Planning Board and University reach deal on traffic plan

At its Nov. 13 meeting, the committee approved the plan on the conditions that the University agree to limit the number of parking spaces on campus to roughly the current amount of 5,100 and to implement traffic controls to limit the number of cars driving through town, the Princeton Packet reported.

After the University agreed to the two contingencies, board members decided to move forward with drafting amendments to add the University’s traffic plan into the Princeton Community Master Plan.

“I think we’re satisfied with what they showed us,” former Borough Mayor and Planning Board member Marvin Reed said in an interview Thursday, adding that he does not anticipate an increase in parking spaces as the University has agreed to a series of benchmarks to manage traffic in the area.

“This meeting was really designed to finish up a discussion that started in September on a couple of issues they had asked us to do a little further work on,” University Vice President and Secretary Bob Durkee ’69 said in an interview Thursday.

Durkee said he thinks there is a “general understanding” on the planning board that the overall impact on traffic in the community will be “fairly modest and quite manageable,” adding that the planning board’s own traffic expert has said as much.

University officials have proposed efforts to reduce the number of single-occupant vehicles near campus by encouraging the use of carpools, vanpools, mass transit and University shuttles, according to the Campus Plan. Reed said another important aspect of the plan is that freshmen and sophomores will no longer be eligible for parking permits.

Reed said he thinks recent efforts by the University to expand the shuttle system have been in response to general concern that the Campus Plan was showing “considerabl[y] more development” than planning officials had anticipated.

Administrators also announced in September that hundreds of administrative staff will be relocated to offices in West Windsor, redirecting traffic away from the downtown area. The Office of Information Technology’s Data Center will also be moving from its current location on Prospect Avenue to a facility at the Princeton Forrestal Center in Plainsboro.

Those relocations, coupled with those of a number of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory employees, mean that roughly 750 staff members will work at off-campus sites, the Packet reported.

Traffic consultant George Jacquemart said that these efforts will shift roughly 80 percent of University-generated traffic from Mercer and Stockton streets to Route 1, according to the Packet.

Officials from the University also took time at the meeting to discuss their expansion efforts in the eastern portion of campus, detailing how they plan to use Faculty Road as the main artery to and from the 1,340-space underground parking facility near the football stadium.

“At some point in the next few months we will be back in front of the planning board to discuss our specific plans for the area east of the stadium,” Durkee said.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

The Planning Board and University have agreed to postpone discussion on the controversial plan to relocate the Dinky Station to make way for the new Arts and Transit Neighborhood until next year, according to the Packet.

“We did not include that in our discussion,” Reed said of the Dinky debate, reiterating that there is “considerable concern” in the community about moving the train station.

“I don’t think anything we’re going to be announcing in the near future will change the fact that we want to move ahead with the [Campus Plan],” Durkee said, but added that “there may be elements of the plan that may have to be delayed or scaled back.”