Princeton town to make Bicycle Master Plan with U. input

The township of Princeton is in the process of creating a comprehensive Bicycle Master Plan to create a connected network of bike facilities throughout the town, Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert said.

This plan is being funded by the New Jersey Department of Transportation and the town will be working with the consulting firm WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoffto develop the plan.

Representatives from the New Jersey Department of Transportation did not respond to requests for comment.

WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff program manager for the Bicycle Master Plan Peter Kremer explained that as part of the plan, the firm is currently conducting a survey to gather community input regarding the Bicycle Master Plan. The 22-question survey is available online and asks for demographic information, biking habits and preferences for biking facilities, Kremer said.

“We want to get as much information as we can about people, the routes they use, the kind of facilities they prefer, what are some of the kind of improvements they think might help them get around safer,” Kremer explained.

Different facilities mentioned in the survey include off-road bicycle paths, on-road separated bicycle lanes, on-road standard bicycle lanes and roads with shared lane markings. Kremer noted that 300 responses have already been recorded and that the survey will be open until the end of January.

WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff is also working with the University to develop the bicycle plan, the University’s Director of Community and Regional Affairs Kristin Appelget said.

“We want to see how cycling fits into the future of the University and make sure that the linkages between the surrounding town and passing through the University work,” Kremer said.

Kremer said that the firm has met with Kim Jackson, the Director of Transportation and Parking Services at the University. Appelget said that Jackson represents the University in a steering committee comprised of community members and municipal staff.

Jackson deferred comment to Appelget.

“It’s great that the town is doing this master planning process,” Appelget said. “I think that it is at a very opportune time given that the University is also in a campus planning process.”

Lempert explained that there had been a general recognition that the University needed to have a bike master plan, and that this need came to the fore when the town started doing a road repaving project on Hamilton Avenue in 2015. There was a debate about whether or not to put in bicycle paths along Hamilton Avenue during the project, Lempert said.

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Lempert explained that any bike path implemented on Hamilton Avenue would have been isolated, as there were no plans to how it would fit into a larger network. She said that the bike plan would help the town in terms of decision-making, because the town can simply use it as a reference in doing future road projects instead of having to go through a big debate on all road projects.

Deanna Stockton, assistant engineer at the town’s engineering department who is working on the project, did not respond to requests for comment.

Students at the University have also been encouraged to participate in the discussion for the Bicycle Master Plan. Members of WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff have sent the survey to Undergraduate Student Government president Ella Cheng ’16, who forwarded it to members of the student body earlier in December.

Cheng said that USG is not directly involved with the project.

Cheng is a former staff writer for The Daily Princetonian.

Charles Copeland ’19 said that a bicycle master plan would be nice. He added that he has not had many reasons to bike beyond campus, but the implementation of more bike paths and bike lanes would make him feel safer and possibly add an incentive to bike more.