Efficient transportation critical to town, university

By: centraljersey.com
Recently Princeton Future unveiled a concept plan to replace the Dinky with light rail, eventually extending it up University Place to Nassau Street with three additional stops. Princeton University’s proposed arts district would have a train running through it; pedestrians would scatter. The train would run in the street and motor vehicles would yield. Light rail vehicles approximate buses. We would have a short bus rapid transit on a track.
They have characterized this as a sustainable plan; the facts tell a different story. The Central Jersey Transportation Forum’s 2002 study determined that light rail was not economically feasible; that’s what led to the Route 1 bus rapid transit plan. The Department of Energy’s Transportation Energy Data Book shows that light rail consumes twice the energy per passenger per mile than heavy rail. Numerous factors contribute to this. Rail vehicles and buses are not full all of the time and they run scheduled (whether full or empty); this load factor has the biggest influence.
As energy costs rise inefficient public transit will no longer be viable. Public transit has been highly subsidized for years; the trend will be to options that break even. Transit based on buses will fail at peak times as traffic exceeds road capacities.
The solution for the future is in changing the fundamental ways transit operates. A very promising technology is called Personal Rapid Transit. It utilizes smaller (four to six person) automated vehicles operating on a compact guideway. It runs on demand 24/7 and will not run empty. Rides have no intermediate stops. It is the right-sized tool for the job. PRT energy usage per passenger mile is close to that of a motorcycle: 25 percent of light rail.
The concept light rail plan is not supported with a detailed data-based study. It is the result of a concensus of a selected few. But it does have an agenda. It is an attempt to block the university from moving the Dinky station 460 feet farther out from downtown to build its arts district. Princeton is not a progressive town; we come out in droves for the status quo.
Since the university’s announcement the Princeton Regional Planning Board has yet to even consider doing a comprehensive long-range transportation plan. It assumes the Dinky will last forever. Instead, it spent four years dickering over 460 feet; too much politics and too little planning.
Why not energize the university instead of blocking it?
The university should be allowed to move the station but only at the end of the project. It also should fund a detailed professional study of future options including new technologies such as PRT. This study should be administered jointly by the Planning Board, the university and some citizens. The university needs to assume leadership and some financial commitment in propelling local public and campus transit forward.
Efficient transportation is critical to the university, to the towns, and to the planet’s future. It truly would be the arts and transit district if the implementation of an innovative, efficient public transit system were included.
Chip Crider Princeton
Immoral to use tax dollars to kill songbirds
To the editor:
The news that birds by the thousands were falling dead from the sky had seemed to be more evidence of the general destruction of the environment that we as a species seemed to be perpetrating.
But I was totally horrified to find out that this was not some mysterious climate change issue, but in fact a purposeful effort on the part of the USDA and (misnamed) Wildlife Service. Our government apparently now thinks it is a great idea to poison songbirds in huge quantities because a few of them pooped in some farmer’s feed bags. Couldn’t the farmer just cover up the bags?
I am apoplectic about this. When is it permissible to use our tax dollars to do horrific damage to the environment for such a stupid, nonsensical, and totally immoral reason? If our own government cannot even let lovely songbirds live – beautiful songbirds that give us so much joy in our own backyards – then heaven help any of the creatures on this planet, including ourselves.
I really despair for the future, not only of our country, but of the world. When will we ever learn not to work hard to kill everything we can find that is still alive. I thought the Wildlife Service was supposed to be trying to help the environment, not wreck it as fast as possible.
I guess my only hope is that people become extinct before all the animals and birds do, so that they might have a chance of a better life in the future without our being around to continue to eradicate them all.
(For more information, go to: http://www.naturalnews.com/031076_USDA_bird_deaths.html.) Alice Artzt Princeton