Trams would be a win-win situation

By: centraljersey.com
The Dinky is a Princeton tradition and has been since 1865. It was bad enough when the university had it moved from near Blair Arch to its current location in 1919; now proposed is a farther move south by 460 feet to a new transit complex with a relocated Wawa.
Townsfolk don’t object to the new arts campus – indeed they honestly welcome it – but with one rational concession: that a new Dinky traverse a shared space through the engaging new pedestrian plaza, as seen all across Europe and through the campus of Portland State University. The university’s response: that PSU’s student body is much larger and that Portland is a city with 10 times Princeton’s population.
I recall a comic strip where Dagwood explains to Blondie that he can’t clean out the garage because he’d just had a haircut with "if you don’t want to do something, one reason’s as good as another."
The university’s facts indicate that Portland would have a much higher interaction between pedestrian and train, what with greater local density and 26 trains passing per hour, rather than 10: Dagwood’s haircut, pure and simple.
The Princeton trams could traverse a trackway through the plaza that was illuminated, like the pedestrian crossing to McCarter/Berlind, when the vehicle was approaching. It could have flashing lights; beepers, like on a truck backing up; a traditional trolley bell, of course, as well as the horn normally sounded only at grade crossings; plus a highly focused – to avoid driving wider locals crazy – high pitched horn, audible only to those under 25. Very annoyingly so.
The form of the vehicle would sweep pedestrians aside – bumped, bruised, maybe broken – but not run over. No exterior handholds or foot holds. Nothing to snag and drag someone. No way to climb atop the railcar to play with the energized pantograph, as that bozo did some years ago when the Dinky used to overnight in town.
Want to spend some more money and add another architectural challenge? An amazing maze of pedestrian underpasses!
Cars could simply cross the tracks at grade for easier access to the Lot 7 Garage, a major university planning objective; the only signal required would be a standard traffic light.
The tram would proceed to the current and iconic Collegiate Gothic station, with the boarding platform moved to the other side. Then proceed on up University Place, turning left into a new terminus at Farmers Market and Nassau Street.
Princeton’s particular light rail vehicle would consume $17,000 in electric-propulsion cost per year, compared with the current Dinky at $165,000. The real "wow factor" is that electric traction would be 100 percent solar powered, the first in the world!
Service would be increased from three to five roundtrips per hour (four if Farmers Market was served by every train) and trips added early weekends and late at nights. No gaps in service.
Fares would be reduced: a single, one-way trip, now $2.75 would be $2.50. Multiple-trip, stored value farecards would deduct only $2 per ride, less with higher multiples of purchase. Pay-enter at each station through a turnstile.
The former freight depot would be converted into a waiting room with restrooms, open for the duration of the Dinky operation, offering beverages, comestibles and papers, plus other amenities.
Today the university, in much of the town’s perception, is walking around without a nose. It just cut it off to spite its face.
The Dinky, by NJ Transit’s own calculation, requires $8,200 per day in subsidy above farebox revenue – all costs totaling $30 million since the university purchased the old station complex. The new Dinky would operate without subsidy, a singular accomplishment; it would be the first new, privately operated rail-transportation entity in the United States in 70 years.
The current Dinky is among the least cost-efficient rail operations in the country, passenger or freight – effectively an immense splinter in the robust flank of the smallest of the world’s great universities. Both the community and the university seem inexplicably inured to this fact.
The new Dinky would set a new standard for rational rail transit and pace of implementation; couldn’t this become a feather in the cap of both town and gown?
Let’s take a week, just one week, to reflect on the situation, before scheduling an emergency joint session of Borough Council and Township Committee to accept the logical, defensible compromise of the new arts/transit complex as planned, but with a tram running safely through it, and set a date fixed for approving the required zoning changes.
The university listens and listens, but so far hears nothing, except maybe its own echo. Townsfolk believe that we can have a world-class arts campus/transit center, worthy of the generosity of Peter Lewis and the genius of its architect, Steven Holl, right along with a standard-setting light rail line safely sharing its pedestrian space.
Isn’t that the win-win solution? Doesn’t this concept truly convert the Dinky from a "splinter in the flank" to a "feather in the cap?" Doesn’t this concept allow the proposed arts campus to proceed apace? Let President Tilghman and municipal elected leaders know your views.
Rodney Fisk is a resident of Princeton.