To the Editor:

There are neighborhood/town meetings to discuss the Valley Road project, which is mostly about needed repairs and resurfacing. But there is an issue lurking in the list of items planned for our taxpayer dollars which I and many of my neighbors see as a serious problem:

“The Princeton Master Plan recommends the installation of an off-road multi-use path along Valley Road.”

If that is done as I have heard it described, an 8-foot wide asphalt strip nominally accommodating bicycles and pedestrians, it will destroy a strip of landscaping by my neighbors that is about 4 feet wide. That is unconscionable, unjustified, unnecessary, and unacceptable. Among the reasons why are: that we have very little bike traffic, and quite uneventful sharing of the current sidewalk. Easy. Also, this would be a bike path to nowhere since there is nothing connecting to it at either end of Valley Road or, as far as I know, in other Princeton neighborhoods. Valley is a pretty wide road as it is, and it would be sensible and economical to paint the bike lane symbols on the road surface. We don’t need an “off road path” replacing grass, flowers, and carefully tended hedges with asphalt.

I won’t be able to attend the June 15 meeting, but I encourage my neighbors to be there to demand that the work on Valley Road be focused on repair and reconstruction of the roadway and sidewalks as they are. None of our taxpayer dollars should be spent on this “off-road multi-use path” that we don’t need and don’t want. It is a bad idea.

Roger Nelson

Valley Road