Talks on Commercial End of Witherspoon Quickly Lead to Talks on Traffic, Planning

Matt Hersh

A community meeting on the future of Witherspoon Street Saturday morning at the Princeton Public Library soon became a discussion about traffic. It was the third time in as many weeks that residents, most of them from the Witherspoon Street neighborhood met with members of Princeton Future, a community-based group organized to study downtown development.

The first two Princeton Future library "workshops" focused on the northern and central portions of Witherspoon, respectively, but the third meeting this past Saturday honed in on the impact of increasing traffic as Princeton's business district on and around Nassau Street continues to grow.

The talks are concurrent with, but not necessarily related to, public meetings on the relocation/expansion of the hospital on the northern end of Witherspoon recently concluded by representatives of Princeton HealthCare System and municipal officials of Princeton Borough and Township.

Spawned by this activity and in-town growth on the southern end of Witherspoon, the discussions have focused on how the so-called "spine" of Princeton can mitigate the impact of inevitable major changes on both ends of the street.

What mainly concerns residents is the traffic flow along Witherspoon, a roadway that appears to be part of a tree-lined, well-established neighborhood but is also, to many motorists, a main artery in and out of Princeton and one that maintains access to several of the town's institutions, including the hospital, Township Hall, Community Park School, Mt. Pisgah A.M.E Church, Witherspoon Presbyterian Church, the Arts Council of Princeton, the library, and Princeton University.

These two organisms, neighborly roadway and main vein in and out of town, do not necessarily enjoy a symbiotic relationship, some residents said.

In the stated context of a brainstorming session, the ideas put forth by residents, while not necessarily feasible, did facilitate a dialogue. Some less realistic goals included installing traffic signals at intersections along Witherspoon, and making the road a one-way thoroughfare southbound, running in to town.

Some of the approximately 30 residents in attendance Saturday suggested that the traffic problem could be addressed through law enforcement and a general change in the culture of in-town motorists, and that traffic might be more evenly distributed to other north-south corridors that run parallel to Witherspoon, such as Jefferson Road and Bayard Lane.

Kevin Wilkes, an architect with Princeton Design Guild and a workshop advisor at the Princeton Future meetings, suggested that if residents want slower traffic and to discourage traffic other than local, a possible option would be to narrow the road. In Witherspoon's present configuration, he said, narrowing the road would be "impossible," but he did leave the question open-ended by suggesting two options. One would be to eliminate on-street parking, thus increasing the area for sidewalk width and tree roots. The burden, he added, would be on the institutions to find other means of parking.

The other option would be to allow only one-way traffic on Witherspoon, thus creating room for parking, a shoulder, or loading lane.

But a one-way option, right now, would make "no sense" with the hospital in place, Mr. Wilkes added.

The lack of proper access on and off Witherspoon Street from the east or west also poses a problem, Mr. Wilkes said, adding that once a driver is on Witherspoon, he or she will, in most cases, remain on it from one end to the other.

Robert Geddes, architect and co-chair of Princeton Future, said other college towns, such as New Haven, have benefitted from financial and planning assistance from the home school, in this case, Yale University. But in that instance, Yale was under increasing pressure to help make New Haven a more attractive destination because the city's condition could have had a potentially adverse effect on Yale student population numbers. He suggested that institutions such as the University have an "obligation" to offer financial help in the Princeton community's planning process. In regard to planning, Mr. Geddes said that Princeton cannot leave the process up to government alone. "If you base [development] on government," he said, "you'd have office buildings."