Council nixes platforms at train station BY SHERRY CONOHAN Staff Writer LITTLE SILVER — Red Bank may be enthralled with the idea of high-level platforms at the railroad station in that borough, but at least one resident of this borough doesn’t want to see them here. Chester Apy, of Rivers Edge Drive, spoke informally to members of the Borough Council after their meeting Monday night had adjourned, to cite newspaper stories about Red Bank embracing an NJ Transit proposal to install high-level platforms, historic benches and information display cases at that town’s railroad station and said such development would be "architecturally a disaster" if brought to Little Silver. Apy, a former state assemblyman and former member of the Borough Council, said elevated platforms would "overwhelm" the just renovated railroad station in Little Silver and urged the council to oppose them if NJ Transit tries to erect them in Little Silver. He warned that NJ Transit will try to say they are necessary to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, but that that isn’t true, there is no law requiring them. Apy reminded the council members and Mayor Suzanne S. Castleman that the notion of installing high-level platforms has a long history here, which Borough Administrator Michael D. Biehl confirmed. Biehl said the last communication he had with NJ Transit about them was in 1995, after which the idea of the elevated platforms just went away. "Our own ADA committee was not in favor of it," he said. "The last I heard," Castleman interjected, "they were not going to do it at every station." Castleman said she was worried about the $700,000 the borough just spent on renovating the Little Silver train station, which just reopened last month after a lengthy restoration. "It just doesn’t work," she said. Apy said the borough had some control over such a proposed development in that NJ Transit probably would come to the council with a request for it to vacate Ayers Lane, which parallels the railroad tracks on the southbound side, to make way for the elevated platform. He said erecting a high-level platform on the northbound side would be too close to the railroad station.