By VICKIE JAMBON – Staff Reporter

MT. AIRY – Cheroyen Lewis will have to be content for now with a sidewalk that allows her to walk over the Canadian National Railroad track to her car parked on the other side. Members of the St. John The Baptist Parish Council say it is too costly and too difficult to provide Lewis with a connecting road.

Lewis and her husband, Leroy moved into the house with their son, Kendall, in 2001. Since then they have been parking their vehicles south of the track because there is no crossing to get to their home.

“When my mother died, she had to be carried off the property in a body bag. They could not cross the railroad track with mama on a stretcher,” said Lewis.

A shed once caught fire in the family’s backyard. The fire department had to radio a passing train and tell it not to come any further so that the fire could be extinguished. “They hooked hoses up 50 feet down on Chestnut Street,” said Lewis.

The couple say vandals repeatedly damage their cars parked on the opposite side of the track. Police try to patrol but to little avail.

Lewis said the St. John police department has warned her about being boxed in.

“They tell me that if I take sick back here and the train is on the track, I could die before help could get to me. If I have a big fire, the fire station said I could lose everything,” said Lewis. She said ambulance, fire trucks and police cars cannot get to the home if a train is on the track.

Lewis’s family has no way of removing large trash. When large appliances break, such as washing machines or refrigerators, people have to carry the objects by hand across the track in order them to be picked up by garbage collectors on the other side.

“We have a downed tree right now. We have to cut it up and carry tree limbs and tree trunk across to the other side. We just cannot do this physically,” said Lewis.

If the Lewis family wants to leave their home, they have to wait for trains to clear the track. “Sometimes trains shut down for four hours. Week-ends are the worst,” said Lewis. A train crossing was one street over. It was taken up and moved to Daffodil Street said Lewis.

Lewis said that Daffodil Street is the only street in the area that has been paved and that has been granted considerable amounts of drainage improvement. “No other street in Mt. Airy has had these amenities,” said Lewis.

She said the railroad will not put the crossing back, saying it would be too close to the existing one now located on Daffodil Street and that the parish council will not put a road in, claiming it would be too expensive or too much trouble.

Councilman-at-Large Cleveland Farlough said it is up to the railroad to put a crossing. He said to put a road would require the consent of four neighboring land owners. “If we got the permission we needed, we would still need money, ” said Farlough.

Councilman Allen J. St. Pierre said, “It would cost $50,000 to $60,000 to move fibre optic lines and gas lines to build a connecting road to Daffodil. The parish does not have that kind of money right now.” Farlough said, “If the Lewis’s want a road or a crossing, they may need to go to court.”