By Rodney Fisk, Princeton
Where does fiduciary responsibility begin? At some level a public body must acknowledge that it cannot evade the obligation to the broader community to say “no” and say so decisively to something so totally wrong as the proposed obliteration of the Dinky, Princeton’s unique rail shuttle.
The rejection is admittedly made more difficult, even painful when the concept is so strongly advocated by such a respected and admired figure as former borough mayor Marvin Reed. And so fully supported by such an innovative thinker as Councilman Kevin Wilkes, the creative energy behind the amazing Writers Block and Quark Park installations north of Palmer Square a while back.
Most communities would trade their city hall for a rail shuttle to the Northeast Corridor. But not Princeton, or at least not these two leading public officials. The ($400,000) Bus Rapid Transit study, the official basis for their zealous support, values the current Dinky at $48 million. Then it recommends removing its entire infrastructure at a cost of $4 million and replacing it with a sure-to-fail bus link for $35 million. The study projects an additional 150 daily passengers when the new bus service begins. That’s some $500,000 for each new user of the system!
The point that BRT is essential for a seamless trip from, say, the shopping center to the new hospital in Plainsboro is pure mendacity, arguing that letting a dozen people a day avoid a single transfer, at the capital cost of a new school, is somehow in the public interest. Bottom line: The proposal fails the most basic economic tests, discounts traffic-congestion realities, belittles historical consideration and belies simple common sense.
Interestingly, when the university first proposed moving the Princeton station further from town, Mr. Reed argued strongly for the Dinky to remain as is and where is. An early Wilkes conceptual proposal for the new Arts and Transportation Neighborhood showed the Dinky still serving its iconic Collegiate Gothic station.
What convinced these two so thoroughly that Bus Rapid Transit represented the solution to Princeton’s transit needs? I’m afraid that they were duped, mainly by that ($400,000) BRT study, which concluded that replacing the Dinky with a bus was the official “preferred alternative.”
Those who attended the Princeton Future forum on Saturday heard about three amazing alternatives to the Dinky in addition to the proposed BRT involving tunnels to Palmer Square and flyovers at intersections to let four-person pods zip around town each making BRT look like a bargain. The most reasonable alternative by far, however, was for the conversion of the Dinky to light rail, yielding improved service and greater flexibility at vastly lower cost than the BRT plan, in that it used the existing track and catenary structure, economically extended to Nassau Street as its initial enhancement.
The fact that Light Rail Transit was specifically excluded from consideration in the very first section of the comprehensive study is troubling. The reason cited was that a light-rail vehicle could not be maintained locally and that such a vehicle would be prohibited from using the Northeast Corridor to move to an established maintenance facility. Wrong on both points: all maintenance except major overhaul could be performed at a basic shop at Princeton Junction; and the LRV could be hauled dead-in-train no power, no crew, no passengers up the NEC at night by a utility locomotive on a sure-to-be-issued waiver.
A federally mandated and funded alternatives analysis that fails to consider what is clearly the best alternative is so deeply flawed as to be worthless. (NJ Transit directed the consultant to exclude LRT from consideration and contrived the reasons for doing so.)
Now this same transit organization the one that sells a service for a dollar that costs three dollars to produce, in that every time a passenger pays a dollar, taxpayers contribute two is joined and cheered on by Mr. Reed and Mr. Wilkes. Together they sincerely argue for us to buy into this most ill-advised allocation of tax dollars since the “bridge to nowhere.”
Borough Council and Township Committee have yet to officially weigh in on the Reed Plan still, many members beyond Mr. Wilkes seem strangely enamored of it and, of course, they must also vote to support the BRT-conversion proposal before it can proceed.
However, that opportunity will come if, and only if the Regional Planning Board first votes to endorse the plan and forward it to the elected bodies. It rests therefore with the Planning Board to accept without equivocation its role as the responsible steward of public assets and reject this proposal with as much finality as the law allows.
Come see if they do. By far the most important gesture of support would be your attendance at the critical meeting of the Regional Planning Board at Princeton Township Hall this Thursday at 7:30 p.m. For more details visit “Save the Princeton Dinky” on Facebook.
Rodney Fisk is a Princeton Borough resident.

