PRINCETON: Rutgers students outline streetcar plan

By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
   Rutgers Urban Design Studio presented its ideas for a streetcar that would go from the Dinky station to downtown Princeton Borough to Princeton Future on Tuesday morning.
   The $300 million arts and transit plan by Princeton University that calls for moving the Dinky rail line 460 feet farther from town, has caused controversy, sparked conversations and divided people into camps — those who love the idea and those who want to keep the Dinky where it is.
   Rutgers students gave a fresh perspective to the issue with a clinical assessment to one of the suggestions — a streetcar system.
   This plan could act as a springboard to continue mass transit up University Place to Nassau Street and bring people into the heart of the downtown, said Jim Constantine, professor of the class as he gave the introduction.
   ”That would activate the old station buildings, which are proposed as a cafe,” he said. “It would require no shifting of the proposed buildings.”
   The group of master’s degree candidates at the Bloustein School who took Princeton’s transit problems on as a class project found that the community master plan does not address the Dinky and transit in general and a sense of regional connectivity is absent with no discussion of commerce and transit.
   ”I would call it a minimal document. It’s not overly prescriptive,” said student Chris Dochney. “We found it a little strange, considering that the Dinky is such a vital link to a greater transportation network; it’s not very well addressed, it was largely ignored, you could say.”
   The university transportation plans aren’t much better. “There’s a big emphasis on sustainability, but it doesn’t really address transportation,” he said.
   Streetcar development can lead to economic development, said student Pankaj Jobanputra.
   Streetcars impact property values because of permanence, connectivity and marketability.
   ”The streetcar line is permanent, it’s in the street and not going anywhere, unlike a bus line, which can move and change,” he said. “This is attractive to property owners once they see it, there is the potential for increased development. This increase in property value can lead to an increase in development in the area, that in turn can lead to full build out of properties and lots.”
   Streetcar addresses parking issues with a park once approach as people don’t have to worry about their cars, which leads to more time and money spent in town.
   Extending the Dinky to Nassau Street would provide a multi-modal transit hub when combined with existing buses, shuttles and taxis that already exist on Nassau Street, said student Joseph Amodeo.
   Cost estimates for such a proposal are in the millions, with the need for cars, a maintenance area, stops and tracks, said student Patrick Jensen.
   Tracks and electrification for the half mile of track would be $2.9 million and a $3 million car barn. The streetcars themselves cost from $2.7 million to $12 million, depending upon design. Five potential stops could cost $100,000. An additional $1.5 million would be needed for engineering design and contingencies.
   Possible funding sources would include FTA New Starts Grant, system naming rights and transportation improvement district.
   But with any plan being considered, stakeholders should not throw away any of the existing transit assets, which would be a “big mistake,” said Paul Larrousse, director of the National Transit Institute at Rutgers University, who walked from the Dinky to library and was struck how disconnected it is from the downtown.
   ”The transit assets to get to New York is removed,” he said. “If you move that assets farther from it what are you doing to the people in the community and how is that disconnect going to play out in the long run?”