Group hosts presentations on transport options

At an event run by Princeton Future on Tuesday morning, students from the Rutgers University Graduate Urban Design Studio presented their research on economic development and transportation along the Alexander Street corridor, the site of the University’s proposed Arts and Transit Neighborhood, to an audience of roughly 20 community members at the Princeton Public Library.

The event was the latest step in the efforts of Princeton Future, a volunteer group that, according to its website, is dedicated to addressing community development issues, to halt the proposed relocation of the Dinky Station. “After careful study, we believe that the University can have the arts campus it envisions AND the town can have the enhanced Dinky service that the community needs,” read a flyer from the group promoting the event. “However, doing so requires that the Dinky station not be moved further from town.”

Presenters at the meeting discussed several options for development along the corridor that would preserve the Dinky station at or near its current location, including reorienting the University’s plans for construction around the existing rail line, an at-grade rail crossing for vehicles and pedestrians across the tracks and relocating the Wawa to Alexander Street to allow for increased construction space for Arts and Transit buildings.

Paul Larrousse, the director of the National Transit Institute at Rutgers — which is dedicated to delivering “training and education programs for the public transit industry” according to its website — also attended the event. Larrousse discussed the feasibility of extending the Dinky’s route up onto University Place via a streetcar system.

“If you got $60 million from the feds, it could happen,” Larrousse said.

Other alternatives included extending the train tracks up to Nassau Street, eliminating the current station and adding additional stations at Faculty Road, McCarter Theatre and Nassau Street.

During the discussion that followed the presentations, several attendees expressed their concerns about the feasibility of convincing the University to agree to such extensive changes and the difficulty of finding financial support for such a project.

At several points, the tone of the conversation became heated; one audience member got up and left during the conversation.

“Is your plan to put the light rail into the new location of the Dinky?” an attendee asked during the discussion. “The University has said repeatedly that they don’t want to run rail on campus and they can move the Dinky.”

Other attendees debated the effect of changes to the rail, noting that the issue affected people outside the immediate Princeton community.

“You all who live in Princeton are looking at this as a local issue,” another audience member said. “This is like an elegant little neighborhood problem. In truth, it’s a regional problem. Other people have as much interest as the people who live within three blocks of this issue.”

Though no consensus was reached, Larrousse acknowledged the difficulties of finding a solution that was both feasible and satisfactory to all parties.