To the Editor:

At the public meeting of the task force dealing with traffic and transit issues in town, held last Saturday at the University, several attendees advanced the belief that the principal goal of the study effort should be broadened to become regional transit, focusing on a Princeton hub with lines radiating to other areas with reciprocal transit needs. The meeting showed that Princeton has the talent to contribute to such a challenge, in the person of Ralph Widner.

Although the transit element of this study focuses solely on the corridor from Princeton Junction to Nassau Street, Mr. Widner suggested what the beneficial impact on local traffic would be with a more comprehensive (perhaps partially light rail) transit network to include Plainsboro and West Windsor, even Lawrenceville and Montgomery. It appears that the zombie Dinky-devouring BRT scheme will soon be re-entombed, although another important element of a regional transit improvement plan could well start with a Bus Rapid Transit along Route 1, very logically connecting with the Dinky.

Rail costs seem daunting, however, considering that NJ Transit’s River Line cost some $100 million per mile (without electrification) to construct, and the tracks were already there, although it is a wonderfully useful service (I used it recently to go to Burlington to meet a friend for lunch). Shouldn’t we consider starting on a smaller scale? Like by determining the added traffic-mitigating benefits of improving service in the study corridor by converting the Dinky to light rail and extending it to Nassau Street and meeting more trains at the Junction? Already the Dinky carries a thousand riders — many not driving cars along Alexander — each way each day.

A while back I floated a plan to do just that and at what seemed to be at an unbelievably low cost, plus with financing identified. Let’s hear what the task force recommends and consider that as a reasonable first step in the still important broader plan to serve a Greater Princeton. If a new Dinky demonstrated that light rail in Princeton could be significantly more efficient to operate than the current Dinky, that fact could only bolster the arguments for adding rational light-rail extensions more widely, sooner rather than later.

Rodney Fisk

Birch Avenue