Transit memo rereleased

In May, the University, the Borough and the Township prepared a memorandum of understanding outlining a plan for a right-of-way easement that, should a new transit system ever replace the Dinky, would allow for a potential light rail system running all the way to Nassau Street. A revised version of the memo was released on Wednesday.

If passed by the Borough Council and Township Committee, the memorandum would go into effect if and when the Princeton Regional Planning Board gives final approval to the University’s proposed Arts and Transit Neighborhood. The new memo lengthens the life of the easement and expands other transit-related services the University would provide to the community. A task force to study the community’s transit needs would now start immediately upon the approval of the ordinance rather than after the approval of zoning; the task force would conduct an additional traffic study and the University would fund three pedestrian crosswalks.

In addition to the study of the community’s long-term transit needs provided for in the first contract, the revised memo charges the task force to conduct a comprehensive study of the effects of the University’s diverse expansion projects.

The study of the impacts of expansion will consider not only the Arts and Transit Neighborhood, but also other proposed developments including the Hibben-Magie graduate student housing complex, the Merwick/Stanworth property and the site currently occupied by the University Medical Center. In the original memo, the University agreed to pay $250,000 to fund the transit study task force after the Arts and Transit Neighborbood zoning had been approved. The revised memo increases that amount to $500,000 and requires that the University pay $100,000 of that trust as soon as the memo is approved. “What we were looking for is a commitment that the University agrees that these issues are important now, not just someday in the future once they get their way,” Borough Councilman Kevin Wilkes ’83 said. “In the case of the money, it’s a deposit of good faith on their behalf.”

The University also agrees in the revised memo to pay for the installation of three automatic illuminated crosswalks in the area immediately surrounding the campus. If approved by state and local authorities, these would lie across Nassau Street at Palmer Square, across Tulane Street and across Nassau at 185 Nassau.

Previously, the Borough and Township would have had the right to connect the Dinky and Nassau Street until 50 years after the memo’s signing. The new memo extends the period of easement to 65 years. “At least a few people thought that [50 years] wasn’t quite long enough,” University Vice President and Secretary Robert Durkee ’69 said. “It’s an arbitrary number. Obviously we want to leave it in place long enough that it could be used, but some point it ought to expire.”

Wilkes said it was likely that a vote would be taken at Tuesday’s meeting and that he was prepared to vote in support of the memorandum. Durkee said that he had the impression that the other Borough and Township officials present in the negotiations were also willing to vote for the memorandum.

The elected officials participating in the negotiations initiated the new meeting and the revisions are the result of one negotiation meeting on Monday morning.