not be blocked for more than five minutes, neighbors have clocked trains blocking all three entrances at ten minutes or more on several occasions.

"There's always that possibility that a fire truck won't be able to get in there, or an ambulance won't be able to get in there," Burin says.  "There's the possibility that railroad is going to be going in front of the crossings down there, and I've seen them pulling as many as 120 cars.  That takes a while to go through.  If there's an emergency there all three crossings would be blocked."

Nozzolio says he will enlist the partnership of the Town of Lansing and the Lansing Fire Department to chronicle their safety concerns so that he can make the best case for reopening the crossing to the Norfolk Southern and the Department of Transportation.  "It's the right thing to do," he says.  "If it's something that takes additional funding I can certainly commit to trying to find that funding.  But I believe the issue is safety and we need to insure that it's the safest place possible."

Burin, a retired Ithaca policeman, has lived in the Myers area all his life.  "I've lived down there since I was a kid," he says.  "It's a safety hazard.  I hope there is never a major disaster where several people get killed or there is a fire.  It's a very dangerous hazard now that they've taken that crossing out.  It has been there forever.  Now all of a sudden it's not."

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