To the Editor:

I gather from last week’s Town Topics that Princeton’s Town Council is debating new rules for outdoor dining [July 12, page 1]. Matters up for discussion include the size of pedestrian passageways and the specifications for tables and chairs. Town Engineer Jim Purcell is quoted as saying, “One size does not fit all. We have wide sidewalks and narrow sidewalks. Pedestrians, motorists, and the businesses themselves all have different needs.”

I am puzzled. Princeton has just spent $X million to completely reconfigure and reconstruct Witherspoon Street. One of the expressed purposes of the work is to make “Witherspoon Dineable.” Yet now that the work has been done, the rules for outdoor dining have yet to be established. Wouldn’t it have been a wiser course of action to have developed a set of regulations before reconstructing the street? Mightn’t new regulations have helped inform the design?

I am very much in favor of creating a more festive, pedestrian-friendly atmosphere on Witherspoon Street. I hope that one day soon that vision will be realized.

Henry Von Kohorn
Library Place