Gary Introne of Metuchen
I am a daily user of the Dinky into and out of Princeton. My perspective, therefore, may probably differ from yours — but it is one you may be in need of considering.
The current location of the station and the exchange of train-service to and fro bring a certain integrity to the campus and the entry way into Princeton — a pleasant walk, a meander, a vista into the ennobling expanse presented as one nears Nassau Street.
Perhaps planners are jaded enough to overlook such concepts as integrity and unity-of-vision but others are not. The planned construction of an “arts/theater district” is actually laughable; such things are not put in place on a planner’s whim. They instead must develop and grow on their own in whatever catch-as-catch-can manner the creative urge takes and certainly not with expanses of pavement and parking lot, cutaway drainage, harsh visuals and overly-conscious attempts at “grace.”
Sometimes they actually do need dirt and gristle, alleyways and sloppy lanes. That is what the creative urge is all about, not sterile, ubiqitous and mall-like theater areas planned by committees and architects.
By moving the train route, the station and whatever other local amenities are to go along with that, including a grubby Wawa, to facilitate the construction of a more showcased vibrancy, you betray your real intentions. In my opinion, those real intentions are to completely disregard the will of townsfolk, users and students and pave, drain, denude and ruin a local area which has grown so well by itself.
It has become the signature mark of Princeton and the university to realize and acknowledge these things. By catering to automobile traffic, parking lots and construction you are flying both in the face of reality and of today’s attempt at changing a world-ethos.
We should not be falling backwards into the embrace of auto traffic, congestion, fuel-uses and the like; most especially when a perfectly suitable mass-transit-friendly operation already sits in place. Utilize it. Then I’ll start believing your fairy tales about “sustainability,” ecological correctness and “green” consciousness — to use a few pet-phrases now in vogue.
I ask here: whose ox is being gored for this show of community defiance?
Gary Introne
Center Street
Metuchen
